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A true original: 1734 house for sale

Aremarkably well preserved Grade II* listed house, with many of the original features from when it was built in 1734, is on sale for the first time in 35 years.

The five-bedroom townhouse is one of four “High Houses” built when Stoke Newington was a “smart village where quite rich people had their houses,” according to Mark Blackett-Ord, who has lived in the property since the mid-Eighties.

“The big arch in the middle of the row is where the carriage could go in from the street to the stables at the back,” he says. “It really was a smart area when the houses were built, but from that moment until about the Nineties it was going downhill.”

Blackett-Ord says this decline and borderline neglect explains why the house has retained so many of its original features — later inhabitants lacked the money to update the house.

Fireplaces, wood panelling and an unusual barleycorn banister that had been boxed in with plywood all date from 1734 and have a “slightly anarchic” feel typical of early Georgian architecture in contrast with the “neat and tidy” late 18th-century.

It is the most completely original of the four houses in the terrace, according to Blackett-Ord.

“The other three houses were more neglected. I went in one of them and if you looked up from the ground floor you could see through holes all the way up through the floors to the roof and see the sky,” he says.

“They’ve all been restored recently but you get a feeling of replacement rather than original as we have, we’re much more authentic.”

The house was previously owned by architectural historian Gillian Darley, who had restored the Georgian elements of the house. Blackett-Ord and his wife first saw the property at a book launch hosted by Darley and ended up buying it from her for £160,000.

They are now selling for £2.9 million through Brickworks and downsizing within Stoke Newington.

Homes&property

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2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

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