Sutton Place, Hackney

Sutton Place, is a small street in the London Borough of Hackney. It links Homerton High Street with St John's Church Gardens, in Hackney. The Georgian terrace of 1790–1806, is Grade II listed as a whole, together with the villas on the north side of the street which date from 1820, and is sited in the conservation area around the gardens of St John-at-Hackney. The street replaced Church Path, an historic path connecting the villages of Homerton and Hackney.

On the south side, is a stock-brick three-storeyed terrace of Georgian houses built by Charterhouse. The terrace was likely to have been designed by its inhouse surveyor, William Pilkington, between 1790 and 1806. It was then leased to William Collins in 1809. The terrace replaced a school in the large medieval Tan House (occupied by Thomas Sutton in Tudor times) which occupied the site at the east end of the terrace – next to Sutton House. Sutton Place was constructed along the line of the short path across Church field, connecting Upper Homerton with the parish church of St John-at-Hackney.

The terrace is 'soot washed'. This was a technique whereby the entire frontage was given a coating of soot, before fine white lining was applied to the darkened mortar between the bricks. This gave the appearance of much finer brickwork. The terrace appears uniform, but numbers 1 & 2 are the earlier and finer houses, with 'barrel' backs. Wrought iron railings and a light well separate the frontages from the street, with under pavement cellars for each house. It is a condition of the listing that external decoration must be black. This emphasises the austere look of the terrace.

As many as three servants would live and work in the basement of each house, hauling coal from the cellars to the grates in the upper house. The basements would have consisted of a small sitting (and sleeping) room, together with a kitchen at the back; with all the household cooking performed on a small range. Because this was such a small space, many of the washing and cooking activities took place in a range of small sheds at the rear of the buildings.

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