19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields, London

19 Princelet Street is one of the most extraordinary and – in recent decades – the most mysterious buildings in Spitalfields. Most of the early-eighteenth century Huguenot houses of the area have been restored since they served as sweatshops in the earlier twentieth century, and overcrowded slums in the nineteenth century. However, at 19 Princelet Street, the oppressive poverty of the people who inhabited its rooms most recently is still palpable. Most surprising is the survival of the Victorian synagogue built onto the back of the earlier house. Complete with its fittings and holy ark, it is a testament to a Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewish community which helped to define this part of East London, and which has since vanished with so little trace.

Photography: Lucinda Douglas-Menzies

We are in the process of making this building safe and accessible, with the aim of opening up to the public. If you’d like to follow or support our journey of transformation, please sign-up to our mailing list or find us on Instagram. We’d love to hear from you if your family history connects to the building.

Historical context

19 Princelet Street is a five-storey Grade II* listed building in Spitalfields, built in 1719 as a merchant house, and by 1740 documented as being occupied by the Huguenot Ogier family. Peter Abraham Ogier, the head of the family and a successful silk merchant and master weaver, had arrived as a seven-year old refugee in London in 1697. Towards the end of the 18th century a weavers’ garret was added to the house to produce silk fabrics. In 1869, the building was purchased by a community of newly arrived Polish Jewish immigrants. In 1870 a synagogue within the house had been consecrated, and by the early 1890s had been extended to occupy the rear garden with, below, a basement meeting hall for the synagogue’s ‘Loyal United Friends Friendly Society’. The building functioned as a place of worship for this community for over a century, with a Hebrew school, and the basement put to many uses including weddings. The top two floors were rented out to members of the community, including David Rodinsky who lived there with his mother and sister for some years, before mysteriously disappearing in the 1960s, leaving behind a room filled with his belongings. By that time, Jewish occupation in the area had diminished dramatically. In 1980, the synagogue was deconsecrated and the house was sold to the Spitalfields Trust. The Trust purchased the building with the original synagogue furniture and artefacts in situ, along with all the contents of Rodinsky’s room. Rachel Lichtenstein published the cult classic Rodinsky’s Room (Granta, with Iain Sinclair, 1999).

Significance of the building

This small and beautiful historic building is unique. There are no other purpose-built synagogues from this period still in existence in Spitalfields. The synagogue was established by Yiddish speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who once lived in this area in large numbers. 19 Princelet Street is also the only known example of a synagogue in the UK housed within an eighteenth-century Huguenot merchant’s house. Spitalfields is in one of Britain’s most multicultural areas, which is best known today as the home of a large Bangladeshi population. This project, including the preservation of this historic building, and the planned activities and events are of national and international significance. 19 Princelet Street celebrates the diverse history of the area, reveals the, now almost entirely disappeared, landscape of the former Jewish East End, and exists as an architectural record of lost trades, communities, and former ways of life.

Current story of the building

The Spitalfields Trust has always intended to restore the building into a public heritage site, that shares the story of the different communities who have lived in the area over time. With support from Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Trust is now leading on transforming this building once more into its latest twenty-first century reiteration. The Trust is currently investigating the structure of the building to ensure that it can be made safe for the public to visit this truly remarkable site. In collaboration with the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive, and conservators, the Trust has also been documenting and preserving the building’s historic artefacts, including the synagogue textiles. Once building works are complete, the Trust intends to open 19 Princelet Street to the public with a broad programme of events and activities, which reflect the building’s history, display its powerful atmosphere, and reveal its special place in the local community of Spitalfields, both past and present. You can keep up to date with what’s happening at 19 Princelet Street by signing up to our mailing list, or following us on Instagram.

The future of the building

To make the building fully accessible, and to bring to life the Trust’s vision for 19 Princelet Street, will require a significant capital project. The Trust has made, and will continue to make, applications to heritage funding organisations. The Trust is also appealing to private donors, to help it preserve and gently repair this very important historic building. You can help preserve this beautiful and significant building by donating using the link below.