The Coach House

This delicately composed two-bedroom home is laid out over three half-levels. Measuring over 800 sq ft and set in a Victorian former coach house, it lies within the Victoria Park conservation area and is brilliantly close to Victoria Park itself. The original structure has been respected and beautifully preserved, with the internal spaces reconfigured and reconceived by architects Matheson Whitely in collaboration with the current owner to a sympathetic design, true to the building’s original 19th-century light-industrial intent.

Setting the Scene

When Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, Hackney was still merely a series of small villages. However, with the coming of the train line and the exceptional growth of London’s population, east London rapidly expanded and developed; this area of south Hackney was predominantly built up in the 1860s.

The Coach House lies at the end of Queen Anne Road, set discreetly behind a simple stock brick façade; tall original double plank doors offer few clues that a private residence lies within. The spaces inside are peaceful and contemplative, with rooms stripped back to their bare essence and the most honest of materials: untreated and repurposed floorboards, exposed joists, reclaimed cast-iron radiators and chalky-patinaed walls with butt & bead panelling featuring intermittently. A series of niches carved high into the walls lend an almost monastic air to some rooms. Louis H. Sullivan’s famed axiom of ‘form follows function’ has perhaps never been more applicable than in this home.