- Wool House
Wool House is a
grade II listed Victorian wool warehouse at 74 Backchurch Lane, in theLondon Borough of Tower Hamlets . It was originally five storeys tall, and spanned a total of convert|137455|sqft|m2. An additional floor was constructed on the roof in the early 2000s, creating an additional convert|12000|sqft|m2 of floorspace. The warehouse is one of two that were constructed on Backchurch lane in the late 1880s for Browne & Eagle, a wool storage firm. [ [http://www.glias.org.uk/news/199news.html Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society] ]Wool House underwent a series of redevelopments in the early 21st century. The first of these took place between 1998 and 2003, when the building was refurbished and converted into office space. [http://www.hawkinsbrown.co.uk/html_pages/b_projects/mixed/wool_1.html Hawkins/Brown website] ] An extra floor constructed from lightweight materials was also added. In 2005 the offices closed down and the building was redesigned for residential usage. [http://www.colliers.com/Content/Repositories/Base/Markets/UnitedKingdom/English/Market_Report/PDFs/NetStockAbsorptionFINAL.pdf Figure 9: City major withdrawals 2005] ] The residential conversion was completed in October 2006. The Wool House is now owned by Octagon Investments which is part of the Yianis Group owned by property magnate John Christodoulou who according to the Times Rich List 2007 is the 82nd wealthiest person in Britain with an estimated personal fortune of £835m.
Potential residents should be aware that the majority of flats have "internal" bedrooms, which do not have windows to the outside. Instead bedrooms have large double doors onto the communal living area.
The warehouse was the setting for the second series of the BBC television series
Dragons Den . [ [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmcl/59487874/ flickr user DannyMcL] ]References
External links
* [http://www.thewoolhouse.com/ Advertising website for office conversion]
* [http://bnbdevelopments.com/woolhouse/ Developers' website, including internal floorspace plans]
* [http://www.atelierten.com/ourwork/profiles/0823-back-church-lane.pdf Project description including photograph of Wool House, apparently prior to the office conversion]
* [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=51.511964,-0.066433&spn=0.002414,0.005032&t=k&om=1/ Satellite map of Wool House]
* [http://www.eyecatchingdesign.co.uk/recent_projects/dragons_den.html Photographs from Dragon's Den, series 2 of which was filmed at the Wool House]
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