Malplaquet House is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Georgian house at 137–139 Mile End Road,

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

, London. The four-storey house was built as one of three in 1742 by Thomas Andrews; only two of the houses survive to the present day. A wealthy

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

widow was the first occupier of the house, with the brewer Harry Charrington living there from 1794 to 1833 (

Charrington Brewery Charrington Brewery was founded in Bethnal Green, London, in the early 18th century by Robert Westfield. In 1766, John Charrington joined the company, which then traded as Westfield, Moss & Charrington from the Anchor Brewery in Stepney. It merge ...

had offices in the Mile End Road). Charrington greatly altered the house, and following his occupancy the house was subdivided, and shops built on the front garden. Malplaquet House is named after the

Battle of Malplaquet The Battle of Malplaquet took place on 11 September 1709 during the War of the Spanish Succession and was fought between a French army commanded by the Duke of Villars and a Grand Alliance force under the Duke of Marlborough. In one of the blo ...

, one of the main battles of the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...

, which took place in France in 1709. However, it is not known whether this naming came from the Jewish widow of the London merchant, who made his living selling war salvage, or from a later resident, the military surgeon Edward Lee. During the rest of the 19th century, the house played host to a variety of small businesses including a bookmaker and a printer, before being occupied in 1910 by the Union of Stepney Ratepayers. The Stepney union remained in the house until 1975. During their occupation, Malplaquet House was further subdivided and additions made to its structure. Malplaquet House was damaged during the

London Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

, but repairs began in 1951 after a £100 donation from the War Damage Association. The architect

Richard Seifert Richard Seifert (born Reubin Seifert; 25 November 1910 – 26 October 2001) was a Swiss-British architect, best known for designing the Centre Point tower and Tower 42 (previously the NatWest Tower), once the tallest building in the City of ...

provided new shop fronts for the house. Malplaquet House was badly degraded by the 1990s, and the intervention of the Spitalfields Trust helped save it from potential demolition. In 1998, Tim Knox (former director of

Sir John Soane's Museum Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect, John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects, and ...

and the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

in Cambridge, now Director of the Royal Collection) and landscape gardener Todd Longstaffe-Gowan purchased the house from the Spitalfields Trust for £250,000. It had been uninhabited for over a century. Knox and Longstaffe-Gowan's collections of

objets d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

and esoteric objects, obtained from

Portobello Market Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from south to north, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is ...

, auctions and

flea markets A flea market (or swap meet) is a type of street market that provides space for vendors to sell previously-owned (second-hand) goods. This type of market is often seasonal. However, in recent years there has been the development of 'formal' ...

, expanded to fill Malplaquet House. In 2010, it was described by ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' as "possibly the most superbly restored, privately owned Georgian house in the country". The house is part of a group of Grade II listed buildings on the Mile End Road, listed as 133–139 Mile End Road. It has been listed

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

since March 1978.

References

Bibliography

* {{Authority control Grade II listed houses in London Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Georgian architecture in London Houses in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Houses completed in 1742 Stepney 1742 establishments in England 1740s in London