STEPNEY GREEN, E1

This house was built in 1705, half burned, and rebuilt in 1706. For seventy years the Council had used it as a clinic but had just failed to destroy the original staircase. The top twenty courses of the front wall had to be taken down, the bricks numbered, and then rebuilt to incorporate stainless steel rods to tie them into the internal walls. The first floor bathroom includes a hand-made walk-in limestone shower with a tray as big as a beach towel. Our client found 360 pieces of ancient pitch pine parquet in a skip which the builders managed to clean and relay without losing the will to live.