A Private View: the historic architecture connoisseur who reclaimed the poetry of Georgian living in Hackney

“I became fascinated with historic buildings quite young, to the amusement of my contemporaries, who found themselves lectured on the finer points of Georgian architecture by a 10-year-old … I might have been rather insufferable,” jokes Marc, now a trustee of The Spitalfields Trust.

The formal prowess of 18th-century architecture was a world away from the resolutely modern house that Marc grew up in. “My civil engineer father had very rational thoughts about how a house should be designed,” he recalls. In his early adulthood, Marc’s yearning for pre-20th-century architecture came to fruition: his first house with his wife, Olivia, was a sturdy Victorian terrace off the Archway Road. But, by chance, the pair came across Cassland Road, which runs through the heart of Hackney, minutes from the expanse of Victoria Park. “A potter friend of ours needed a lift to her studio on Lauriston Road. I drove her and came across this terrace. I’d not seen anything like it here before.”

Marc and Olivia bought the house, and so a decade-long renovation project began. Marc’s passion for the past informed how he wanted it to take shape, but it was architect John Simpson – whose work the pair had seen in an exhibition curated by architectural historian and friend, Alan Powers – that they entrusted the design and structural side of things to. “We wanted to have a laundry and a second bathroom,” Marc says. “We asked John: ‘Could you come up with a design for an extension to the house that looked as if it had been added, say, in about 1820?’ And that’s exactly what he did.”

Marc and I talk while sipping coffee at the table in his remarkable garden, surrounded by a rare variety of old roses – his and Olivia’s “thing” – with extravagant names such as Variegata di Bologna, and the Banksian rose, named after an 18th-century diplomat. Their scent lingers as we admire the rear of the house, the fruits of Simpson and the Jordans’ labour, which is distinguished from the rest of its stock-brick form by its ochre-coloured lime render and delicate cast-iron railings. It is an utterly enchanting scene: an Italianate terrace extends on one side, with a lily pond and potted plants, chock-full with budding flowers on the other.

Once the extension and structural repairs had been completed, the issue of dressing the interiors ensued. The wisdom of Patrick Baty, a historic paint specialist, paired with Marc’s knowledge, was invaluable here – along with his willingness to make friends with the neighbours. “The fact is, if you take a row of houses like these as a whole, collectively they’ve got everything. So you can figure out what’s missing quite readily – some of what we did was just about knocking on people’s doors and asking, ‘Can we come and have a look?’” 

Along with the terrace, a remarkable house on Bedford Square also served as inspiration when it came to reinstating lost period features, including a honeysuckle-pattern frieze in the drawing room. Period panelling here was reproduced based on the original in the upstairs study; the likeness is remarkable, its differences indiscernible.

Marc also visited salvage sites to find period-appropriate finishes. “It was before the internet, so I’d be down at Lassco (an architectural antique salvage spot) every weekend. The fireplaces in the double reception room are from the 18th century, they came from Bath, and it was rather a coup at the time to get a pair. We’d been looking for a Regency marble pair, which I couldn’t find. We came across these and I remember thinking, well, that’s that solved – in a slightly different way than I’d envisaged it.”

Despite his commitment to authenticity, Marc is keen to point out that the house has served the family as a gracious and comfortable home, where their now-grown-up son was raised. As much as restoring its original splendour was a concern, so too was ensuring that it would be a friendly, welcoming space. “We made sure that all the modern conveniences in the kitchen were discreetly hidden in 18th-century style joinery,” Marc recalls. Here and throughout, the joinery – which includes enough bookcases for the most complete of personal libraries – was the handiwork of Robert Patterson, “a good friend who was very patient with me,” says Marc. “I would give him a scribbly little sketch and he’d turn it into something wonderful.” 

Trials and tribulations were, as with any sensitive renovation, part of the process. Case in point is the rich-red, cast-iron Victorian bath that was carried up and down four flights of stairs twice – once on arrival, and more recently after it was re-enamelled by a specialist on the Isle of Wight. Surprises of the more fortuitous kind included the discovery of a series of concealed original features, including a fireplace in the kitchen and a cellar – now home to an Aga and a wine store, respectively.

Alongside its more tangible, brick-and-mortar heritage, Marc was keen to look into the home’s past residents; a well-timed history project assigned by his son’s school was reason enough to dive into archives and rifle through old pictures of this house on Cassland Road. Two hang on the walls of the house: one shows a couple on VE Day in 1945, while the other shows children playing on the street before the first world war. He discovered that “in the mid-19th century, there was an Irish doctor living here, who in one census lived with his sister and two servants, and by the next had a wife and three daughters.” 

A home to many over the years, Marc wistfully considers the future of his singular Georgian home, the culmination of painstaking, sensitive, and ultimately rewarding work. “You’re just the next custodian after a whole lot of others and probably more to come,” he says. “And there’s plenty left for an enthusiast to discover.”

The Spitalfields Trust