203 Whitechapel Road

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203–209 Whitechapel Road
Contributed by Survey of London on Nov. 17, 2017

This was once a uniform four-house terrace of 1865–8. Earlier buildings here, possibly originating in a 500-year lease of 1672, had housed Robert Gladding (1808–96), a bookseller on the site of Nos 203–205 from around 1830 to 1862 when he moved to 151 Whitechapel Road, and William Grayling, then Charles Brandum, oil and colour makers, at No. 207. That unit was rebuilt in 1906 after a fire, the work by Walter Gladding overseen by Henry Wharton Ford, acting as architect to the District Railway Company, which had become the freeholder. Thereafter William Brandum continued as an oil and colour maker. Gabled parapets like that which survives at No. 209 were replaced at Nos 203­–205, probably in 1923. The polychrome brick facades were restored as part of High Street 2012.¹