The first layer of the overwritten street was laid by refugees. When France revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, tens of thousands of Protestant Huguenots crossed borders, and many settled in Spitalfields, east of London, building the silk-weaving trade Fact.
The attic windows
Look up at the Georgian brick houses on Fournier Street and the roof-level windows are unusually wide — a weaver’s design to bring daylight to the looms Fact. A time when the house was the factory survives in a window. At the end of the street stands Christ Church Spitalfields, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1729 Fact — the immigrant lane and the established church’s spire facing each other is this district’s original composition.
A reconstructed house
Dennis Severs’ House at 18 Folgate Street recreates, room by room, the home of a Huguenot weaver family — a “still-life drama” of candlelight and sound Fact. Walking its rooms in silence is the best indoor way to feel the layers this series is about Estimate.