14, Wilkes Street

14 Wilkes Street

A terraced house built in 1724-25 by James Pitman, a London carpenter, as part of the early development of the Spitalfields area. The house was refaced in the late 19th century but retains much of its original character and plan.

The building is constructed in brick, three storeys high with a basement and garret. The façade has three bays. The current red-brick elevation with terracotta bands between the storeys is the late 19th-century refacing, but the 18th-century fenestration pattern has been retained. The original six-panelled door remains. The rear elevation features segmental-headed windows with exposed sash boxes, and six-over-six pane timber sash windows, though some have been replaced with modern versions. The roof is M-shaped and clad in old pantiles, with casement windows to the garret.

The interior plan is largely unaltered, comprising two rooms deep with a hall positioned to the south side and a stair adjacent to the rear room rising against the inner wall. A large opening has been made between the ground-floor rooms, but the original arrangement is otherwise unchanged.

The interior retains substantial original fittings and joinery. The hall has full-height panelling on the left and half-height panelling on the right with a moulded rail. The ground and first-floor rooms have full-height panelling with box cornices, as do the second-floor rooms. There are a number of original two-panelled doors. The ground-floor front room contains a pair of buffet niches to either side of the chimney breast with arched heads and curved-profile shelves, along with a marble chimneypiece, probably dating to the 1840s. The first-floor front room has cupboards flanking the chimney breast and a marble chimneypiece in Gothic style, also from the 1840s. The second-floor front room has a fireplace with a flush surround and an early 19th-century hob grate. The rear rooms have chimney breasts set into the rear angle with the party wall; those on the ground and first floors retain original flush surrounds. The open-string stair has a moulded handrail, column newel posts with square caps, turned balusters, scroll silhouette tread-ends and a curtail. It appears to have been reconstructed with salvaged components, and likely originally had a close-string. The panelled inner string has a ramped rail. In the roof is a timber internal gutter to channel rainwater into the central valley gutter, probably an original feature.

Wilkes Street, known as Wood Street until the late 19th century, formed part of the Wood-Michell Estate, developed between 1718 and 1728 by Charles Wood of Lincoln's Inn and Simon Michell of the Middle Temple. Numbers 14 and 16 Wilkes Street (originally Numbers 8 and 9 Wood Street) and Numbers 18 and 20-22 Hanbury Street (Numbers 10 Wood Street and 8 Brown's Lane) were built as a group of four terraced houses by James Pitman under a building lease granted by Wood and Michell in March 1723-24. In September 1725, Pitman assigned the lease and houses to a mercer for £1,540. In 1750 and 1773, the house was occupied by John Freemount and Company, weavers.

The silk industry became heavily concentrated in Spitalfields from the late 17th century, driven by the arrival of refugee Huguenot silk weavers from France following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which outlawed Protestant worship. Although often described as "weavers' houses", the properties in Wilkes Street, Fournier Street and their surroundings were of a higher social order, occupied by the wealthier merchant class and silk masters. The characteristic glazed weavers' garrets were added later in the 18th century as the area's social status declined.