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Описание: Interesting facade. The building now appears to be flats. After I posted this and other photos of Stoke Newington my curiosity took me a search engine. Which led me to a Local History website. By coincidence it suggests a historical walk which local schools might take down Defoe Road, and then north along Oldfield Road. The website has maps including from 1868, 1894, and 1914. Plus photos and drawings, and very much more. Including a map of homes and factories bombed during World War II. In a Sherlock Holmes short story, Holmes teases Dr Watson: "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear". It seems to me that the author or authors of this local history page have observed very closely. And like detectives found clues which reveal past events. "Behind every house there are hundreds of stories" I should have known about this local history website long before now. Not least because in the 1970's I lived very near Stoke Newington and often walked down Church Street. Seeing - I realise - but not properly observing with curiosity. Suggesting a route for a school walk, the author (or authors) tell us: "In this walk you will see old and new buildings standing side by side for no apparent reason. Old houses carefully restored, stand next to new ones. This walk tries to explain why. To understand it you will need to look hard at the different buildings and to imagine yourself as the different builders, each with his own problems and wishes. Each one would have built in his own period. For example, the builders of the earliest houses would not have thought of putting in bathrooms. But it's not just buildings. Because - looking more widely at other parts of London too - "Behind every house there are hundreds of stories. Why does the house design change suddenly in a street? Did two small builders lease adjoining plots and build their houses in different styles. Did one speculative builder go bankrupt before he sold his few houses and the other survive? But no! There is twenty years between the styles. The 1887 Slump came between the two. In that gap, when unemployment was everywhere, there was no building. By the time building re-started, the Sweetness and Light Style had come into fashion and so Maida Vale contrasts with Paddington. Different brick, different design, mansion- blocks, not villas: architecturally they are different worlds. "Further along is a solitary 1960s building. That was a lone German bomber getting rid of his last bombs before hurrying back to Germany. We dart backwards and forwards in history as we walk along a street. Here is a row of houses built in 1893. What forced the builder to cram five tall houses into the space of four? They were speculative houses. Who were his potential customers? Where were the first Victorian occupiers coming from and why? What was happening elsewhere to make them move?"

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