Last week I went to the wonderful Dennis Server’s House in Folgate Street, Spitalfields. It’s a beautifully preserved textile merchant’s house dating from the 1700s, open to visitors. I have been there once before, but this time I was there to interview the current Keeper of the house for The Chromologist. It was an amazing privilege. Where previously I’d shared a house tour with another 20 people, all of pretending none of the others were there, this time it was just me, David who looks after the house, and a lovely cat. I was invited to sit in the big wooden chair by the kitchen fire, and before the interview started, David and I chatted about the house, the area and the changes in just the few years since I’d last visited.

Above is the facade of the house… below the view down the street today.

David was a wonderful host – passionate about the house and the area and very knowledgable about architecture of the period. But what he had to say was deeply depressing. Life for residents of the historic streets of Spitalfields must be spent feeling under threat from proposed developments in the area. When I came to London I worked in nearby Princelet Street, while neighbouring Brick Lane was just welcoming it’s first hipsters (they weren’t even called that then – they were Shoreditch T**ts). Since then the whole area has gentrified, the ramshackle market itself has been made over with restaurants serving the City and the current trend for high-rise ‘statement’ buildings in the City has blocked out more and more of the sky. The latest development is of the Goodsyard, an area next to Shoreditch tube station.

Campaigners The East End Preservation Society have been working to halt the development which, as their images show, will have a huge effect on the local skyline. But it’s not just about the rights of people in historic houses to have nice views. As David pointed out historic 18th century homes are still under threat of demolition in the area, and the mix of business and residential, and who lives where, is also having a huge affect on the area as a whole. Local chronicler SpitalfieldsLife explains much more about what is proposed. They suggest people opposed to it write to Eric Pickles, a man who seems to have approved more ugly developments bound to harm the local environment than an 18th century silk merchant would have had hot dinners.

When I went home and reported the sad things I’d heard during my wonderful day at the house, people’s response was, reasonably enough, ‘but aren’t these houses listed?’ The answer seems to be that listing doesn’t necessarily save all the houses, and just being ‘historic’ won’t save a house in an area that is so highly in demand. Only today a judicial review ruled in favour of the demolition of Georgian house on Dalston Lane. Sad sigh.