43-49, CHARLOTTE ROAD

Group of originally seven furniture workshops and warehouses, now workshops, offices and shops, developed in stages between 1877 and 1881 for John King Farlow. The buildings are constructed in white brick with prominent gauged red brick detailing and timber loading doors.

The front elevation to Charlotte Road reads as two groups, each with eight window and loading bays flanking a central loading bay capped with a gabled parapet. The loading bays feature paired, part-glazed doors to each floor, and two surviving cranes remain in place. Windows are timber sashes under cambered heads.

The most distinctive feature is the use of polychromy. Red brick forms banding between each floor, striped heads over the second floor windows, and features solid in the third floor windows. The curved heads of the central loading bays display polychrome herringbone brickwork. Moulded bricks create a pattern at the top and bottom of each floor division and between each window cill, with approximately ten different details across the levels. A corbelled eaves cornice and pronounced slender corbels top each pilaster. The pilasters between bays have plain heads over moulded squat capitals with griffin detail. Some shop windows have been replaced sympathetically.

The rear elevations to Mills Court are considerably plainer, with red brick cambered arches over the windows. Numbers 43 to 46 retain integral one-storey rear ranges with similar windows. The rears of 47 to 49 were replaced in the late 20th century with two and three-storey extensions in yellow brick with red brick window arches, executed in a sympathetic style but without special interest.

The interiors have undergone late 20th-century refurbishment, including the opening up of rooms for offices and the insertion of modern stairs, lifts and entrance lobbies for residential and commercial use. The buildings are believed to retain their original timber truss roof structures with historic and modern roof lights.

For almost a century, from the mid-19th to mid-20th century, South Shoreditch was the centre of the British furniture trade, manufacturing and supplying furniture of all types to retailers in the West End, provincial cities and throughout the British Empire. This created a distinctive historic character of factories, warehouses and showrooms.

In 1876 Farlow acquired a terrace of twelve houses at 43 to 54 Charlotte Street and a row of tenements at 1 to 15 Mill Court from Richard Foster. Between 1878 and 1881, six warehouses (44 to 49) were built by Henry Hart for Farlow on the site. In 1878 the newly built 49 was leased to Jacob Emil Zoers, umbrella and parasol stick manufacturer. Two years later Zoers leased 48, after openings were made in the party walls on the ground and third floors to connect adjoining premises. Pintschers Patent Lighting Company Ltd took the lease of 46 in 1879. In 1881, 44 was leased to Ebenezer Envil, French polisher, whose lease was renewed in 1895. Envil apparently sublet parts to others in the furniture trade, a common late 19th-century practice.

William Lamb's wholesale looking glass and cabinet makers business formed a sprawling complex. In 1892 the business owner took over the lease of 45 Charlotte Road, and by 1908 the firm had extended across 44 to 49 (as well as 55 to 56) Charlotte Road. These buildings manufactured furniture sold in their Curtain Road showrooms. By the late 1930s Lamb's had retracted to 44 to 46, whilst 47 to 49 became part of W. A. Hudson, furnishing ironmongers, who installed a rolling mill at the rear.

Number 43 was occupied from the 1880s until the 1930s by Edward Bagshaw (later Bagshaw and Morris), spring manufacturers. Established in the late 1850s, the firm claimed to be the oldest maker of coppered steel springs for the upholstery trade, also manufacturing chair webs, tack and nails. Later occupants of 43 included Albert John Edwards and John Henry Griffiths, trading as C & R Light, who leased the building in 1935 as a warehouse.

Furniture and furnishing use continued in these buildings until the mid to late 20th century. B & N Upholstery operated from 44 in 1955 along with Mr Billigheimer, a feather dealer who stored and stuffed pillows. In 1986 the building was bought and refurbished by Jeremy Cooper, a writer and former antique dealer, who filled it with Victorian art furniture of a kind much imitated by East End furniture makers. The later occupation of art dealer Joshua Compston (1970 to 1996) is commemorated by a pair of metal plaques on the front of the building. All buildings in the row have been refurbished since the 1980s and the rear ranges of 47 to 49 have been rebuilt on a substantially larger scale.