297 Whitechapel Road

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293-297 Whitechapel Road
Contributed by Survey of London on Nov. 30, 2017

This trio of four-storey properties was, despite its heterogeneity, possibly all built around 1840, perhaps in part at least by John Naylor Topping, a tea- dealer, who leased No. 295 to John Rose, another tea-dealer, in 1844. William Grellier, as District Surveyor, had directed rebuilding in 1839 on account of thin party walls. No. 295 appears comparatively little altered from that time. No. 293 was restored, possibly refronted, in 1881 after fire damage, Merritt & Ashby being the Spencer Phillips estate’s builders. Thereafter Raymond Klapper, confectioner, moved in and set up a Post Office. The rendered front of No. 297 disguises the lowering of the heads of the upper-storey windows, undertaken since 1975. George Milward ran the Railway Coffee Tavern here from 1886 up to the First World War. Appleby & Matty, dressmakers and milliners, were at No. 297 in the 1920s. The backs were truncated and refaced in 1899–1900 for railway works.¹