Category: Housing, residential

Donnybrook Quarter, Old Ford, Tower Hamlets, London E3

I saw this group of Mediterranean-style buildings on a long peregrination around East London. I went back to have a closer look. This is the “Donnybrook Quarter” which stands on a corner of Parnell Road, in Tower Hamlets. I arrived just as the sun was setting.

The sketch shows a pale modern building against a sunlit sky. At street level there is a shop with a canopy.
Part of the Donnybrook Quarter, Parnell Road, Tower Hamlets London E3, sketched 29 January 2026 in Sketchbook 16

The Donnybrook Quarter was completed ready for occupation in 2006. The architects were Peter Barber Architects.

The architects write: “The scheme is laid out around two new tree lined streets which cross the site creating very strong spatial connections with adjacent neighborhoods and a handy cut through for their residents” (Peter Barber Architects.)

Here are snapshots of the tree-lined streets they mention. These pictures were taken in January 2026, so the trees aren’t perhaps as flourishing as they might be in the summer.

A photo-essay on the “Tower Hamlets Slice” website has some beautiful pictures by Yev Kazannik from April 2000. The essay provides interesting background to the development. It quotes Peter Barber as saying:

“…the style came about at the request of local residents during community consultations in the early to mid-2000s before the project was finished in 2006. 
‘The residents were thinking, “Spain! Holidays! Marbella!” I’m completely happy with that,’ Barber said in an interview.”

Peter Barber goes on to say:

“…’This project is a celebration of the public social life of the street,’ ..
‘A worrying amount of building in London is done as a gated community. This is a counter-blast to that.’ “

Yez Kazannik comments:

“Walking through the lanes of Donnybrook, you will feel this neighbourly intimacy. Uniquely, the building units themselves have no corridors, entrances or ‘connecting’ spaces. Each room simply opens out into another. The streets themselves are meant to be the corridors, where neighbours can amble across each other. “

The concept is perhaps better understood from the air. Here’s an image from the architects’ website:

Image credit: Peter Barber Architects (https://www.peterbarberarchitects.com/donnybrook-quarter)

Here’s my snapshot of one of the streets:

I’d be interested to know how it works in practice.

If you’d like to find it, the development is just south of Victoria Park.

My sketch map of the locality of Donnybrook Quarter and my sightline for the sketch above

The number 8 bus goes along Old Ford Road, and took me back to the City after I’d done this sketch.

Towards central London on the number 8 bus Image credit: TfL website https://tfl.gov.uk
Page spread Sketchbook 16

More about Donnybrook Quarter and the architect Peter Barber:

This Guardian article describes his work and has more quotes: “Washing line warrior – the architect who wants to get the neighbours singing”

Here’s another Guardian article: “Marbella on Thames”

This technical report contains plans of Donnybrook Quarter and many photos, as well as a list of references: Westminster Research

See also Peter Barber’s website here (about Donnybrook) and here (all projects) and his instagram

Arnold Circus from Leila’s shop, Calvert Avenue, E2

On a very cold day in January I stopped for lunch in Leila’s shop in Calvert Avenue. My table at the window offered a view along a tangent of Arnold Circus.

View from Leila’s, 15-17 Calvert Avenue E2 7JP 29 January 2026 10″ x 7″in Sketchbook 16

I enjoyed all the lines and curves, and the hundreds of notices stuck to the lamppost, and the trees in boxes, and the transitional feel of this area, between the City and Hackney, between the trendy shops of Redchurch Street and the social housing of the Boundary Estate.

Then lunch arrived, which was a kind of a goulash and very good.

The woman serving said “It’s so cold, I’m offering cups of hot water. Would you like one?”. This was a good idea. She placed the cup of hot water in amongst my drawing things, and the plate of goulash, on the table. They are very tolerant and understanding in this café.

Next door is the deli of the same name, where I procured a slice of malt loaf to sustain me on my walk. I’d eaten it before I reached the other side of Arnold Circus.

Sketchbook 16 page spread

I’ve sketched in this area before:

Shoreditch Church: St Leonard E1

Here is St Leonard Shoreditch, which stands at the intersection of Shoreditch High St and the Hackney Road, postcode E1 6JN. There has been a Christian church here since medieval times. The present building dates from 1741 and was designed by George Dance the Elder (1695-1768). George Dance the Elder was the City of London surveyor at the time, and designed, amongst other buildings, Mansion House at Bank Junction. The current church is active in the community. On the day I was sketching, a Thursday, they were offering meals to local people. This is the Lighthouse Project, “providing practical help,…

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Shiplake House, Arnold Circus

This is the “Boundary Estate”, Britain’s first council estate, opened in 1900. It was built to the design of Owen Fleming and his team.  Fleming was a member of the Housing of the Working Classes branch of the LCC’s* Architecture department. He was 26 years old. The aim of Boundary Estate project was to replace slums, in an area of disease, want, squalor and crime known as “Old Nicol”. The slums were pulled down, and replaced  by dwellings that were more healthy, and more pleasant to live in. The area was also provided with schools, a laundry, shops and clubrooms.…

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67 Redchurch Street E2, “Jolene” bakery

Jolene bakery is on the corner of Redchurch Street and Club Row. This is a lively corner in a street on various edges: on the edge of the City, at the boundary between a new London and an old one, at the intersection of 21st century entrepreneurial culture and 19th century housing projects. Redchurch Street is just North and West of Brick Lane. There are restaurants, independent clothes designers, hairdressers, and various 21st century businesses I couldn’t identify but categorised in my mind as broadly “creative”. It’s a good place to walk around, and Jolene is a great place to…

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61 Hackney Road, E2

Along the Hackney Road stands this building with a turret: This on the corner of Waterson Street and Hackney Road, at the western end of Columbia Road. After I’d sketched it, I walked into the picture, and had a look at the building from the Waterson Street side. It was a pub called the Duke of Clarence. There is deep green tiling, characteristic of 19th century London pubs. It was listed in the London Street Directory of 1940 as a pub. Other online references have it trading from 1802 up to 1944. For many decades it’s had retail premises on…

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Flaxman Lodge, London, WC1

This wonderfully turreted building adorns a street corner in Bloomsbury.

Flaxman Lodge, Flaxman Terrace, London WC1H 9AW sketched 31 Dec 2025 in Sketchbook 16

It is listed Grade II. According to the listing entry it was built in 1907-8 to designs of Joseph and Smitham, “for the Vestry of St Pancras”. St Pancras is a church on the nearby Euston Road.

Map showing the location of the Lodge and St Pancras Church

Pevsner1 takes a different view. He associates this lodge with the terrace behind, which has the same domed turrets. He says:

FLAXMAN TERRACE, early St Pancras Borough Housing, 1907-8 by Joseph & Smithem. 6 storeys, with much conspicuously pretty detail: rough cast top floor and Art Nouveau railings. Similar features on the engaging little caretaker’s lodge at the corner of Burton Street

Pevsner, London 4 NORTH
Pevsner’s “LONDON 4:NORTH” book, describing Flaxman Terrace on page 330.

You can see the redbrick terrace, mentioned by Pevsner, in the photo below, with its domed turret matching the turret on the lodge.

Corner of Flaxman Terrace and Burton Street

So, in Pevsner’s version, the designer Smithem has an “e” not and “a”, and this building is “an engaging little caretaker’s lodge”.

Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras Coat of Arms on Flaxman Terrace railings

The “e” is correct. The architectural practice of Joseph and Smithem was founded by Nathan Solomon Joseph (1834-1909) and Charles James Smithem (1856-1937)2. The practitioners later included sons and a nephew of the founders. The practice designed a number of buildings in London including social housing, schools and the Egerton Road synagogue in Stamford Hill.

Flaxman Terrace was originally built as social housing by the then Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, whose coat of arms is in the cast iron railings of Flaxman Lodge.3

Now Flaxman Lodge appears to be a private house. Evidently at one time it was divided into flats. Planning permission to convert the flats into one “4 bed dwelling house” was granted by Camden Council in 2014, application reference 2014/1396/P

The property was last sold for £2,280,000 in 2017 (The Move Market)

I sketched this building standing at the corner of Flaxman Terrace and Woburn Walk. “Woburn” would imply a possible burn or stream. Sure enough, the marvellous “British History Online” site delivers a map showing a stream in this location:

‘The Skinners’ Company Estate’, in Survey of London: Volume 24, the Parish of St Pancras Part 4: King’s Cross Neighbourhood, ed. Walter H Godfrey, W McB. Marcham (London, 1952), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol24/pt4/pp83-93 [accessed 1 January 2026]

I was standing in roughly the position of the “pond” shown in the 1785 map on the left. At that time, I would have been surrounded by fields. By 1898, urbanisation had arrived, but not yet this Lodge. The routes of old byways and street boundaries are retained. Here’s a 1942 map4, by which time the Lodge has appeared. The street pattern of 100 years previously is still there.

OS Map Revised 1894 Published 1911 Reprinted 1942 – Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland’
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.
Link: https://maps.nls.uk/

For comparison, here is a modern map:

(c) OpenStreetMap contributors https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/51.526865/-0.129873

The former “Drill Hall” has become “The Place” contemporary dance centre, and many of the 19th century terraces have been replaced by larger buildings. But the street pattern is unchanged. Burton Street still follows the angle of a long-gone field fence.

Sketching “the Lodge” at the corner of Flaxman Terrace and Woburn Place.
Sketchbook 16
  1. London 4: North, Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, 2001 reprint, page 330 ↩︎
  2. https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/joseph/index.html ↩︎
  3. See “Footprints of London” on this link for more information about the Coat of Arms and the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras. ↩︎
  4. National Library of Scotland OS map:
    “Somers Town Edition of 1911”
    https://maps.nls.uk/view/231272247#zoom=4.2&lat=8319&lon=6377&layers=BT
    ↩︎

Lynch Lodge, Alwalton, Cambridgeshire PE7 3UU

This building was the gatehouse to a stately home, “Chesterton”, now demolished. It is made of fragments of that building and others.

Lynch Lodge near Peterborough, Landmark Trust. June 14th 2025 in Sketchbook 16

The building dates from approximately 1807. It was acquired by The Landmark Trust in 1983. The Trust undertook restoration works completed 1983. The architect for this restoration was Philip Jebb and the builders were C Bowman and Sons.

Lynch Lodge is the first picture in my new Sketchbook, Sketchbook 16.

The Lodge is in the midst of countryside which looks as though it is a painting by John Constable.

The very beautiful River Nene, where I swam.

It’s a wonderful and peaceful place. You can see pictures of the restored interior on their website: https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/properties/lynch-lodge/

Houses in Shetland – 2025

I sketched some of the characteristic houses on the West side of Shetland.

Houses at Greenland Burraland, Shetland West side. July 2025
Sketching by the side of the road. The houses I am sketching are in the centre distance.

The houses above in Greenland Burraland are working farms and family homes.

Some of the croft houses are abandoned, and starting to fall down. Here is a ruined croft house near the standing stone at Vesquoy, Shetland West side.

House by the standing stone, July 2025

I sketched it from the hill above.

Sketching the house by the standing stone.

I used heavily granulating colours to show the walls.

This is Daniel Smith Hematite Genuine: a mineral watercolour which breaks into gritty particles when you put it on the paper with lots of water.

Then I walked down to have a look.

Looking up towards the hill where I was sketching
Patchwork barn
The variety of colours in the walls

On the same day, here I am looking up at a string of dwellings and barns on the brow of another hill.

Burrastow Lodge, July 2025

At the beginning of July I did this sketch (below) of some buildings in Walls.

Walls, across the Voe, July 2025

I was sitting on an uncomfortable stone ledge next to the Regatta Clubhouse. I was wondering, for the umpteenth time, whether it is worth the effort to carry a seat around with me.

Sketching in Walls

Despite that blue sky, it was cold, and very windy. Note the gloves. I had just done some grocery shopping at the Walls Shop and here I was, resting, before the long walk back up the hill, up several hills.

One of the reasons I sketch is to imprint moments in my mind. This sketch brings back to me the sensation of the clear moving air. My eyes were watering from the cold and wind, so the view became unfocussed. My eyes were watering from the bright light also. I had only recently arrived from London and my eyes were still acclimatising to the brightness. I put on sunglasses. It was an effort to see, and an effort to continue, and the picture came out somewhat…..approximate. But I keep it as a reminder of that moment of arrival, that determination.

Sketching in Aberdeen

I had been travelling a long time. Reaching Old Aberdeen I sat on a granite kerbstone and sketched The Old Town House. Behind me was a friendly bookshop, where I had bought a map.

The Old Town House, University of Aberdeen, in Shetland 2025 sketchbook, size A5.

Having sketched, I walked into the picture I had drawn, and towards the trees on the left of the Town House. There I discovered a building being taken over by plants.

There was a plaque on the building, with writing on. You can see it in the background of the photo above. I couldn’t read the plaque at this distance, and neither could my phone.

Some tourists came by, laden with backpacks and cameras. They paused, curious to see what I was drawing. Since their eyes were younger than mine, I asked if they could read the plaque. They couldn’t, and neither could their phones. My next idea was that they could try using the telephoto lens on one of those formidable-looking cameras. With good grace they shrugged off a hefty block of technology, and removed its canvas housing. It had a fine lens.

“Mitchell’s Hospital, endowed by David Mitchell 1801. Reconstructed 1924.”

So now we know.

Mitchell’s Hospital, The Chanonry, Old Aberdeen. Sketch in “Shetland 2025” sketchbook, A5

David Mitchell founded the hospital as an almshouse “from a regard for the inhabitants of the city of Old Aberdeen and its ancient college and a desire in these severe times to provide lodging, maintenance and clothing for a few aged relicks and maiden daughters of decayed gentlemen merchants or trade burgesses of the said city..” [Wikipedia entry quoting the deed of mortification of the Hospital]. It was used as such, housing elderly ladies, up to to around 2016 when the final elderly resident, Iona Mathieson-Ross, had to move out.

In April 2024, there was notice of a sale in the local paper:

A later article says it has been sold, and that the new owners are refurbishing the building as small residential units to be let, possibly as short-term holiday lets. The planning application on Aberdeen Council’s website shows a building looking identical to the existing one, cleaned up and repaired.

From the planning application 241449/LBC Proposed elevations, North and East

It sounds like a dream come true for this neglected building:

“PROPOSED WORKS
Roof:
Allow for removal of all moss and vegetation
Allow for replacement of missing slates in size, thickness and colour to match existing.
Check ridge tiling and re-bed any loose tiles.
Chimney stacks pointing to be checked and where missing to be repointed…

…Chimney cans to be reset…

Granite Masonry:
Pointing to be checked and where missing to be repointed…

Windows:
Existing sash & case windows to be checked & where wet rot is evident timber sections to be replaced with same profile in Redwood.
Windows to be refurbished to ensure they are fully operational and fitted with draught stripping internally….

External Doors:
Existing external doors to be replaced with external quality Redwood 4 panel doors with double glazed obscure glass in upper 2 panels fully weather stripped primed and painted…

planning application: https://publicaccess.aberdeencity.gov.uk/online-applications/files/D0CA009C52149577D726371114B13754/pdf/241449_LBC-Proposed_Elevations__North__East___Sectional_A-A-2405900.pdf

The planning application was approved on the 3rd July 2025, a few days after I was standing there doing my sketch. Perhaps when I next visit Aberdeen the improvement work will be in progress. Maybe, if it becomes holiday lets, I can even stay there.

I’m glad it’s being refurbished, but I shall treasure the view of this graceful building gradually being assimilated into the plant world.

Here is a map showing my walk and Mitchell’s Hospital.

I had coffee in Kilau Coffee – recommended!
Sketching in Seaton Park, before the rain. St Machar’s Cathedral.

121 and 123 Tyers Street, Vauxhall, SE11 5HS

This is an interesting terrace, just to the East of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.

121 and 123 Tyers Street, SE11 5HS, sketched 17 April 2025 in Sketchbook 15

The terrace house on the left has a terracotta plaque let into the brickwork:

A HOUSE FOR NICARAGUA
Built 1984-91 to celebrate 
the Nicaraguan Revolution  
Sold to support community projects in Nicaragua

The website “Radical Lambeth” has an article which tells more. The house was restored as a community endeavour, led by a visionary, Ron Tod (sometimes spelled Todd):

“He had some money from a house he had built out of an old airfield shed in Essex, and he thought some of the people he was living with might help with the work. About 200 people – men and women in their twenties and thirties did…”

“Almost all the materials for 121 Tyers Street came from skips, building sites or dumps. The floors are parquet, retrieved in one great haul from a skip….”

Even from the outside, the house is feels beautiful. The windows are all different, and there is intriguing detail, such as the terracotta frieze above the window shown in my picture. This is a house built to a loose design rather than a rigid plan. Much was created by the people there, as they went along, using materials to hand. Sketching it, I was reminded of the work of the 1970s radical architect Christopher Alexander, “A Pattern Language”.

The house in the centre of my picture is 123 Tyers Street. This is much plainer. But it also is intriguing. The lower windows are not directly below the upper windows, but shifted right.

I sketched sitting on the wall opposite.

Sketchbook spread, Sketchbook 15

1 Wood Close E2

See this interesting building! It’s just a few hundred yards from Brick Lane in East London.

1 Wood Close E2, sketched around midday, 9th March 2025 in sketchbook 15

I’d walked past it a few days previously, when I had been taking a circuitous route through East London on the way back from Hackney Wick. It’s an unusual building for the neighbourhood, most of which is terraces or blocks of post-war flats. This building stood out, on its own, at a street corner. What is it doing there?

Sketch map showing the location of Wood Close: just to the east of Brick Lane.

I went back a few days later for a closer look. On the white band at the front of the building I could decipher some words:
“ERECTED 1826 [something] FIELD AND THOMAS [something] CHURCH WARDENS”

London Picture Archive has a photo of this building from 1946. The words on the front were a little clearer in 1946, so I can read that Thomas’ second name was MARSDEN. The London Picture Archive caption says that “the building began as a watchman’s house in 1754. The watchman was to guard against body snatchers who provided corpses for dissection to local hospitals. ” So that’s what it was doing: it was guarding the graveyard.

The London Picture Archive caption goes on to say that “In 1826 the building was enlarged so that a fire engine could be housed there.” That’s the building we see now, labelled 1826. It doesn’t look big enough for a fire engine.

1946
2025

In the London Picture Archive photo from 1946, the street name affixed to the building says “Wood’s Close” which would indicate it was named after someone called Wood. Today the street name on the building is “Wood Close”

This building is listed Grade II.

This link shows a 1872 map. Here’s an extract. Click the map to go to the National Library of Scotland map which is very detailed. The street is called “Wood Close” on this map. You can see the “Grave Yard (disused)”. The Watch House, circled in red below, is in the corner of the graveyard, which makes sense.

Area around Wood Close: 1872. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY(NLS)

As you see in my sketch, there are now a prodigious number of bollards in front of the house. I counted ten of them, standing like an amused crowd next to the “7′-0” sign . While I was standing there sketching, I saw why. The idea is to restrict the width of St Matthew’s Row so that vehicles have to slow down or stop, and cars can’t sneak round the edges. I watched agog as huge limousines edged between the bollards.

A large car navigates the bollards. St Matthew’s Church is in the background.
A van only just fits through.

This Watch House, and the nearby Parish Hall are owned by St Matthews Church:

The Church also own the Watch House on Wood Close, which is currently let out to private tenants, and the Parish Hall on Hereford Street, currently let out to State51.

https://www.st-matthews.org.uk/hire-our-spaces/

It’s a house on a corner, with an active life and a history. I was glad to make its acquaintance.

Sketchbook 15

Jesus Green Lock House, Cambridge

A house stands by Jesus Lock on the River Cam. I have walked by it so many times, over decades, that it holds a magical place in my mind. In the dimness of a childhood memory, I am looking over the wall. I remember flowers in the window boxes, a garden. Then somehow it became ignored, scruffy, derelict, vandalised. Then nothing happened, and it just stood there. Each time I saw it, it was slightly more dilapidated. But it remained in my memory, a beautiful house, in a lovely location. Surely someone will do something with it?

And last time I visited Cambridge, I found that, miraculously, yes!, someone is renovating it.

Jesus Green Lock House being renovated. Sketched from Jesus Lock, 24 January 2025, in sketchbook 15

You can see the progress of their work on their instagram site @uglyduckling_reno

This picture from the website of Michelle Bullivant1 shows Jesus Green in the 1700s. The little house by the river, arrowed, looks to me to be in the same position as the current Lock House, and you can see a bridge or ford across the river Cam at this point. I recognise the houses on the bottom right, which look like the terrace of houses on Chesterton Road which is still there.

Image from Michelle Bullivant, Local Historian

This photo of an old postcard shows that, in 1879, the lock house was single story.

Jesus Lock in 1879 – showing the floods.
Image from capturingcambridge.org licensed under creative commons
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

During the 19th century, it was rebuilt. This picture shows the two-storey lock-keeper’s house on the left:

Image from capturingcambridge.org licensed under creative commons
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

It was listed Grade II in 19722. In the 1990’s the final lock keeper moved away3 The house then became a house of multiple occupation (HMO), for students. These was an application in 2016 to turn it into a café, reference 16/0001/FUL. Its use was listed as “HMO” at that time. But this application was refused.

In 2021, the house was bought by its current owners, who have been bravely going ahead with a renovation to transform this listed building once again into a residential dwelling, with an aspiration also to host community events4

“Eventually it will be a beautiful place and a better place”

I sketched the house on a very cold day in January. There was a strong wind which not only threatened to throw my sketchbook into the Cam, but also made my eyes water so I couldn’t see properly. I finished the pen and ink, and decided that was enough. Then, by a happy chance, I encountered the current owner unlocking the fence gate. Hence I learned about the efforts of this mother and daughter team, who are determinedly navigating the difficulties of an old building, listed consents, and many other obstacles. But they make amazing progress! See their instagram account for more information.

Sketching the Jesus Green Lock House
sketching by Jesus lock
detail from the sketch

References:

  1. Michelle Bullivant, Local Historian. The image is on this page: https://www.michellebullivant.com/cambridgeshirehistory/brief-history-of-jesus-green-cambridge#/ ↩︎
  2. Historic England listing number 1111846: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1111846?section=official-list-entry ↩︎
  3. The final lock-keeper moved out in the 1990s according to the Cambridge Edition May 14th 2023. https://cambsedition.co.uk/property/lock-house-and-key/ ↩︎
  4. The renovation reported in the Cambridge Evening News 15th July 2021: https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/jesus-green-lock-house-getting-21062688 ↩︎

25 Fournier Street, London E1

Fournier Street is a row of 18th century houses in Spitalfields, east London. Here is number 25.

25 Fournier Street, sketched 19th December 2024 in sketchbook 15

The weather was cold, and I was sheltering from the wind in a doorway opposite.

People rushed past on the pavement in front of me. It was nearing Christmas. I caught fragments of conversation. “Everyone’s after money” said a woman to her companion, “and it’s wrong!“.

I enjoyed spending time looking at this elegant house. The tops of the windows are curved. This is quite common in London. What is unusual here is that the wooden window frames are also curved, and the top panes of glass are curved to match. This must make replacing the glass quite a labour, I thought, and the curved sash window frames would need a skilled carpenter.

A woman approached, looking bothered. She caught sight of me in my doorway. I thought she wanted to open the door where I was standing, to enter the house behind me. So I was ready to express my apologies and move my stuff out of the way. But no, she wanted directions to Brick Lane, which is at the end of Fournier Street. “Just there,” I said, pointing. Brick Lane was almost visible, in a straight line from where we were standing.

She was flustered and didn’t seem quite to believe my simple direction. “It’s all changed round here!” she objected. I paused.

This street has hardly changed in 300 years. I’d just spent an hour looking at a house that was built in 1727. But I didn’t say that: a latent voice episode1.

She was an artist too, she told me. She was looking for a gallery. She hurried off, in the direction I’d indicated.

I was left looking at the house, and thinking.

  1. latent voice episodes = “potential communications that may or may not in fact occur”, Harvard Business School paper: Working Knowledge, Q&A with Amy C. Edmondson, author: Sarah Jane Gilbert, March 20, 2006. “Latent voice episodes” is a useful concept, I think. It’s for those times when you might speak, but don’t. ↩︎