Of course the houses have been altered over the centuries. There were no betting shops and taxi offices in Defoe's day, but Nos. 89 and 91 look very much as the must have done when they were built in perhaps 1780. They are three-storey buildings and No. 91 has a triangular pediment. Perhaps this is the pediment of Defoe's house and the wings on either side have been turned into separate houses. The wall construction, with the roof safely hidden behind the walls in case of fire, and the triangular pediment seem very similar. Defoe's house was a red brick house of the Queen Anne Period (1707-1714). Perhaps this is Defoe's house extended and re-fronted in the Augustan style about 1780. If so, the inside of No. 91 will show the evidence.
Party Walls
At this period, only 40 years after the Fire of London, fire was in everyone's mind. Water still had to be fetched from wells or rivers in buckets. There was a very primitive fire engine but it could not pump water high even when there was water. In those days most fires had to be damped down to stop the fire from spreading sideways and to give time for people and goods to be cleared from neighbouring houses. Therefore the Fire of London Building Regulations insisted that all party walls between houses had to be thick enough to resist fire for several hours to give time for the neighbours to escape and also to isolate the fire. This means that the thick outside walls of Defoe's house would be inside Nos. 89 and 93, on either side of 91.
There is no evidence of this in No.91 and its staircase is very steep because it is fitted across the width of the 91 frontage. A passageway and the complete staircase have to fit into a narrow street frontage. The original Defoe house was much wider and this cramping would not have been necessary there.
An Early Theory
This is a panorama of 89-93 Church Street and a early of drawing of Defoe's house
Nos. 89-93 Stoke Newington Church Street in 2010
The façade copied from the Crawford drawing |
These triangular pediments look identical. My first idea was that 89, 91, and 93 Church Street were once Defoe's house, but had been extended sideways and made into three houses. |
The façade of Defoe's house imposed on 89, 91 and 93 Stoke Newington Church Street.
The shape fits well enough but there is a real difficulty with this idea. Would any builder turn one house into three in this odd and expensive way? It could have been done but the builder would have gone bankrupt.
This was not absolute proof that the theory of Defoe's House was made into three is wrong, but then came proof comes from a surprising source.
Bombing during the Second World War
During the Second World War a flying bomb fell on Defoe Road immediately behind the High Street, causing great damage. This is all described in detail in the Defoe Road Walk.
The blast spread over a wide area. Most was concentrated on the houses immediately surrounding the impact, which suffered very severely (Black - Total Destruction) but some blast rose at above them, at an angle. The Church Street houses were seriously damaged (Red) They were further away and high above Defoe Road, so that the blast blew down the back walls at the top of No 91 Church Street and its neighbours. Their lower back walls and the fronts were undamaged.
The 1939-45 Bombing map of the
flying bomb which landed in Defoe Road |
|
Uses of the Bombing Map on this website
During the Second World War a Flying Bomb landed on Defoe Road and completely destroyed a large number of houses (Black).
The Back Elevation of 91 Church Street in 2010
The bomb blew down the top of the back walls in the Church Street houses. The lower stories were protected by the houses nearer to the centre of the bomb blast. The new repairs are in similar London Stock bricks to the originals, but they are slightly lighter in colour. Look closely and the darker brick colour continues in thin, dark lines on either side, right up to the roof. These are the party walls between 91 and the houses on either side. The blast hit the party walls edge on and they resisted stoutly. The tops of the back walls collapsed but the party walls and the facing bricks covering them survived and kept their original colour.
The theory that Defoe's house has been converted into three other houses seems to be wrong. Where then was Defoe's house?
Clues from different sources to Defoe's House and Garden
We need more clues to where Defoe's house could have been. Let us search the documents.
1896 Newspaper Report
By Thomas Wright, author of ‘The Life of Daniel Defoe,' etc.
‘Enter Church-street from Stoke Newington High-street, and you will by-and-bye come (on your left) to Defoe-road, running south; proceed a little further along Church-street and you will reach a very narrow alley called anciently Hussey's Lane, running from Church street to Oldfield road. Passing through Hussey's Lane, you will notice an old brick wall on your left. Now the spot where Defoe-road joins Church-street is the site of Daniel Defoe's house, and the old brick wall which extends also into Oldfield road is the original wall of his garden. I have many times passed down lane, but never without raising my hat to the great Daniel. The house, which was square and of red brick, had thick walls raised, as the fashion then was, so as to conceal the roof ; and we read of the window seats, various cupboards in recesses, and the massive bolts and locks to its doors. At the side was a' spacious coach-bouse, with stables, for Defoe, like Steele and other Augustans, bad a great weakness for "a chariot." The garden, with its green walk and other pleasure grounds covered four acres. A massive brick wall remains of about 120 yards in length and this was the boundary of the garden. A narrow pathway runs beside it from Church Street to Oldfield Road.
The Christian World, January 24th (Year unknown). |
The' narrow pathway' was Hussy's Lane, shown on the OS map below.
An undated newspaper report of a lecture by Professor Moore.
Between 1708 and 1709 and his death in 1731, Defoe leased Clarke House, on the north side of Church Street (now No. 106) and later, Sutton House, on the south side (now No. 95).
“It has been guessed that he purchased the freehold of Sutton House and entered it in the name of another man to avoid the danger of losing it in the quagmire of bankruptcy”, said Professor Moore.
In Sutton House, with its stable, outhouses, orchard and garden, he served the Ministers of Queen Anne, and George I and II. More important, it was there that he wrote ‘Robinson Crusoe', Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year' Colonel Jack' and ‘A Tour Thro' the whole Island of Great Britain'.
‘Despite claims to the contrary, there is no doubt that ‘Robinson Crusoe' was written by Defoe at No. 95 Church Street, stoke Newington, some time before April 25, 1719.
Defoe's widow continued to live in Stoke Newington nearly two years after his death. A grand-daughter was buried in the old parish church as late as 1783.
Interest in Roads
“Although Defoe paid a fine of £10 to avoid serving as churchwarden in Stoke Newington in 1721, he accepted his election in 1717 as one of the surveyors of highways – and it has been suggested that he took the office because of his keen interest in improving the roads. When he had to work late in London he must have found it desirable to spend some nights in the City to avoid crossing the fields towards his home. He tells something of the danger in 1726 in a description of six notorious robbers,” continued the Professor.
“Defoe had less to fear from the highwaymen than from political enemies in the Ministry, who sought to strike at the government of the day through an attack on their best pamphleteer. Long after Defoe's occupancy of Sutton House much was heard of its doors with massive locks and bolts, of a chain leading to a burglar alarm hidden in a cupboard in the wainscoted room, of ropes and ladders for secret escape.” |
We now have these clues to the position and size of Defoe's house and garden
- The west garden wall along Hussey's Lane was 120 yards long (111 metres).
- The house and grounds, including stables, out buildings in a great garden, orchard and lime walk, covered four acres. There was a spacious coach house with stables. There are not shown in the 1724 drawing by T. Crawford. Perhaps they were Lot 543, on the Tithe map, in Church Street.
Let us go back to the maps
Theory Two
The 1846 Estate map of Stoke Newington Church Street
There was an unbroken row of houses along Church Street with long gardens, but these were all much smaller than Defoe's four acre garden. Perhaps his house was not in Church Street but somewhere behind.
Next to No. 89 are the Tall Houses. They are the fine houses which Dan Cruikshank surveyed for his book ‘Eighteenth Century Houses. Architectural Press,ISBN 0 851 139 372 1. These drawings are well worth searching out.
The Tall Houses
Panorama of 81 - 87 Church Street
The houses in Church Street seem to be drawn inaccurately in the 1846 Estate Map above. There is something wrong with the number of houses and the garden divisions. This part of the Estate Map must have been inked in by an apprentice on a Friday afternoon and never checked. It is good enough to hang on the wall as a decoration but it is not accurate.
Let us look instead at the 1848 Tithe map (shown below) which will be more accurate because it was a legal document, to be consulted in disputes by all the copyholders. It must have been checked closely by hundreds of people over the years.
The houses were built for very wealthy people. There is still an arched coach entrance between Nos. 83 and 85. The Tithe Map shows that this led to a building behind. Let us look at this map. Perhaps Defoe's house was the building behind these four houses and the carriageway was the entrance to Defoe's house.
Finding Defoe's House on the Tithe Map of 1848
The 1848 Tithe Map
This is far more accurate than the Estate map as you will see if you compare the two. The Estate map was a pleasant thing to hang on the wall. The Tithe map was part of Stoke Newington Estate Rolls and was a legal document.
Below is the piece of the Tithe Map where Defoe's house seems to have been. Two sites seem possible.
- The building on lot 535, behind the Tall Houses to the east of No. 89. Church Street, or
- Lot 542 on Church Street.
(Restore normal view)
The Tithe map of the Church Street terrace.
The 1868 Ordnance Survey Map of the same area.
| Lot 88 was Defoe's Garden and by 1868
when the map makers
arrived Defoe's garden had been clear–felled. |
Where was his house?
Lot 542 on Church Street looks more likely. It had a wide view to the south, the sun on the back garden and room for the long garden wall beside the house. In 2010 there are still two large houses further along Church Street, which are set well back from the road and with magnificent views of the valley beyond. Imagine the vista when all that was open pasture land. However later research proved this to be wrong.
Later Research on Lot 535
The narrow carriage way passes through a tunnel entrance under the Tall Houses and leads to West End Yard, which is surrounded by stables and called West End Yard. West End Yard was Lot 535 on the !848 Tithe Map (which is discussed later) and has been coloured in on the 1868 Ordnance Survey below.
Lot 535 on the 1868 Ordnance Survey map
(Show the Tythe Map of the same area)
Later research showed that this was once the local stables of the London General Bus Company. Its first buses had been horse-drawn and the Stoke Newington stables were in West End Yard. Today the site has been rebuilt as private houses, with a locked security gate and a large block of concrete blocking vehicle entrance. Years ago this must have been a busy entrance with skilled coachmen turning sharply and driving their buses into this narrow gap.
When horse-drawn buses were replaced by motor buses the site became too small and was used for other purposes. Clearly, the building behind was never Defoe's house.
These would have been horse-drawn buses of course, perhaps similar to this photograph.
A bus drawn by two horses and a barrow drawn by a man.
Picture from Wikipedia |
Clearly Lot 535 was not Defoe's house, but then a deciding clue was discovered.
Theory Three
On the Tithe Map the present archway and passage is lot 535, and lies between lots 534 and 536.
Counting westwards from the passage,
| lot 536 is |
No. 87 Church Street today. |
| 537 is |
No. 89 “ “ “ |
| 538 is |
No. 91 “ “ “ |
| 539 is |
No. 93 (The Bookmaker's) |
| 540 is |
No. 95 (The Taxi Office) |
This means that Defoe's house would have been No. 95 Church Street but it has no lot number. Lot 542 is the garden behind and lot 543 is the U shaped building in Church Street. Presumably lot 541 was Defoe's house but is not numbered. It appears that the plaque is on the correct site.
The Final Clue
After Defoe had died his house was bought by William Frend, mathematician and economist. His son was also an economist, and his daughter Sophia, married Augustus De Morgan. The couple moved to Chelsea and their son was William de Morgan, the potter. He is famous for his glazes and later became a novelist, writing Victorian novels in the style of Wilkie Collins, which are still worth reading.
|
 |
| A typical William de Morgan tile |
Sophia wrote a good deal and towards the end of her life her memoirs, ' Three Score Years and Ten', were published. They contain the final piece to our puzzle. Sophia had been born and grew up in Defoe's house and she remembered the house well. She says: -
‘My room, a large wainscoted one, was entered by as step of worm-eaten wood at the door. The windows were brushed by the branches of a tall elm, and in one corner was a large sky-lighted closet giving out to the roof, from which tradition said that Defoe used to escape from his political pursuers and get out on the top of the next door house, which partly adjoined ours on that side'.
There is a copy in the Hackney Archive from which this is copied. |
In his book ‘Defoe in Stoke Newington ', 1889, E. Forbes Robinson says:-
‘It was a gloomy and irregular pile of red brick – a dreary and pretentious building, remarkable for its number of doors with massive locks and bolts. Its walls were thick, having deep window seats and curious cupboards in the recesses.
The doors of the house were many – to allow of escape – but they were well fitted with bars and bolts – to exclude unwelcome guests.
‘In the year 1713 he fortified his house ‘like Robinson Crusoe's Castle' and from there he was carried into custody by officers and constables and a great number of persons to their assistance.' |
Here we have Robinson describing how Defoe was liable to be arrested by his creditors and political enemies and how he tried to defend himself and Sophia de Morgan describing his escape route.
Here we have it. Defoe's house was next door to our modern No. 93 and Defoe could have escaped from his house to the adjoining No.93. (The words ‘partly adjoined ours' accounts for the position of the modern plaque, which is set a little down Defoe Road, away from the corner of No. 95, in the position of the modern Taxi Office.
The roof of 93 would not have changed much, although the use of the building has altered considerably. Today No. 93 is a Bookmaker's. This house (No. 95) was built by 1868, on the site of Defoe's house and has a completely different roof style. If this were all happening today, Defoe would have gone downstairs and found himself among people laying bets. What better way of escaping from his political enemies than going downstairs and mingling with the anonymous punters.
In 2009 it is amusing to think of Defoe hopping across from his roof to this one and climbing through the hatch into No. 93. The roof access to 93 was in the valley between the two roofs, so as Defoe escaped he would have been hidden from below.
| The Hatchway in roof of No 93. The tiled roof beyond is of No 95, built c. 1868,
on part of the site of Defoe's actual house. |
Having found out where Defoe's House stood, let us try to account for Crawford's extraordinary drawing.
It is very different from the real Sutton House, but can be explained, quite simply.
Let us compare the 1724 drawing of Defoe's house with the 1848 Tithe Map site.
Drawing of the back of Defoe's House, by T. Crawford, 1724
The house is shown on the left, with the entrance to the field, or to his own yard, on the right.
Defoe's House and stable on the 1848 Tithe Map looking south.
(Move the mouse over the map to reveal the artist's possible view point)
The map has been turned upside down so that we are standing on the north side of the High Street and looking down the modern Defoe Road.
We know that there was a spacious coach house with stables. There are not shown in the 1724 drawing by T. Crawford. Presumably the stables were Lot 543, on the Tithe map, in Church Street. It is typical stable shape, with a central stable yard and buildings on three sides. The rear building extends backwards and was probably the stable cottage with entrances from both sides. I have drawn an imaginary building beside the house to show the artist's problem.
Where the artist must have stood to draw his picture.
T. H. Crawford drew Defoe's house from an angle, to show the front and one side. To see this he must have stood on the other side of Stoke Newington Church Street, not far from the end of Hussey's Lane. The artist wanted to draw Defoe's house but from where he stood, the corner of the stables cut out his view of the side of the house. Therefore he left out the stables and stretched the garden wall right across the house and far beyond. This was very flattering, to Defoe, making his land appear much wider than it was. This is what many artists do to make their pictures attractive. Photographers cannot do it in the same way, which makes some buildings impossible to photograph properly.
The Houses Built on Defoe's Stable Block
At last we have proof that Defoe's house was in Church Street next to 93 Church Street. The plaque is in the correct position but on a house built about 1868, which Defoe could never have seen. But where was the garden? There seems to be no room for it. What clues do we have to the Garden? We need more clues to the house and the 4 acre estate.
The Search for the Garden
The 1868 Ordnance Survey Map
This map shows the neighbourhood in great detail. It is an early example of what is generally called the 1871 series of London maps. They took several years to create so the individual sheets vary slightly in date. Before this period the Ordnance Survey had not made maps of London because the private mapping companies, who had the ear of the government, regarded any suggestion of this as unfair competition. Towards the end of the 1860s this rule was relaxed and the Ordnance Survey pulled out all the stops to produce the most detailed series of London maps there has ever been. Every tree, garden path and outhouse was drawn. It took so much time and expense that no such detailed maps were ever made again until aerial photography became available.
Compare the two gardens on either side of Hussey's Lane.
Compare the two gardens on either side of Hussey's Lane.
The garden to the left was full of trees and garden beds, while the one on the right, behind Defoe's house has been clear felled. A huge area reaching almost to the High Street and into the next field to the south of Pawnbrokers Lane, is empty. Not only has it been cleared but it is numbered as building lots. The Ground Landlord was planning to attract builders.
In this piece of the map some of the Church Street houses, including Sutton House, have been demolished and entrance to the future Defoe Road entrance marked out. There is a short length of road and the Assembly Rooms built behind four of the houses.
Lot 88 on the 1868 map measures just over 1 acre yet we know that Defoe's garden, with orchard and lime wlak, measured 4 acres. Defoe's land must have stretched much further. Lots 88 and 95 add up to amost exactly 4 acres so his grounds must have stretched right up to backs of the houses in the High Street.
++removed stuff
Why was the land clear felled?
The whole area to the backs of the High Street houses had been clear-felled. The landlord was planning to fill the whole space from Hussey's Lane to the back of the houses in the High Street with houses. A brickfield stretching south of Pawnbrokers Lane was already in operation, so development there was also planned. The area was to be transformed.
The Ground Landlord's Plan
For centuries the people who owned this land had grown crops or raised cattle. Now the Ground Landlord planned a crop of houses. They could be far more profitable than hay or milk.
First he would have to lay out a road pattern, with sewers and surface drainage. Then he would mark out building lots and let them, probably on a peppercorn rent for a few years and. Then the builder would sell the houses the houses and the Ground Landlord would charge a Ground rent to the tenants. Each quarter they would have to pay him a rent for living on his land. This rent would go on and on for hundreds of years. The Ground landlord was thinking long term.
For this the builders would need bricks, so that by 1868, the earth that Defoe had dug was already being burnt as bricks for future houses.
How would the Landlord finance it all?
To build houses the builders would need bricks, so first the landlord leased the ground to brick makers and by 1868, the earth that Defoe had dug was already being burnt as bricks. Gradually the brick makers would use up the topsoil, which contained Brickearth and organic matter and so would make better bricks than the London Clay below. The brick makers would sell their bricks to any builders nearby and pay the landlord for using his earth.
After a time the brick makers would release the land and the landlord would lay out his roads and sewers, using the money he had charged the brick makers for using his land.
Then he would mark out the ground as building lots.
The 1848 Tithe Map
Lot 505 was Defoe's Paddock and 542 was his garden.
Compare Lot 86 and 88 with the garden next door. Something drastic had happened. By the time the surveyors appeared to draw their new map, the whole of the corner behind Church Street and the High Street had been clear felled. Defoe's lime walk, his orchard, and the garden which is shown on the 1848 Tithe map, had disappeared. In their place was a brickfield which stretched down past Pawnbroker's Lane.
Houses were not only be built on Defoe's land: they would be built of his land. Defoe had walked on the Clay and Brickearth which became the bricks in the local houses. Thousands of bricks were burnt on the site so that the neighbourhood must have been filled for months with acrid smoke. Soot descended in clouds and local people had to close their windows and cover their mouths. Then came the armies of bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters and decorators for month after month. At this period, the census shows that one man in ten in London was in the Building Trade. No machines. All the work done by hand. And still new tenants crowded into the area.
Why? Because between 1860 and 1880 the Cities of London and Westminster were so cut about with new roads new sewers, new railways, the Embankment of the Thames, and other works, that nine tenths of the inhabitants fled on the railways to the new suburbs of Stoke Newington, Camden Town, Peckham and a dozen more. For years London was surrounded by a ring of fire, where the bricks were being baked for the new houses and Defoe's Garden was part of this fiery furnace.
Link to John Summerson, ‘The London Building World 1860-1880.’
The 1894 Ordnance Survey Map
Plot 522 on 1848 Tithe Map and
Lot 88 on the 1868 map
By 1894 the complete corner at the back of Church Street and the High Street had been filled with houses. Defoe Road, Dumont Road, Brodia Road, Kersley Road, the north side of Kynaston Road and the end of Dynevor Road had been filled with terraces of houses. Only a tiny corner of land right in the centre was not covered with houses and that appears to have been some sort of yard with buildings and an entrance from Dumont Road. Rather than giving some houses extra long gardens, the ground landlord saw a profitable use for this awkward patch.
Houses were not just built on Defoe's garden: they were built of his garden. The London Clay and Brickearth which Defoe walked on and cultivated are the material which was baked to form the house bricks. He walked on, and dug this earth as he thought out the plots for his stories. Today, each time people enter their own front doors in any new roads built near by at this time, they may walk into one chapter or another of Robinson Crusoe. Which house bricks was he standing on when he thought of that terrifying scene where Robinson Crusoe first saw the footprint of Man Friday? Would he have to run or fight? It is in one of the houses somewhere. These houses are literally made of stories.
The Newcomers
The people who were moving in wanted a respectable, upward- moving district. They were the striving, progressing foremen and craftsmen. There had to be change of street names if these houses were to sell, so Pawnbrokers Lane became Kynaston Road. No doubt the pawnbrokers continues in business in the High Street, but the name was lost. Nearby Cut Throat Lane, which ran from Church Street to Newington Green, was renamed Wordsworth Road, a far more respectable name. The whole area was going up in the world.
The houses were not just built on Defoe's garden: they were built of his garden. The London Clay and Brickearth which Defoe walked on and cultivated are the material which was baked to form the house bricks. He walked on, and dug this earth as he thought out the plots for his stories. Today, each time people enter their own front doors in any of these new roads, they may walk into one chapter or another of Robinson Crusoe. Which house bricks was he standing on when he thought of that terrifying scene where Robinson Crusoe first saw the footprint of Man Friday? Would he have to run or fight? It is in one of the houses somewhere. These houses and the ones nearby, are literally made of stories.
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