Old Bethnal Green Road Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area (Winkley Estate & Surrounding Area) 1. Character Appraisal 2. Management Guidelines London Borough of Tower Hamlets Adopted by Cabinet: 4th November 2009 Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 1 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Introduction Conservation Areas are parts of our local environment which have special architectural or historic qualities. They are created by the Council, in consultation with the local community, to preserve and enhance the specific character of these areas for everybody. This guide has been prepared for the following purposes: To comply with the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. Section 69(1) states that a conservation area is “an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance” To provide a detailed appraisal of the area’s architectural and historic character. To assist those engaged in the area to understand the quality of the built environment and how they can protect, contribute and enhance it. To provide an overview of planning policy and propose management guidelines on how this character should be preserved and enhanced in the context of appropriate ongoing change. Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 2 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 3 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road 1. Character Appraisal Overview The Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area was designated in October 2008. It is focused around the roads of the Winkley Estate in the heart of old Bethnal Green. It is bounded on its western side by Temple Street, to the north by Claredale Street to include Keeling House, and to the east by Mansford Street. It projects beyond Old Bethnal Green Road to the south to include the Chalice Foundation, which occupies a non-conformist church of 1880 and Lawdale Primary School, an excellent London Board School opened in 1883. Most of the Conservation Area has a very cohesive character and little scope exists for change. The buildings contained within the area being considered form an important group worthy of protection and enhancement. History The Winkley Estate, which forms the major part of the Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area, is a small area of distinctive late Victorian development which now stands surrounded by post war local authority housing development. By the latter half of the 19 th century the area was densely populated, the population generally poor and early 19 th century housing overcrowded and dilapidated. It was at this time that the area started to be redeveloped. The southern part of Mansford Street was laid out in 1877 as a through road in a cleared area between Old Bethnal Green Road and Bethnal Green Road with building land on either side. The non-conformist Church and the board school were built on either side of the new road. Four blocks of old terraced houses between Temple Street and Teesdale Street were demolished by Henry and Charles Winkley for their redevelopment. The Winkley Estate was built between 1898 and 1904 and combined three types of residential accommodation with three small factories, numerous cabinet makers’ workshops and shops on Old Bethnal Green Road. Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 4 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Most of the workshops were occupied by cabinet makers, upholsterers and French polishers etc, making the estate an important centre of the East End furniture trade. The three factories are in what is now Winkley Street, with six three-storey workshops (with well lit semi-basements) around the corner in the southern part of Teesdale Street. Two storey ranges of small separate ground floor and first floor workshops occupy yards in the middle of the four blocks. The three storey terraces in Teesdale Street and Temple Street had ground floor workshops with shopfronts, and residential accommodation on the upper floors. The estate contains the largest number of surviving purpose built furniture workshops in Tower Hamlets and is an important representative of the renowned East End furniture trade. Its special interest is enhanced by the proximity of Lion Mills in the Hackney Road Conservation Area. The Mills made braid and trimmings for the local furniture and clothing traders. The closing years of the 19 th century saw considerable change within this small area and much of the character of the conservation area we see today was formed at that time. Character This area is focused upon the grid of terraced houses, dwellings, factories and workshops that face on to Old Bethnal Green Road, Teesdale Street and Temple Street with Winkley and Canrobert Streets bisecting the quadrangle to form the four blocks. The four blocks of closely packed buildings were designed to be a community in miniature, providing homes, jobs, shops and services in various forms in close proximity. Many of the original architectural details of the terraced houses, dwellings, factories workshops and shopfronts have been retained and these give the area a very special and well preserved character. Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 5 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Buildings are typically three storeys, red brick and set at the back edge of the footpath with front doors and shopfronts opening directly on to the street. The scale of the buildings is important as is their uniformity and the strength of the eaves and parapet line in long views. The frontage to Old Bethnal Green Road is made up of a shopping parade with residential above. Around the corner are Temple Dwellings, two blocks of mansion flats. There are substantial identifiable industrial buildings on Winkley Street and Teesdale Street, and the central core is individual three storey terraced houses. The large shopfronts are typical of areas supporting the furniture trade, as goods made on the premises would be displayed and sold. Records confirm that the 11 units in the Teesdale Street Parade were historically for industrial manufacturing not shops. At the centre of each of the four street blocks, is a yard containing a row of one or two storey workshops. There are no other surviving examples in Tower Hamlets quite like the two storey workshop ranges in the four yards. Both ground floor and first floor workshops have their own loading doors for handling timber and large items of furniture. And most of the ground floor workshops had doors onto individual back yards of about half the three storey terraced houses in Canrobert Street, allowing some of the householders to also rent an adjacent workshop. The ground floor workshops with shopfronts are also very unusual although some occupiers may have displayed their products in the window; the shopfronts mainly provided good light and allowed the workshops to be used as shops. Temple Dwellings 1-24 and 25-48 Temple Dwellings are turn of the century mansion flats accessed from communal three storey staircases and another leading to a semi-basement. They enhance the special character of the area being of a typical scale for mansion flats of this date in a semi-industrial setting. They have a strong parapet line, are constructed of traditional materials and retain many historic features and architectural details. Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 6 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Keeling House The Grade II* listed Keeling House (Denys Lasdun, 1954-1957) is located in the eastern corner of the proposed Conservation Area and is included for its close proximity and connection to the terraces. This is a fine example of a cluster block, with balcony access to two storey maisonettes being accessed from a central service core. Lasdun thought of these balconies as streets in the sky, reflecting and replacing the traditional pattern of terraced housing on the streets locally. The pattern of the semi detached maisonettes is clearly expressed in the elevations. Keeling House was recently successfully refurbished with the addition of a new entrance foyer at ground floor level. Chalice Foundation, Oaklands Secondary School and Lawdale Primary School A second pocket of historic buildings to the southeast of the Winkley Estate terraces is included, which is focused around the Grade II listed Chalice Foundation Church, Oaklands School and Lawdale Primary School, a London Board School of 1883 The Chalice Foundation occupies a non conformist church from 1880. Designed by William D.Church it is Romanesque in style, constructed in yellow stock brick with red and white brick and stone dressings. Its entrance is beneath the gable facing Mansford Street and a lovely Rose window sits above the entrance. Almost directly opposite lies Lawdale Primary School designed by E.R. Robson and opened by the School Board for London in 1883 as Mansford Street School. This is a remarkably fine, well planned and largely unaltered Robson school and is an excellent example of “Queen Anne” and Neo-Classical styles Immediately to the north lies Oaklands Secondary School. The old part of the school occupies T.J. Bailey’s Mansford Street Senior Mixed School opened by the School Board for London in 1896. The first of a small number of “multi-purpose” school buildings for occupation by a higher grade school with integral centres. Here the centres were a ground floor manual training centre for 40 boys in the northern wing and a special school for 40 children in the southern wing. In contrast to the Winkley Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area Page 7 of 18 Old Bethnal Green Road Estate which forms the main part of the Conservation Area and is predominantly of red brick, these three school buildings are of yellow stock bricks with red brick dressings.