Conservation & Heritage Issue 49 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 82
Heritage no longer at risk:
Redchurch Street weavers’
tenements restored
• Grade II-listed Shoreditch building saved from dereliction and set to be removed from
Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register.
• Derelict single-room weavers’ tenements restored to provide unique historic retail space:
interiors reveal layers of history, with original elements alongside the new.
• Let to Canadian-Egyptian clothing brand, KOTN for their first European store, continuing
the area’s fashion and textiles tradition.
The Truman Brewery has worked with Chris Dyson
Architects to restore and bring new life to two derelict
buildings at 113 & 115 Redchurch Street in Shoreditch,
East London. One of these, number 113, is Grade II -listed
and has been on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register
for 13 years. With the restoration complete and a new
tenant moving in, the former weaver’s cottage is no longer at
risk and can finally be removed from the register.
The five-year project has been a labour of love and involved
a careful process of analysis, repair and traditional craft
skills. All materials that could be saved have been reused
– in many places, the timber beams and panels retain their
peeling paint, and the narrow, well-trodden stairs their
creaks and character. These traces of history are preserved
and revealed alongside finely crafted new joinery
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The pair of adjacent buildings had been derelict for many
decades before the Truman Brewery acquired them.
Number 113 was in a particularly perilous condition. It was
constructed in 1735 as one of a row of weavers’ cottages by
William Farmer, a local builder. The original weaving loft
was just about still intact, although a previous fire on that
floor had made it unsafe to enter. The front of the building
was severely unstable and deemed a structural hazard. The
front façade had weakened over time, its brickwork having
untied and separated completely from the side elevation,
with large sections at risk of collapse. In 2012, it was added
to Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register on account
of its poor condition.
Below, 113 & 115 Redchurch Street (Credit: Rachel Ferriman)
Conservation & Heritage Journal
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