and I have no idea what happened.The house remained just as it was for several years getting dustier and more faded. Perhaps today, the front door is painted an elegant Farrow & Ball drainpipe grey.

 

To me the most interesting building in the Terrace was sandwiched between the end terraced house and the betting shop on the corner of Poplar High Street. It looked as though it might once have been a halt for travellers with horses, a stage post perhaps. In fact this building had been a stable and was now used as a haulage yard. The two-storey building to the left had fallen into disuse and the office for the haulage company was situated in a portakabin in the yard. I suppose you could say the business was still part of the same family- that of transport.

 

I completed a coloured pencil drawing of the building in 2002, attracted by the problems of depicting the variety of greens presented by the paintwork that appears to have been carried out piecemeal over the years, presumably in an attempt to preserve the wood. True to form, a little while later, there appeared a hoarding in front of the building and a notice stating ‘Dangerous Structure, Keep off’. Then posters appeared in nearby front windows heralding a campaign to save the ‘Stables’ as an historic part of English Heritage. In 2006 a demolition crew moved in and it was sad to see this characterful piece of Victorian architecture vanish into a pile of rubble.

 

English Heritage had no objections to the redevelopment providing there was nothing of archaeological interest on the site. The Victorian Society objected though, but they received little support in the local community. When the council sent letters out informing residents of the redevelopment only eight replies were received, plus a petition with 37 signatures. Perhaps the outcome was a foregone conclusion although I suspect the protestations would be louder and more vociferous today, as happened recently regarding the redevelopment of Chrisp Street Market nearby, where stallholders and local inhabitants have been protesting long and loud but still in vain. Coincidentally the developers of the Woodstock Terrace site in 2006 were Telford Homes PLC, the same company that has just been given permission to restructure Chrisp Street Market.