The original part of Stoke Newington was concentrated at the eastern end of Church Street. The western end of this street was built up mostly in the early 18th century.
Job Edwards was a carpenter who leased a section of land east of the churchyard. Edwards built the greater part of Church Row – nine houses in a terrace.
Although two of the houses had datestones of 1706 and 1709, all of Church Row was probably completed towards the end of the 1690s. Edwards, who died in 1717, also built five houses between Church Row and Edward’s Lane by 1710.
Most of the houses in Church Row had two storeys and attics, five bays, pedimented doorways, and decorative gate pillars. 8 Church Row was owned by Mrs Lardeau, a widow whose young lodger John Howard, later the 18th century prison reformer, married her and in 1755 inherited her property. In 1781-2 Church Row housed James Brown, merchant and author of a Persian dictionary. Benjamin D’Israeli, a stockbroker and grandfather of the future Prime Miniter lived at number 7. The same house was visited in the 1840s by Dickens and Thackeray when it housed Frederick Mullet Evans, proprietor of Punch. Wynne Baxter (d. 1920) lived at number 170 after 1883, followed by his son Francis William (d. 1932), the local historian, upon whose death the whole row, which was owned or held in trust by the Baxter family, was surrendered for demolition.
Will Owen, who sketched the houses, wrote: “(Church Street) is a dull and uninteresting street, with here and there the decaying relic of a glorious old house and one Ancient Inn – ’The Red Lion’ – trying vainly to look young; and at the end comes a row of early eighteenth century houses, built of that rich red brick that grows richer with age, with pretty porches creeper-covered and this is Church Row.”
Church Row was bought in 1932 by the borough council which built the new town hall on the site in 1937.
