40-42, Great Eastern Street

Showroom-warehouses, now offices with café, at the corner of Great Eastern Street and Curtain Road.

This is a four-storey building designed by J. W. Brooker and completed in 1877 for the cabinet ironmongers Edward Wells & Co. It comprises five bays along Great Eastern Street and three bays along Curtain Road, with a distinctive wide splayed corner. The building is constructed in cream Gault brick with blue brick, stone and terra cotta dressings in an eclectic style combining Gothic, Italianate and Venetian influences.

The ground floor is almost entirely glazed, with wooden glazing bars forming lancets and a corner entrance porch featuring polished red granite columns, stucco and brick pointed arches. A square clock is supported by a wrought-iron bracket above the entrance. The café within 42 retains its console brackets but has otherwise been modernised. The upper floors are detailed in cream brick with blue brick and stone dressings, and feature unusual stone bosses positioned between the second and third storeys. The first and second floors have continuous windows set within a giant arcade with pointed arches and floral terra cotta panels. The third floor displays paired shouldered windows with mock machiolation and battlements above, except at the splayed corner, which has terra cotta panels in the spandrels of rounded arches and a steep pediment. The exterior of 40 was painted over in the mid-1980s.

The building was constructed by James Morter as part of a group of four showroom-warehouses including 73-75 Curtain Road. It was built on a lease taken by Wells from the Metropolitan Board of Works during 1877. Though occupying a prestigious location within the South Shoreditch furniture district, it was initially used by an auction house and a specialist clothing manufacturer. W. Ruddick, stay merchants, occupied 42 until the 1930s, expanding into the adjoining building 44 in the early 20th century. By 1899 the corner premises (40) were in use by Rubery & Stockwell, furniture manufacturers, though their tenancy was brief, ending by 1908. The building subsequently housed a motor accessories merchant, whose entrance was reworked in 1937. By the end of the 20th century both properties were occupied by the estate agents Stirling Ackroyd.

South Shoreditch was the hub of the international furniture trade from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, manufacturing, selling and supplying furniture of all types and quality to retailers in the West End, provincial cities and throughout the British Empire. 40-42 Great Eastern Street is one of the best surviving and grandest examples of the distinctive showroom-warehouse building type that characterises this historic quarter.