Subject

Architect. We only have some ideas about who this might be, from Charles Saumarez Smith. In 1862 he may be the J. McKenzie Knight who designed the lovely Vestry Hall in Bancroft Road E1, and is now (2020) the local history library. Also "In 1894 John M Knight of Vestry Hall, Mile End designed a house in Clapton for George Lewis [High Road/284 Battle Road] see East Sussex Record Office. Also for the same client [of Hollington] Stables and Coach House, Hollington [The Chestnuts, Glen Road] in 1894. Hollington is north west of Hastings. There is a Clapton in Sussex as well as in London . He used a builder Isaac Elliott from Hollington The architect Theodore Moore [1863-1935] ARIBA [1887] of Whipps Cross, Walthamstow, was articled to him a John McKenzie Knight of Vestry Hall, Bancroft Road, Mile End was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1877. He was also a civil engineer [and member of the Institute of Civil Engineers] see The British Architect 69, p.433 and lived then at Bushwood, Wanstead. see also The Building News and Engineering Journal, 1908, p. 848. He appears in the 1888 edition of the Naturalists’ Journal."

We fear that two men are being confused here since London's Town Halls gives the architect of the Vestry Hall as "the vestry surveyor James Knight" and, to our eyes, the quality of the Town Hall does not match up to that of the Vestry Hall.