Nos. 74 and 75, LONG LANE

627/2/14 LONG LANE EC1 (South side) 74 AND 75

10-NOV-77

II

74 and 75 Long Lane. Row of houses, now laterally connected. C.1598 with later alterations. No 74 has a jettied front with mathematical tiles, modern tile-hanging to upper floor. No 75 has been refronted in brick. PLAN: single room per floor, with staircases to rear. EXTERIORS: No 74: single window per floor, 6/6-pane sashes to first and second floor, 3/6-pane to third. Mid-Victorian and C20 shopfront to ground floor beneath projecting jettied front to upper floors. Rear elevation rebuilt (probably early C19) in yellow stocks with Portland stone cills to windows. No 75: late Victorian shopfront. Upper floors refaced in late C19 in brick (now painted). Rear elevation of c.1700 with plat bands at first, second and third floor levels; central paired sash windows beneath segmental arches. INTERIORS: No 74: much altered in recent times. Earlier fixtures include a columnar newel post at second floor level to the otherwise altered staircase, a stone fireplace surround with roundels to the corners in the first floor front room (also of early C19 date) and a protruding cross beam in the second floor front room. No 75: also much altered, but retains a flight of a closed string staircase at second floor level, with column and vase balusters dating from c.1700. HISTORY: these houses are remarkable (albeit partial) survivals of pre-Fire City row houses. They stand on ground developed by Lord Rich from 1598 onwards, and forms part of the largest single early modern building development in London of its day: the plot of No 74 was leased to Garrett Johnson in 1598, and was one of five row houses built by him on the site of eight booths bordering Bartholomew Fair; that of No 75 was leased to Robert Harrison. The houses evidently underwent substantial later rebuilding: No 75 was substantially reconstructed in c.1700, while No 74 was altered in the late Georgian period. A watercolour of c.1840 by Thomas Shepherd (Guildhall Library) shows the houses as jettied four-storey buildings with attic and gabled, tiled roof. The buildings suffered from bomb damage and the upper floors and roofs were replaced; the tile-hanging of No 74 dates from this period also. The interest of the buildings resides partly in their plan form, partly in being a rare survivals of small London houses of pre-1666 date, and partly in the jettied front of No 74 with its later mathematical tiles. Formerly the offices of Chambers's, publishers, the houses have been laterally combined in recent times. SOURCES: P. Guillery et al., 'Nos 74 and 75 Long Lane. Historic Building Report' (unpublished report by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1997); R.H. Leech, 'The Prospect from Rugmans Row: The Row House in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century London', The Archaeological Journal, 153 (1996), 201-242.

Listing NGR: TQ3199481781