CHAPTER X. Great Sutton Street Area
388. Great Sutton Street area. The broken red line indicates the extent of the former Charterhouse estate
The grid of streets south of Compton Street, in the angle
of Goswell and Clerkenwell Roads, was mostly laid out in
the second half of the seventeenth century, and its pattern
has been little altered since. The streets are narrow, in
some places with very narrow pavements or none at all:
from this, and the tall, mostly industrial buildings the area
derives its distinctive character (Ill. 388).
From 1611 until 1995 almost the whole of this district
belonged to the Charterhouse (Sutton's Hospital), a small
estate lying just outside the Charterhouse wall and let
commercially. Most of it had formerly belonged to the
Carthusian priory from which the Charterhouse evolved,
remaining with it when the priory passed into lay hands
after dissolution in 1538. Part had been used in the fourteenth century as a plague burial-ground, and the earliestknown building was a mortuary chapel therein, called
Pardon Chapel. But it was as a predominantly industrial
area that it developed in the seventeenth century, and it
remained industrial until long after the Second World
War. By that time the resident population, once teeming,
had dwindled almost to nothing, squeezed out as new business premises replaced old houses and more recent model
dwellings. With the decline of industry and commerce in
the later twentieth century, this became one of the more
run-down parts of Clerkenwell, but in recent years most
of the hitherto shabby buildings—the majority of them
unpretentious warehouses or factories ranging in date
from the later Victorian period to the middle decades of
the twentieth century—have been converted to loft apartments or otherwise renewed.
Clerkenwell Road, which closes the southern end of the
area, did not come into being until the 1870s, and this
part of it was adapted from Wilderness Row, a residential
street laid out a century earlier. The present buildings in
Clerkenwell Road are discussed with the rest of the road
in Chapter XIV, but the development of Wilderness Row
itself is dealt with here. The buildings in St John Street
between Clerkenwell Road and Compton Street, together
with the whole of the former Cannon Brewery site, are
described in Chapter VIII.
Pardon Chapel
Founded in the wake of the Black Death by the Bishop of
London, Ralph de Stratford, Pardon Chapel was built in
1348 in a field then owned by the Priory of the Order of
St John, called St John's Meadow or Whitwellbeach (Ill.
389). An area around the chapel was made a burial ground
for plague victims. In 1349 another plague burial ground
was established to the south by Sir Walter Manny, who in
1371 founded a house of Carthusian monks on the ground
between these two graveyards. (ref. 1)
The approximate site of Pardon Chapel—where masses
were held to pardon the souls of those who had died before
they could be given the last rites—lies to the rear of Nos
36–48 Clerkenwell Road and Nos 19–24 Great Sutton
Street. The chapel itself survived well into the sixteenth
century, the graveyard being used by St John's priory and,
Stow relates, for the burial of suicides and executed
criminals. (ref. 2)
By 1565 the chapel had been converted into a house, and
had come into the ownership of Edward, Lord North,
together with the surrounding fields and the former
priory. The house then stood in a large walled garden, with
an orchard of almost a hundred fruit and nut trees, a 'faire
out house' and a dovecote. (ref. 3) During the seventeenth
century it fell into decay. It was still referred to as Pardon
Chapel or Church into the eighteenth century, though by
then hardly any of the original fabric survived beyond
some stone quoins. (ref. 4) In the early eighteenth century the
Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches considered Pardon Churchyard as a possible site for a new place
of worship, and went some way towards that end, but
eventually the scheme came to nothing. (ref. 5) All traces of the
chapel were obliterated by redevelopment in the 1760s
and 70s.
Outline of development
Early development was concentrated on the ground east
of Pardon Churchyard, called Copthall after a house of
that name built there after the Dissolution. In modern
terms, Copthall was the area between Great Sutton Street
and Clerkenwell Road, extending from a little way to the
east of Berry Street up to Goswell Road. Several tenements had been built there by 1590, when a survey
recorded such annoyances and encroachments as windows
cut into the Charterhouse wall, laystalls, hog-yards and an
open sewer running near the wall. (ref. 6) More building had
taken place by 1635 when a survey of the Charterhouse
estate was made by Samuel Parsons. In Copthall, Parsons
found 'a handsome convenient house in good repair', with
a carpenter's yard and tenement adjoining, but a number
of other houses and tenements in very poor condition,
including the Swan alehouse by the Charterhouse wall.
Worst of all was a row of 'the most poor, rascally
habitations', also built near or against the wall, whose lowlife inhabitants were in the habit of throwing excrement
and other offensive rubbish into the garden, 'which in a
contagious or infectious time of sickness is very dangerous both for those of the Charterhouse as also for those
that desire to take the benefit of the air within the
Wilderness'. (ref. 7)
389. Pardon Chapel. From the Charterhouse water-supply
plan, early sixteenth century
Parsons also refers to rope-walks or 'twisting alleys'
here, and a number of gardens. In the same survey, the
house in Pardon Churchyard was found much out of
repair, its orchard destroyed and its 'handsome complete
garden' in disorder. Whitwellbeach, the much larger area
north of Great Sutton Street, was then still mostly garden
ground, with a few tenements and sheds. (ref. 8)
In an effort to improve this squalid patch outside its
wall, the Charterhouse refused to renew the Copthall
lease, which dated back to Queen Elizabeth's time, and
determined to let the ground to some 'fit and able man'
who would replace the old tenements. John Clarke, the
Charterhouse Receiver, seemed to be such a man, and was
granted leases of Whitwellbeach in 1639 and Copthall in
1641, undertaking to build three or four 'convenient'
houses within seven years, agreeing also not to build
within thirty feet of the wall or to make any windows
looking towards the Charterhouse. (ref. 9) But he was hampered
by the twenty-one year terms, the longest that the governors could grant under their Letters Patent, and was
unable to find builders prepared to take building leases.
Though Clarke left the Charterhouse pursued by a £2,000
claim for unpaid estate revenues, for which debt he was
imprisoned, his leases of Whitwellbeach and Copthall
eventually passed to his son, who seems to have overseen
some development. An estate survey of 1655 records the
existence of brick houses fronting Goswell Road, and
weatherboarded shops on St John Street. The brick
houses, called Goswell Row, consisted of two terraces built
back-to-back, so that those fronting the road had no yards;
the back row had small gardens. Each house comprised a
cellar, with a lower room, an upper room and a garret. (ref. 10)
There were still rope-walks at this time and a number
of other commercial and industrial premises, including a
vinegar works, a wheelwright's and a timber yard, and a
slaughterhouse. All these were on the southern part of the
estate, most of Whitwellbeach remaining gardens. Some
years later a 'noysome and dangerous' brew-house was
built against the Charterhouse wall, its removal being
ordered by the governors in 1666. (ref. 11)
Also in the late 1660s, a number of tenants, including
Robert Clarke, distiller, Mary Chaire, timber merchant,
Thomas Allen, gardener, and Stephen Hope, butcher,
petitioned for new leases, having carried out improvements and rebuilding. By 1687, when the Charterhouse
estate was thoroughly mapped by William Mar, almost the
whole had been laid out in streets of small terracehouses—242 houses in all, with yards, gardens and
sheds. (ref. 12)
The street pattern laid down was more or less a rectilinear grid and though clearly suggested in part by existing field boundaries (ref. 13) must have been planned with some
thought and co-operation between the lessees. Great
Sutton Street, following roughly the southern boundary
of Whitwellbeach, was already long in existence, as was a
short street running south from Great Sutton Street to the
Wilderness gate of the Charterhouse. This latter street
was replaced by Cross Street a little to the west in the
1770s, when Wilderness Row was created, so as to make a
straight thoroughfare (the present Berry Street) from
Allen Street to Wilderness Row. A northern continuation
of Berry Street, a dead-end doubtless intended to link up
in time with a street on the Northampton estate, survived
until the mid-nineteenth century, while another piece of
the grid, a continuation of Schoolhouse Yard (now the
north—south arm of Northburgh Street) was later obliterated by the enlargement of Cannon Brewery in St John
Street.
The two east—west streets crossing Whitwellbeach were
named Little Swan Alley and Allen Street, after the gardener lessee Thomas Allen. Little Swan Alley later
became Little Sutton Street. It was renamed Northburgh
Street in 1937, after the Bishop of London instrumental
in the founding of Sir Walter Manny's priory. At the same
time Allen Street was renamed Dallington Street, after a
seventeenth-century Master of the Charterhouse, and
Clark or Clarke Street (probably named after the distiller
Robert Clarke), became Pardon Street. Present-day Berry
Street was formerly three streets: Gardens or Gardener's
Street, later called Berry Street; Hooper Street, named
after a seventeenth-century tenant of the Charterhouse,
and Cross Street. They were united as Berry Street in 1889. (ref. 14)
390. Charterhouse estate, 1739. Houses are shown pink, industrial buildings (or 'sheds') green
During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the remaining gardens were built over with more
workshops or courts of dwellings. Rope-walks came to take
up most of the ground abutting the Charterhouse wall,
including the greater part of what had been Pardon
Churchyard (Ill. 390). Being close to St John Street and
so in easy reach of Smithfield, the area attracted butchers,
bacon-curers, slaughtermen and associated tradesmen,
including, from the 1730s, the distiller Israel Wilkes the
Younger, of St John's Square, who had a yard here behind
Goswell Road, with slaughterhouses, a salting-house and
lines of bacon-smoking stoves (Ill. 391). (ref. 15) In 1731 Philip
Humphreys, the Charterhouse gardener—the kitchen
garden lay west of the Wilderness—complained of the
adverse effect on his crops of smoke 'from so many neighbouring Brewhouses, Distillers and Pipe-makers lately set
up' in the vicinity. (ref. 16)
Periodic low-quality rebuilding on short leases continued until 1760, when the Charterhouse obtained an Act of
Parliament enabling it to grant 99-year leases. In that year
an agreement was made with a long-standing tenant, John
Pullin, to rebuild the entire estate. (ref. 17) Pullin, a wheelwright,
promised to spend £5,000 within seven years on rebuilding, but in fact lacked the necessary resources. Twelve
years on, much cleared ground still lay 'bare & uncovered',
and the houses that he had built were insubstantial. (ref. 18)
However, Pullin's position improved somewhat in the
late 1770s. He inherited money from his brother Samuel,
an Islington landowner and dairy farmer, and was able to
mortgage his lease for £3,000 to a widow in Hatton
Garden, Elizabeth Reynolds. (ref. 19) Progress was to remain
slow, however, most of the redevelopment being carried
out by Pullin and his sub-lessees up to the late 1790s, and
in the event they probably rebuilt less than originally
intended. (ref. 20)
Of the three hundred or more houses erected in Pullin's
time, none survives, as they were steadily replaced from
the mid-nineteenth century. Most were of two or three
storeys, with narrow frontages between 14ft and 17ft, and
had conventional two-room plans. In some inner parts of
the estate there were small houses of one room to a floor,
and tucked away between the Cannon Brewery and a
tannery on the west side of Berry Street, in a narrow
passage called Slade's Place, were some very small houses
of only 12ft by 13ft. On the main roads the houses tended
to be significantly bigger and better-built, particularly in
Wilderness Row (see below, and Ills 396, 397). (ref. 21) Minor
alterations were made to the street pattern in the way of
straightening or widening. Wilderness Row, running
alongside the Charterhouse wall, was the only entirely new
street. (ref. 22)
Generally, the estate attracted tradesmen and some
professionals to houses on the main roads, with industrial
activity carried on behind, especially in and around Allen
and Great Sutton Streets. (ref. 23) One of the largest of several
new factories was a drug mill, built in the 1780s by John
Hurwood, millstones from which are preserved outside
the present building on the site, Nos 36–43 Great Sutton
Street. (ref. 24)
391. Part of Goswell Street (now Road) and the eastern end of
Great and Little Swan Alleys (now Great Sutton Street and
Northburgh Street respectively), 1739. Right of centre is
Wilkes & Co.'s bacon yard with bacon curing stoves
Already by the 1820s some houses were giving way to
further industrial developments, including slaughterhouses, a dye-house, breweries, and vinegar, vitriol and gas
works. Complaints were made to the Charterhouse in 1832
about the nuisance of these works and their steam engines,
and to the Vestry in the 1850s about the 'boiling of putrid
meat and other offal' and blood running into the drains. (ref. 25)
Concerned by this malodorous neighbour, the
Charterhouse refused Pullin's heirs a new lease in 1850,
and when the old lease expired took the estate into direct
management, with advice from the architect Philip
Hardwick. New sewers were constructed, roads widened,
and some of the poorest housing was pulled down. The
rental value was raised tenfold. But sub-standard housing
and often noxious industries continued. (ref. 26) 'Dull, badlybuilt, badly-ventilated, overcrowded' was how John
Hollingshead characterized the district in 1861. (ref. 27)
392. Designs for St Paul's Church and School, Allen Street,
by T. Roger Smith, 1860. Only the school, now demolished,
was built
The mid-century saw a scheme to build a church here
for the new ecclesiastical district of St Paul's, Clerkenwell,
of which these streets formed a large part. This followed
the opening of a makeshift school and church in Compton
Passage. In 1859 the vicar of Clerkenwell, the Rev. Robert
Maguire, secured from the Charterhouse the offer of
ground in Allen Street for permanent buildings, and
designs by W. P. Griffith for a conventional Decoratedstyle church with a tower and adjoining school were
published. These were not executed, however, being
superseded by plans drawn up by T. Roger Smith (Ill.
392). In July 1861 the Marchioness of Northampton laid
the foundation stone of the school before a 'gay and animated crowd'. (ref. 28) The completed building, which incorporated an open-arcaded basement for use as a covered
playground, was judged by the Building News to have 'no
very positive artistic originality, and no glaring defect'. (ref. 29)
393. Kenroy House, No. 10 Dallington Street, in 1999.
Speculative warehousing of 1866–7
In the end St Paul's Church was built elsewhere, in
Peartree Street, on the east side of Goswell Road (in
Finsbury), and to designs by Ewan Christian. By this
time—1874—the school had been taken over by the
School Board for London and renamed Allen Street
School. It became redundant in 1881 when Compton
Street School (page 324) was built almost directly
behind, and by the end of the decade the site had been
redeveloped with artisans' dwellings (see below). (ref. 30) Today
the only relic here of the district of St Paul's is No. 8
Dallington Street (now Dallington School), a plain,
stock-brick building, erected in 1905–7 as St Paul's
Church Institute. (ref. 31)
394. Great Sutton Street area, mid-1870s
The site which had been intended for the church was
taken for three commercial buildings, the speculation of
Thomas Rowland Hill and Joseph Hill. Of these all that
remains is the warehouse façade, long rendered over,
and altered, of No. 10 Dallington Street, built in 1866–7,
now incorporated into the front of a development of
apartments (Ill. 393). (ref. 32) The first tenants of this building
were a firm called Neidlinger, manufacturers of sewing
machines; by 1872 it had become a printing works for
James Thomas Pickburn, publisher of Clerkenwell News. (ref. 33)
Its later name, Kenroy House, came from Kenroy Ltd,
electrical goods merchants, here from 1970.
Other new buildings of the 1860s and 70s included a
brass foundry of 1860 (now demolished) on the north side
of Allen Street, designed for Isaac Frost by W. P. Griffith,
one of several foundries in the area at this time (Ill. 394). (ref. 34)
Erwood & Co.'s new paper-staining works at No. 91
Goswell Road, of 1873–4, was designed for John Edward
Erwood by the architects J. Taverner Perry & J. Treadway
Hanson, of the Adelphi (Ill. 395). (ref. 35) Behind a handsome
Gothic façade on the narrow street frontage, of red brick
and terracotta, the works comprised a large L-shaped
range of workshops, warehousing and offices. The Gothic
front was destroyed for the widening of Goswell Road in
the early 1900s (see below); parts of the back premises may
have survived, in what became Tanqueray Gordon & Co.'s
wine and spirit stores. (ref. 36)
Extensive redevelopment of the Charterhouse estate
followed remarks in 1884–5 by the Royal Commission on
the Housing of the Working Classes as to the badness of
the houses there. Although spared the particular opprobrium directed at the adjoining Northampton estate,
the Charterhouse was criticized for allowing comparable
problems—the incidence of house-farmers, severe overcrowding and badly constructed, poorly ventilated
housing—to continue on its property. One house in Allen
Street was found to be occupied by thirty-eight people,
eleven of them in one small room; similar conditions were
found in the cottages of Slade's Place. Many of these
properties were occupied by costermongers with 'very
precarious' earnings (whom the Commission felt would do
better 'if they kept from drink'). (ref. 37)
395. Erwood & Co.'s paper-staining works, Goswell Road.
Perry & Hanson, architects, 1873–4. Demolished
Such pressure for improvement coincided with the
falling-in of a large number of 21-year leases held by one
landlord for property on Great and Little Sutton Streets.
In addition, the agricultural depression, which severely
reduced income from its extensive country estates, focused
the Charterhouse's attention on to this urban property. (ref. 38)
As a result, many of the old houses and sheds were
replaced by factories, warehouses and model dwellings,
mostly built on 80-year building leases, granted from 1886
onwards (see below).
Wilderness Row
Wilderness Row was named after the large garden laid out
with trees and walks which belonged to the Charterhouse
and over which a number of the houses in the row looked
(the site of the present-day St Bartholomew's Hospital
Medical School). It was not strictly speaking a through
road, for at the west end it tapered off into a footpath,
Pardon Passage, the medieval alley which had given access
to Pardon Churchyard.
A proposal to build a new street from St John Street to
Goswell Road 'near the hospital wilderness' was made to
the Charterhouse by 'some workmen' in 1726. The governors reacted favourably, but the scheme was nonetheless
soon dropped. (ref. 39) But with the redevelopment of the estate
by John Pullin from 1760 the idea returned. The name
Wilderness Row first appears in ratebooks for 1775, along
with nine new houses there. Two more had been built by
1778; another nine were added in 1780–5, and more were
still being built in the late 1790s. (ref. 40) Several builders were
involved, taking leases from Pullin. Some of the bigger
takers were: Thomas Lupton, bricklayer of St Martin in
the Fields; John Casbolt of Cloth Fair; Andrew Nicholl,
stonemason of Aldersgate Street; and George Head, a
Clerkenwell bricklayer. (ref. 41)
396. Nos 12–30 Clerkenwell Road, c. 1905, formerly part of
Wilderness Row. William Thackeray lodged at the house
second from left (No. 28) in 1822–4
The houses of Wilderness Row were the best on the
estate, having relatively broad frontages, and generally
comprising three floors with mansard attics (Ill. 396).
Ostensibly they had an attractive outlook over the
Charterhouse, but lessees complained of the 'decayed
state' of the Charterhouse wall, which 'affords a very bad
object … & greatly impedes the letting [of the houses] &
the further covering of the said ground'. (ref. 42) A number of
clergymen resided here, including the vicar of St James's,
Clerkenwell, the Rev. Henry Foster. In 1804–5 the antiquary and topographer John Britton lived at No. 21 (on
the site of the present No. 48 Clerkenwell Road), and with
him his pupil, the watercolourist Samuel Prout. Two of
the clown Grimaldi's family lived at No. 25, Samuel
c. 1800–4, and James in 1805; their successor at the house
was the engraver Joseph Beckwith, an early member of the
London Corresponding Society, here from about 1807 to
1830. William Elliott, a scientific-instrument maker, occupied No. 26 from 1808 to 1816. (ref. 43) During the 1820s two
houses were used by Charterhouse School to accommodate boys, among them Thackeray in 1822–4, in what was
later No. 28 Clerkenwell Road. (ref. 44)
In 1785 Welsh Calvinistic Methodists opened, or more
likely re-opened, a chapel in a yard at the west end of
Wilderness Row—the site is at the rear of the present Nos
64–68 Clerkenwell Road. This was probably the place
where John Wesley had preached in 1769, noting in his
journal that it had been built 'on the very spot of ground
whereon … Pardon Church stood'. (ref. 45) Enlarged in 1806,
this Wilderness Row Chapel was acquired in 1823 by
Wesleyan Methodists, who also had a vestry and schoolroom adjoining. They moved to St John's Square in 1849,
after which the building was re-opened by Baptists as Zion
Chapel. It closed in 1878 but was still in existence in 1920
when it was in use as a builder's store and workshop. Its
remains were later incorporated into a garage, since
demolished. (ref. 46)
When Wilderness Row became part of Clerkenwell
Road in 1879 the houses were unaffected. Many had by
then been adapted and extended into workshops and
showrooms for the jewellery and watch-making trades,
which had begun to be concentrated here from about
1840. (ref. 47) By about 1890 this was one of the main centres for
the clock and watch industry in Clerkenwell, and was to
be one of the few streets where makers and dealers
remained in force once cheap imports had brought decline
in the early 1900s. Several branches of the trade were represented here as late as the 1980s. (ref. 48)
Goswell Road Improvement
The west side of Goswell Road north of Great Sutton
Street as far as Upper Ashby Street was set back by the
London County Council in 1904–5. Local residents and
their representatives in the vestries had long been clamouring for such widening, as the roadway here was frequently congested. Not only was this a major route for
buses and general commercial traffic, but there were two
businesses here with large fleets of vehicles: the hauliers
Carter Paterson, and the distillers Tanqueray Gordon.
Both had extensive premises on each side of the road
(though their main buildings were on the east side, which
was unaffected by the scheme). (ref. 49)
Clerkenwell Vestry pressed the LCC to take on the
widening as a 'metropolitan' street improvement, whereby
the Council incurred all the costs, but the LCC refused to
act until 1899 when both Clerkenwell and St Luke's
Vestries agreed to contribute £20,000 between them—
something under a tenth of the estimated cost. (ref. 50) Under
the terms of the LCC (Improvements) Act of 1900 authorising the work, the Charterhouse and the Marquess of
Northampton bought back the surplus land, and so,
unusually, it was not the metropolitan authority that
oversaw the redevelopment of the street frontage after the
widening, but the original landowners. (ref. 51) An exception to
this was was the house and surgery of Dr Evan Jones,
which the LCC was obliged to rebuild in 1904–5, following legal action. The new building, two doors away, took
the old number (Ills 397, 398). Its design, by the LCC
Architect's Department, had to be approved by E. B.
I'Anson, surveyor to the Charterhouse, to which the freehold reverted on completion of the building. (ref. 52)
397. Nos 73–89 Goswell Road in 1903, shortly before
demolition for road-widening. Dr Evan Jones's surgery (No.
89) at far right
398. Goswell Road in 1951, showing buildings erected after
road-widening in 1904–5. Left to right: Nos 81, 83, 89, 91 and
part of 93–99. Nos 81 and 91 demolished
The surgery apart, the buildings erected here on the
Northampton and Charterhouse estates shortly after the
road-widening were mostly warehouses or factories of
the same utilitarian character as in the streets behind. At
the northern end, on Northampton land, Nos 93–99,
since rendered and converted to offices and flats, were
built in 1907–8 as showrooms, stabling and stores for
George Redhouse & Son, carriage builders. The adjoining
block at Nos 101–105, at the corner with Compton Street,
was added for Redhouse as warehousing in 1909–10. (ref. 53)
Redhouse's architect was William Leonard Dowton, of
City Bank Chambers, Bedford Row. (ref. 54)
On the Charterhouse estate, Nos 55–63 and 67–71 were
designed by Edward Haslehurst for the builder Frank
Linzell of East Finchley, and erected as a speculation in
1907–8. (ref. 55) A row of segmental pediments along the roofline
adds rhythm to the otherwise commonplace red-brick and
concrete elevations. The only other survivor from the
period is No. 83 (adjoining No. 89: there is no 85 or 87),
built in 1907 by W. Irwin of Essex Road for the City Sites
Development Co. as warehousing and public diningrooms (Ill. 398). (ref. 56)
The frontage between Great Sutton Street and
Northburgh Street remained empty for many years,
largely because of the glut of new warehousing already
erected on the widened road. (ref. 57) After a number of failed
attempts to find a taker, the Charterhouse finally agreed a
lease with A. Class & Son, who in 1927–8, with Herbert
Wright as architect, erected a factory for Charles Straus,
a leather-bag manufacturer: Straus House, now Nos
47–53. (ref. 58) This was to be the first of many such buildings
developed on the Charterhouse estate in the ensuing years
by this builder and architect (see below).
Industrial dwellings of the 1880s and 90s
Four separate groups of model or 'industrial' dwellings
were erected on the Charterhouse estate in the late nineteenth century, all but one of them after 1886, once the
governors had absorbed the findings of the Royal
Commission on working-class housing. None survives.
All were privately built and run, and though occupied
generally by 'respectable' tenants seem to have lacked the
greater privacy and better facilities that by then were
becoming usual in blocks built by the philanthropic
dwellings companies.
The first was Charterhouse (later Charter) Buildings, a
small block on the west side of Hooper Street (now part
of Berry Street), erected in 1880–1, in advance of the
Royal Commission. The developer was William Philip
Turner, a Peckham builder, for whom a lease had been
negotiated by John Clark Williams, owner of the adjoining drug mills. Having constructed the dwellings himself,
Turner almost immediately sold his interest on to John
Grover, the Islington builder, who retained and presumably ran the block, which comprised 16 three-roomed
apartments, each of the four floors having a shared washhouse and WCs. (ref. 59) At the time of Charles Booth's social
survey the general decency of the residents was suggested
by flowers and the absence of broken windows. (ref. 60)
In 1889 the short-lived Allen Street School, which had
been re-purchased by the Charterhouse from the London
School Board, was taken by William James Feary, a
Goswell Road builder, as a site for artisans' dwellings. (ref. 61)
Known at first as St Paul's Buildings and later as
Cavendish Buildings, these opened in 1890, with 72 twoand three-roomed flats arranged in four linked six-storey
blocks, those at the north and south ends apparently
retaining some of the school fabric. (ref. 62) Access was via a
doorway on Dallington Street into a small courtyard,
where a large, cast-iron staircase with decorative
balustrading led to long, gallery-like balconies of similar
design (Ill. 399).
399. Cavendish Buildings, Dallington Street. External
staircase, 1956. Demolished
At about the same time two other smallish five-storey
blocks of dwellings were built on the north side of Little
Sutton Street near Goswell Road. They were called Little
Sutton Dwellings, and later became Nos 2–4 Northburgh
Street. Work began in 1887 under a Mr Wood (with whom
the Charterhouse had agreed a lease), but soon drew to a
standstill. E. Cousins & Co., the local builders who took
over the job, also failed to complete it. (ref. 63) The dwellings
were finished in 1892 by a Wandsworth Road builder,
E. J. Thorp, for a new owner, Frederick George Coward,
an architect of Great James Street, Bloomsbury. (ref. 64) Despite
Coward's involvement, the buildings seem to have been
completed to designs by Wood's original architect, a 'Mr
Evans'—possibly W. C. Evans (later Evans-Vaughan), who
had some local connection and later designed Finsbury
Town Hall. (ref. 65) Little Sutton Buildings provided 48 mostly
two-room tenements, with common lavatories on each
floor, and a wash-house on each flat roof (Ill. 400). From
the outset the Charterhouse had worried that Evans's
plans seemed to be for dwellings of 'a very moderate character'; Booth's investigator thought them 'rather rough'
and the residents poor, but found no thieves or
prostitutes. (ref. 66)
400. Little Sutton Buildings, Little Sutton (now Dallington)
Street, typical floor-plan showing two-room tenements. W. C.
Evans, architect, 1887–92. Demolished
A much larger development was Sutton Buildings, of
1888–9, which replaced some houses between what are
now Berry, Northburgh and Dallington Streets. This was
another venture by W. J. Feary, who built them on a long
lease from the Charterhouse, obtaining a mortgage from
the Monarch Building Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Grouped around a courtyard, they contained more than a
hundred flats. As part of the scheme, Feary also adapted
the adjoining houses at Nos 5–9 Little Sutton Street. (ref. 67)
Sutton Buildings were pulled down in 1894 to make way
for a new fermenting house at the Cannon Brewery (now
No. 16 Brewhouse Yard, page 234). (ref. 68)
Little Sutton Buildings were roundly condemned in
a 1920s report on the Clerkenwell property of the
Charterhouse and St Bartholomew's Hospital, for their
'general neglect, filth and dirt', the tenants all appearing
'apathetic and dulled with the depression of their surroundings'. (ref. 69) They survived until after the Second World
War. Cavendish Buildings were demolished in 1959,
Charter Buildings about 1968. (ref. 70)
Commercial redevelopment from the 1880s
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century many of
the remaining small house-plots disappeared with the
building of more factories and warehouses. Nearly all of
these were speculative ventures, built on 80-year leases
granted by the Charterhouse from 1886 onwards. All were
substantially built with plain exteriors, mainly of pale
Suffolk, York or gault brick, or grey stocks, sparingly
ornamented with salt-glazed brick or stone dressings;
their four or five floors of showrooms or workshops well
lit by large plate-glass windows. Inside, timber floors were
supported on strutted timber joists, iron or steel beams
and cast-iron columns. (ref. 71)
Among the developers the most prolific was Mark
Bromet, rag and general merchant and tenant of the
Charterhouse, often in partnership with his brother,
Albert. A large quantity of their characteristic pale-brick
faced warehousing survives, in and around Northburgh,
Berry and Great Sutton Streets (Ill. 401).
A few slightly more architecturally adventurous buildings were individually commissioned by their occupiers,
such as Nos 8 and 10 Northburgh Street (1892 and
1893–4), built for manufacturers respectively of folding
boxes and paper bags (Ill. 402).
In the new buildings the range of activities was in some
contrast to the noxious trades previously in evidence.
Among early occupants were clothing manufacturers:
milliners, mantle-makers and collar-makers, leather manufacturers, glove-makers and furriers. The printing trade
was also well represented, along with book-binding,
engraving and stationery manufacture. Continuing a
long-standing tradition were several butchers and tripedressers. Many of these trades remained until the late
twentieth century. (ref. 72)
In the early twentieth century the widening of Goswell
Road (see above) led to yet more new building of a similar
sort, and the 1930s saw extensive redevelopment with
warehouses, particularly along Great Sutton Street, by the
builder-developers A. Class & Son. This firm had started
in the 1920s at No. 80 Chapel Street (now Market) in
Pentonville, dealing in glass and china, but moved into
building and developing, with a yard at Nos 28–29 Great
Sutton Street. (ref. 73)
Class & Son's involvement in this area began at a time
when the Charterhouse was looking to dispose of the
remaining old houses to developers. (ref. 74) Their early work on
the estate included Nos 50–54 Clerkenwell Road (1932–4),
Nos 21–29 Great Sutton Street (1933–6) and Nos 140–142
St John Street (1937). Thereafter the Charterhouse came
to rely on the firm, which dominated the rebuilding of the
estate well into the 1950s. They worked generally in
collaboration with the Pentonville architect Herbert A.
Wright (later the firm of Wright & Tidmarsh), and also
worked in other parts of Clerkenwell including Chapel
Market and Rosebery Avenue. Stylistically, their buildings
were severely plain but instantly recognizable, with broad
red brick façades, long rows of squarish windows, and
continuous concrete or stone lintels, the relentless horizontality only occasionally interrupted by giant brick
pilasters (Ill. 403).
During the Second World War about a dozen properties were damaged beyond repair and subsequently demolished. Several factories and warehouses were built on these
bomb-sites in the late 1950s and early 60s, and commercial development continued into the mid-1970s, when a
large speculative warehouse was built at Nos 36–43 Great
Sutton Street.
Unlike other parts of Clerkenwell, the Great Sutton
Street area was still distinctly run-down when in 1995 the
Charterhouse sold its property here, for £7.5 million, to
Bee Bee Developments, the company established by the
Irish entrepreneurs Alfred Buller and Craig Best. At the
time the annual gross rental income was over £900,000, of
which £565,000 came from leases due to expire in the following three years. But within those three years property
values here rose by some 50 per cent, partly driven by the
developers' first warehouse conversions, and the area has
since become a thriving residential and business quarter,
characterized by creative and media companies, art galleries and designer-furniture showrooms. (ref. 75)
401. Warehouse developments of the 1890s by Mark and
Albert Bromet and others at the corner of Berry Street (Nos
12–14, left) and Great Sutton Street (Nos 44–49)
402. No. 10 Northburgh Street in 2007; William Cubitt & Co.,
builders, 1893–4
403. Great Sutton Street, looking east towards the junction with Berry Street. Warehousing of the 1930s, mostly by Wright &
Tidmarsh, architects, for A. Class & Sons; Nos 32–35 to left, Nos 21–29 to right
Individual buildings
Berry Street
No. 4, and No. 15 Great Sutton Street (Berry House).
This was built in 1937 for the existing tenants at No. 4 Berry
Street, Lees & Sanders Ltd, precious metal refiners, bullion
dealers, and sweep smelters. The architect was Frederick J.
Gibbins of Goswell Road (Ill. 404). (ref. 76) The building is steelframed, and faced in bands of Fletton and gault brick, with
concrete lintels. It originally comprised a basement refinery,
with offices, workshops, showrooms and stores above. (ref. 77)
In 1996–7 the building was converted to offices and
apartments by the architects Campbell & Campbell, who
lengthened most of the window openings, and added the
upper-floor metal balconies and roof extension. (ref. 78) A large
metal clock on the Berry Street front is a relic of Lawson,
Ward & Gammage, wholesale jewellers, who were here for
some years from the 1950s. (ref. 79)
Nos 12–14. Warehouses, faced in gault bricks, completed
1892 (Ill. 401). William Scrivenor, builder, of Regent's
Park, for Mark and Albert Bromet. (ref. 80)
Dallington Street
Nos 1 and 2. No. 1 offices; curved, blue-painted front
with glass-block panels (Ill. 405). No. 2 (Enclave Court)
flats, faced in stock brick. 1997–2001, James Lambert
Architects for Dallington Lofts Ltd. (ref. 81)
404. Berry House, No. 4 Berry Street and No. 15 Great
Sutton Street in 2007; Frederick J. Gibbins, architect, 1937
405. Nos 1–2 Dallington Street in 2007
No. 9. Red-brick warehouses of 1909, built for Reginald
Filmer, folding-box manufacturer. (ref. 82)
No. 9A. Small factory-warehouse of 1960, designed for
Lumos & Co., tableware manufacturers, by Johnston
Evans & Co., surveyors; recently remodelled as flats (Ill.
406). (ref. 83)
406. No. 9a Dallington Street in 2007
No. 10. Apartment building of 2003–5 by GML
Architects for the developers CYZ Ltd, incorporating the
retained façade of a warehouse of 1866–7, Kenroy
House. (ref. 84)
Nos 28–31. This was built in the early 1900s as stables and
stores on either side of a yard. For many years the stables
to the west, originally single-storey, were used by the
Cannon Brewery Co., and the two-storey stores by a firm
of drug and chemical manufacturers. The whole block was
substantially rebuilt about 1958 under the surveyors
Chamberlain & Willows, for E. Mason & Sons, drawingoffice equipment suppliers. In 1996–8 it was enlarged and
converted into maisonettes and mews flats as 'Dallington
Square', to designs by Campbell & Campbell, architects. (ref. 85)
Nos 33–41 (and 2–6 Northburgh Street). Extensive warehouse speculation of 1961–2 on site of bombed buildings,
by Hackney Estates. Architects: Daniel Watney, Eiloart,
Inman & Nunn. H-shaped blocks with central staircases
to both street fronts, faced mostly in dark-grey and lightbrown brick. (ref. 86)
Great Sutton Street
Nos 5–8. Workshops and warehousing of 1962, built for
East City Investments Ltd; part of same development as
Nos 12–16 Clerkenwell Road (1959), behind. Both
designed by Richard Seifert & Partners: brick and glass
facing, on a reinforced-concrete frame. (ref. 87)
407. Nos 17–18 and 19–20 Great Sutton Street in 1935, in
occupation of Robert Pringle & Sons
Nos 9–10, 13–14. Speculative warehousing of the 1950s,
replacing bombed buildings (along with Nos 18–30
Clerkenwell Road) by A. Class & Son; Wright &
Tidmarsh, architects. (ref. 88)
Nos 11–12. Rebuilding of bombed premises, c. 1951, for
J. L. Bruce Ltd, manufacturing opticians, the existing
lessees. (ref. 89)
No. 16, Sutton Arms. Rebuilding of 1897, with red-brick
upper floors and stucco surrounds to segmental-headed
windows. (ref. 90)
Nos 17–18. Speculative warehouse built by Perry
Brothers for Mark Bromet, 1897–8. (ref. 91)
Nos 19–20. Part of the watchmakers Robert Pringle &
Sons' Wilderness Works (see Nos 36–42 Clerkenwell
Road, page 400 and Ill. 576). No. 20 was built for Pringles
in 1897–8 and No. 19 was rebuilt as an extension to it in
1907–8. During the First World War Pringles expanded
further, taking over Nos 17–18 adjoining (Ill. 407). (ref. 92)
Nos 21–29 (Ill. 403). Nos 23–29 were built as a speculation by A. Class & Son in 1938, to designs by Herbert
Wright, architect. Nos 21–22 were added c. 1953, in
matching style, following bomb damage to the existing
building on the site. (ref. 93)
408. Nos 30b–d Great Sutton Street, houses and shops of
1887–9, in 2007
Nos 29½ and 30A. These two sites, largely cleared c. 1994,
are undergoing redevelopment with offices and flats at the
time of writing (2007). The new building incorporates
the retained façade of No. 30a, built as a dairy in 1886 to
the design of George Waymouth, architect. No. 29½ was
formerly a car park. The architects for the new scheme,
for Bee Bee Developments, are Hawkins/Brown and the
work is being carried out by a design-and-build company,
Gilmac Building Services. (ref. 94)
Nos 30B–D. This row of red-brick houses and shops was
built in 1887–9 for Richard Bowman, probably a Goswell
Road jeweller of that name (Ill. 408). (ref. 95)
Nos 30–35 (and No. 20 Northburgh Street). Factory, built
as a speculation by A. Class & Son, 1935; Herbert Wright,
architect (Ill. 403). (ref. 96)
Nos 36–43. Large, square and oddly official-looking,
this is one of the handful of commercial buildings in
Clerkenwell dating from the economically troubled decade
of the 1970s; it is also among the more architecturally
refined of post-war commercial buildings locally (Ill. 409).
Originally to have been a warehouse and showrooms, it
was designed in 1973–4 by the architect Ronald Trebilcock
for Withdean Securities, a development company belonging to Nathan and Philip Class, of the family of builderdevelopers closely associated with the Charterhouse estate
from the late 1920s.
The development seems to have been sold well before
completion to two insurance companies. A lease was agreed
in 1977 with the news agency Reuters, which wanted the
building for its London Technical Centre. A number of
alterations were made, with Trebilcock as architect, including the insertion of a mezzanine between the ground and
first floors, the building being completed in 1978. The main
contractors were Marples Ridgway Building Ltd. (ref. 97)
The facing of grey-brown brick, uninterrupted by
ornamentation or dressings, makes a seamless transition
from areas of curtain-walling to the cladding of elements
of the reinforced-concrete frame, which are thrown into
prominence by the recessing of the windows. The top two
floors are contained in a glazed mansard, the framework
here of steel, clad in aluminium.
Displayed in front of the building, on the corner with
Northburgh Street, are six mill-stones, discovered during
excavation for the new building. These belonged to the
drug mills erected here around 1786 by John Hurwood. (ref. 98)
Nos 44–47. Warehouses, faced in gault bricks, completed
1892 (Ill. 401). William Scrivenor, builder, for Mark and
Albert Bromet. (ref. 99)
Nos 48–49. Warehouse of 1893–4, faced in gault brick (Ill.
401). Built for John Oliver, jewellery-case maker, who was
among the early occupants. The builder was A. J. Jones of
Ealing. (ref. 100)
409. Nos 36–43 Great Sutton Street, in 1999; Richard
Trebilcock, architect, 1974–7
Nos 50–56 (and Nos 9–11 Northburgh Street). Extensive
speculative development of 1960–2, designed by G. H.
Inman, H. A. G. Darlow and M. Platt of Daniel Watney,
Eiloart, Inman & Nunn. (ref. 101) Concrete frame, with green
aggregate panels.
Northburgh Street
No. 8. Superior warehouse building with Classically
treated façade in pale brick with minimal moulded
ornamentation. Built 1892 by Thomas Crossley of
Bromley for Reginald Filmer, folding-box manufacturer,
whose firm remained here until the Second World War.
The building was refurbished for commercial use in the
early 1990s, but having remained empty was converted to
flats (for Sky Properties) five years later. (ref. 102)
No. 10 (with Nos 8 Berry Street and 1 Pardon Street).
Factory, built 1893–4 by William Cubitt & Co. for
Edward Saunders, paper-bag manufacturer (Ill. 402).
Brick-built, with iron girders and columns. Faced externally in red brick, with sparing decoration in the form of
ground-floor rustication and rubbed-brick voussoirs to
the windows. Pedimented entrance on Northburgh
Street.
Saunders' firm remained here until 1937, when it
moved to Park Royal. The building has since been occupied by the Post Office (for stores), button manufacturers
and printers. (ref. 103)
Nos 13–17. Built as warehousing or factory space in
1899–1900 by Perry Brothers for the developers Mark and
Albert Bromet. Faced in gault brick. No. 15 was from the
first intended as a new printing works for Gilbert &
Rivington of St John's Square. (ref. 104)