Cable Street

This wonderful apartment lies on the first floor of a former Victorian public house in the heart of London’s East End. The original pub, and the apartment above, sit upon Cable Street, one of London’s most notable historic thoroughfares. Beautifully designed to an exacting standard, the 700 sq ft apartment has two bedrooms and an expansive living area with large quadripartite sash windows. The design evokes and sensitively mirrors the historic nature of the building and its important location, set within the conservation area and shadow of Hawksmoor’s ecclesiastical Baroque masterpiece, St George-in-the-East.

The first documentary evidence of the area dates to 1223, when it was mainly rural with open fields, with the apartment’s building occupying an area known as Gun Field. Cable Street itself started as a straight path along which hemp ropes were twisted into ships’ cables; these supplied the many ships that would anchor in the nearby Pool of London, between London Bridge, Wapping and Rotherhithe. More recent historical connections include the famous Battle of Cable Street, which was fought on the street in 1936.

The area is also home to a somewhat macabre, yet fascinating piece of London’s history. In 1886, the body of the then-famous local Ratcliffe murder, which took place in 1811, was discovered at the crossroads directly outside the building. Local legend has it the pub’s landlord kept the skull behind the bar as a souvenir. Indeed, a public house has existed on the site long before the current building, which opened in 1850 as the Crown and Dolphin, was completed. During the late 19th century it was the centre point of the notorious Victorian red-light district. It is now the final set piece of one of the last remaining sections of Georgian and Victorian terraced housing on Cable Street, and indeed in greater Shadwell, an area veritably steeped in history.