58, Peckham High Street

House, 1720s, possibly built as part of a speculation by Isaac Bennett.

This is a timber-framed building of three storeys with a narrow two-bay front. The exterior is stuccoed with a box-moulded timber eaves cornice and tiled roof. The upper storeys display classical proportions, with tall window openings to the first floor and smaller, square openings to the second floor, arranged symmetrically. The ground floor originally had a simple frontage but now displays a Victorian shopfront that was largely renewed in the late 20th century. The first floor contains modern windows, including one 12-pane sash, within the original openings. The second floor retains late 19th-century sashes without glazing bars in the original openings. The rear elevation was altered in the 20th century and a two-storey extension was added later. No chimney is visible above the roof line.

The interior retains an exceptionally narrow plan, one room deep throughout the upper floors. The first and second floors each contain only a single room, approximately 15 feet square. A back wall chimneystack serves the building, with the area behind each room accommodating the stack, staircase and closet arranged in a line to maximise the limited footprint. An early 18th-century winder stair from first to second floor survives, featuring twin newel posts with a single turned baluster between them and a closed string to the one non-winding tread. The first floor room retains the architrave to its closet. The second floor room contains an early 18th-century wooden fireplace with robustly moulded mantelshelf and simple surround, and a second closet architrave with different moulding profile. The roof was rebuilt in the 20th century with machine-sawn rafters. The first floor was originally accessed by a staircase in the rear ground floor room, now demolished; access is currently via a 20th-century staircase in No. 60. Only the brick stack survives as original fabric at ground floor level.

Originally, No. 58 formed part of a symmetrical row with the slightly lower Nos. 60-62 in the centre, flanked by pairs of three-storey houses on either side. No. 58 is now the only survivor of this arrangement. From the 1850s onwards, shops occupied the ground floors and were subsequently built out in front of all three houses. The 20th century saw demolition of neighbouring houses that were once part of the row, and replacement of most historic fabric at ground floor level.

In the 18th century, Peckham was a place of resort, situated away from major through roads on a gentle rise offering prospects of London and close enough to the metropolis for day-trips. Buildings were arranged west-east along what is now the High Street, including the medieval manor, theatres, a chapel, villa residences of courtiers and wealthy merchants, and rows of smaller houses such as Nos. 58-62. Defoe described Peckham as having 'some of the finest dwellings about London'. No. 58 originally overlooked a large house of 1672 built by Thomas Bond, a Restoration courtier, set in ornamental French gardens with views towards St Paul's, described and praised by John Evelyn and later by Defoe. That house was demolished in 1797. Remarkably, the view of St Paul's from the third floor of No. 58 can still be enjoyed, the famous dome not obscured by later buildings.