{"id":18176,"date":"2023-01-16T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T08:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=38895"},"modified":"2023-01-16T10:36:40","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T09:36:40","slug":"inside-dan-cruickshanks-georgian-home","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/inside-dan-cruickshanks-georgian-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Dan Cruickshank\u2019s Georgian home"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Charlotte Packer\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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As a teenager I loved 18th-century buildings,\u2019 says Dan Cruickshank, the television presenter and art historian. And he recalls being \u2018dazzled\u2019 by London\u2019s Georgian terraces, \u2018particularly those around Bloomsbury\u2019. By his early twenties, however, his passion had taken him further east, to Spitalfields, which is where he lives now. His 18th-century townhouse is one of many in the area that he helped save from demolition in the Seventies.<\/p>\n

Built in 1727 by Mr Bunce and Mr Brown, Dan\u2019s house was part of Spitalfields\u2019 rapid expansion following the arrival of thousands of Huguenot silk workers fleeing persecution in France. The first owners, John and James Payton, may or may not have been refugees, but they were certainly involved in the silk industry, most likely as merchants. \u2018It\u2019s possible they were French,\u2019 says Dan. \u2018They had money and taste, and gave themselves a good pedigree with all the design flourishes on the house.\u2019<\/p>\n

But Mr Bunce and Mr Brown also had a hand in all these elegant architectural details<\/a>. They would have taken inspiration from the new buildings going up around the city, says Dan, sketching anything that intrigued them. \u2018Pattern books didn\u2019t come along until later,\u2019 he explains, clearly impressed by the way speculative builders \u2018embraced the big ideas of the Classical age: the architectural language of Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren.\u2019<\/p>\n

By the time Dan first came to know the area in the late 1960s, drawn by Hawksmoor\u2019s famous Christ Church and the range and quality of the surrounding architecture, Spitalfields was a virtual slum; entire terraces sat silent and empty. \u2018It was all listed, but no one really cared. Much of the area was dilapidated.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Although the houses hadn\u2019t been properly maintained, they also hadn\u2019t been subjected to \u2018intrusive home improvements\u2019. Original details remained intact because neither landlords nor tenants could afford to replace them. \u2018You could almost say these buildings were protected by poverty,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

By the time Dan moved into his house in the late-1970s, it had been empty for close to 20 years, yet he knew it intimately. \u2018I\u2019d visited it many times before it came onto the market,\u2019 he says. \u2018It was all boarded up at the front, but at the back it was derelict, so I used to climb in through the window.\u2019<\/p>\n

What he found inside was eerily beautiful. \u2018It was a magical experience wandering around this very early-18th-century house, with its dentil cornicing<\/a> and the original dresser<\/a> in the basement.\u2019 Remarkably, it was still fully furnished. \u2018It was all very odd,\u2019 says Dan. \u2018Filled with late-Victorian and Thirties furniture, all rotting in situ.\u2019<\/p>\n

When the opportunity to buy the house arose, he jumped at the chance, despite extensive water damage and collapsed ceilings. Fortunately, the floors remained solid and the panelling was largely unaffected. \u2018I moved in straightaway, living in the driest parts,\u2019 he says. With its outside loo, cold water and gas lights, Dan has fond memories of those first years, living in \u2018strange and romantic circumstances\u2019.<\/p>\n

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The restoration was a slow and painstaking process, but filled with fascinating discoveries. In the green dining room, panelling in the alcove suggested that it had once housed a built-in shelf or cabinet so he constructed a replacement using timber salvaged from other houses in the area. \u2018It\u2019s my monument to lost East End London,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

When it came to furnishing the house he sought out pieces from the late-17th and early-18th centuries. \u2018It\u2019s all of the culture of the house. Most of it was very cheap and came from local markets. It all has a humdrum quality, which I like.\u2019<\/p>\n

Looking around the house today, it\u2019s clear the renovation has been a real labour of love and Dan has shown a similarly dogged approach to researching its history. He knows the names and professions of everyone who has lived in his home and can even point to details particular to certain families.<\/p>\n

Dan believes that little holes to the side of all the internal doorways were made by a Jewish family who were tenants for a while. \u2018It\u2019s where they would have hung their mezuzahs. There were only two Jewish families on the street and both their houses bear the same marks.\u2019 Dan has also learned that the last family to live in the house was paid to leave by the landlord. \u2018This was common practice in the Forties and Fifties and this is why they abandoned furniture.\u2019<\/p>\n