News that a Victorian workshop in the Shoreditch High Street Conservation Area may soon be boarded up and left to rot has been met with alarm by the Victorian Society, which fears that the move could lead to the building’s demolition.
One of a fast-decreasing number of nineteenth [century] buildings linked to Shoreditch’s furniture-making past, 6 Bowl Court retains much of its original character and features, including paired taking-in doors on the second floor and a simple beam hoist. Although thought to be late-Victorian, evidence suggests that the building may contain parts of an earlier structure. Its neighbour, 5 Bowl Court, was demolished without conservation area consent some time between 2004 and 2006. Now campaigners fear that the eviction of squatters from the building could mark the first stage in the eventual destruction of 6 Bowl Court and herald the erasure of yet more of the East End’s industrial heritage.
‘We’re very worried about 6 Bowl Court,’ said Heloise Brown, Conservation Adviser of the Victorian Society. ‘An intriguing building which adds a great deal of character to Shoreditch, the workshop is a valuable part of the High Street Conservation Area. Buildings like this are a physical record of the development of the East End. To destroy them is to strip London of its past.’
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