Whitechapel Historic Buildings
Introduction:
Many historic buildings along the High Street 2012 route have fallen into a state of disrepair, lost their architectural features and have often undergone unsympathetic modernisations. As a key High Street 2012 ‘street action’, clusters of especially important historic buildings in strategic Conservation Areas have been targeted for improvements.
The Whitechapel phase of this initiative will see 61 properties running from 197 to 317 Whitechapel Road restored to their former glory.These historic buildings, which align with Whitechapel Market opposite the Royal London Hospital, form the largest and most important cluster of the historic building ‘street action’ scheme.
The works will be funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (Townscape Heritage Initiative), Tower Hamlets Council, English Heritage, the London Development Agency and Section 106 development contributions.
Works will begin in April 2011 and are due to be completed by mid-2013.
The challenge
The buildings are suffering from a lack of maintenance and the team appointed to restore the Whitechapel cluster – Julian Harrap Architects and Paye Stonework & Restoration – will work to address the numerous issues affecting the buildings, such as:
- peeling paintwork
- cracked render
- eroded brickwork
- damp
- timber decay within hidden window lintels, wall plates and joists.
The original timber sash windows and shop fronts have been lost over time, replaced by inappropriate casement windows and modern aluminium shop fronts. Similarly, the proliferation of upper-floor businesses and fascia signage has made it hard for businesses to compete and has masked the historic characters of the buildings.
In the past, proper repair has seemed prohibitively expensive to building owners, requiring skilled craftsmanship. The scheme here will be tackling all of these problems through extensive conservation repair, replacement of features and new windows and shop-fronts being installed.
Coming Up:
Works will be concentrated on the front elevations and parts of the building that face the high street.
Building work will be carried out in five ‘sub-phases’ to minimise the disruption to the building’s owners and occupiers. This will be achieved by breaking the works up into smaller initiatives and tying these in with the market redevelopment and Crossrail works.
The sub-phasing is planned as follows:
- works begin at building no. 279 - 305
- works move west to work on building no. 197- 222
- works return east, to complete three more groups along the street.
Negotiations have begun with building owners including London Underground and the range of different shop-keepers and tenants to prepare them for the beginning of sub-phase 1. Negotiations with tenants in the next phases will begin two months before works are to take place on site. Building owners and tenants will be engaged throughout the process and designs for shop-fronts and colours for signage agreed in accordance with the Conservation Area guidance, and with input from the architects and local designers.
With the huge range of improvement works planned at Whitechapel, the market streetscape will be greatly improved for local people, shoppers, visitors who are expected to increase greatly in number with the opening of the Whitechapel Crossrail station.
Past Events
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