22-24, HERTFORD ROAD

Multi-storey stables and setted ramp, built circa 1895 and circa 1899, with some late 20th-century modifications.

This L-shaped stock brick building on Hertford Road comprises north and west ranges with engineering brick dressings and a replaced tile roof. It survives as a rare example of substantial late 19th-century commercial stabling.

The north range is the building of principal architectural interest. It functions as a multi-storey stable, which is clearly readable in its fenestration. Both north and south elevations display a consistent run of small windows in engineering brick surrounds set high in each storey to provide light and ventilation to the horse stalls below. The ground floor of this range contains five workshop units, each with a varying number of windows and an off-centre door, supported by a metal lintel. These may have housed horse-carts and were part of the original construction.

Of particular special interest is the unusual survival of a stone-paved ramp which provided access to the first and upper floors. This ramp runs alongside the eastern elevation of the west range and is supported on I-section metal beams. The ramp has periodic courses of raised setts to provide grip for ascending horses. Photographs from the 1990s show it once had a canopy, evidenced also by scarring in the brickwork of the abutting building. The ramp is likely to have once continued at a right angle along the southern elevation of the north range to provide access to second-floor stables; diagonal lines in the brickwork and infilling of what was presumably a door at second-floor level are indicators of this arrangement.

The west range, built earlier, has two storeys with a number of segmental-headed window openings with engineering brick surrounds. The ground floor windows indicate this storey was built as stabling; the first floor windows and a loading bay are larger and irregularly spaced, suggesting this floor may have served a different function. The eastern elevation has similar stable windows at ground floor level, though those at its southernmost end have been obscured by a later single storey extension. Other windows in this elevation have been replaced in the late 20th century. This range is included in the listing for its shared historic significance with the north range, continued physical connectedness, readable stable-function at ground floor level, survival of cobbled floor and roof structure, and the particular interest of the attached ramp.

The interiors of each range are connected by metal fire doors which survive in situ. Original ladder-like staircases survive in parts. The stabling and other internal joinery have been removed. Stone setts remain on the ground floor of the west range. The timber roof structure of both ranges survives, as do the steel beams and columns which support the concrete floors.

The stables were built for Henry Crane, a contractor, who had been based on part of the site since the 1880s. He took over the full extent in 1895 and expanded to a site further south on Hertford Road. Crane is described in contemporary Post Office directories as a Cartage Contractor with depots at Unicorn Wharf in Bow and Archer Wharf in Limehouse. Crane supplied horse and carts to other trades-people. At Hertford Road, he may have been contracted to collect dust and rubbish, as the Shoreditch Vestry dust depot was situated on the same street during the period of Crane's occupation. Following the Public Health Act of 1875, local authorities were required to arrange the removal and disposal of waste from households. In 1895, the Shoreditch Vestry built the Shoreditch Vestry Refuse Destructor and Steam Generating Station in nearby Coronet Street, which generated 250 kilowatts of power for the local community and heated public baths in Pitfield Street. The scale of the stables, particularly the west range, suggests large-scale activity such as municipal dust collection and transportation to such facilities as the Coronet Street Refuse Destructor. Crane occupied the site until the 1930s.