St Margarets House

House and attached chapel. Built in 1753 by Anthony Nott, Carpenter, and remodelled in 1903. The rear wing was built in 1903 as a clubroom and bedrooms by a Mr Williams, and the chapel was built in 1904 by Paul Waterhouse.

The main house is constructed of Flemish bond brick with late 19th-century stucco to the front. It has hipped slate roofs, with a hipped plain tile roof to the rear wing. Brick ridge stacks and lateral stacks serve the rear wing. The building follows a double-depth plan with the rear wing creating an L-shaped footprint with a rear right wing. It comprises 3 storeys with a basement and a 7-window range across the front.

The front elevation features a bracketed pediment over a late 19th-century six-panelled door with fanlight set in moulded wood architraves. Above are flat rendered arches framing horned 12-pane sashes and tall 18-pane sashes to the first floor on the left, above which sits an inserted 3-light window with central door, all dating from around 1903. A heavy coved cornice runs above the first-floor windows. The rear wing is 2 storeys tall with a 7-window range, featuring semi-circular arches over large ground-floor windows including a 3-bay projection, and first-floor casements with glazing bars.

The interior contains panelled doors and a fine dog-leg staircase with turned balusters set on closed string and panelled dado. The first-floor room to the right retains mid-18th-century panelling, moulded cornice and eared architrave with dentilled cornice to the fireplace, which contains a ducks nest grate. The 1903 rear wing has moulded cornicing to ground-floor beams and first-floor bedrooms with bolection-panelled overmantles and bolection-moulded architraves to fireplaces featuring Delft-tile surrounds.

The small chapel is built of brick with a gabled plain tile roof, attached to the rear by a short brick wall. Its west gable end features a gauged red brick semi-circular arch over panelled double doors with bracketed flat hood and glazing bars to the overlight. A fine glazed terracotta memorial in the style of Della Robbia, depicting an Annunciation scene and set within an enriched semi-circular frame, commemorates P R Buchanan.

The chapel interior contains a fine 3-bay rood screen of white painted wood with gilding, featuring 4 octagonal Ionic columns supporting an entablature swept above a triple keystone set in a semi-circular arched entry and surmounted by statues of Christ on the Cross flanked by St Mary Magdalene and St John. A gallery occupies the west end. The plaster barrel vaulted ceiling has raised ribs running to a continuous cornice with console brackets. Fine stained glass includes St Mary by Powells and SS Margaret, Mildred and Cecilia by Heaton, Butler and Payne to the north. Various memorial tablets are also present.

St Margaret's House was established in 1889 as a residential settlement engaged in social work in Bethnal Green, and relocated to this address in 1903.