Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 14/11/2016

TQ 3978,
16/778

TELEGRAPH AVENUE SE 10,
Enderby House

(Formerly listed as: CHRISTCHURCH WAY SE10 Enderby House)

II

Early-mid C19 building of 2 storeys 2 windows and with wide projecting bay placed
diagonally across left corner, Modern rendering with incised lines. Stone cornice
and blocking course. Sash windows, some with vertical bars. Nondescript external
appearance but contains a handsome octagonal first floor room (giving onto the
diagonal bay, from whence the ship owner saw his vessels approach). At angles
narrow columns, with leafy capitals, support enriched entablature. Above this
a domed roof light with cast iron tracery. Oval landing outside has doors curved
to wall shape.

Enderby House belonged to the firm of Samuel Enderby, the largest whalers and
sealers in Britain, and pioneers of Antarctic exploration. Hermann Melville
describes their flagship and crew in "Moby Dick". The decline of British whaling led to the Enderbys ceasing to have an interest in Enderby’s Wharf in 1854.  It was then taken on by Glass, Elliott and Company, a contractor for the first transatlantic telegraph cable (lost while being laid in 1857) then the second in 1858 which operated for a few weeks.  The business was reconstituted in 1864 as the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, who manufactured cable at Enderby’s Wharf to an improved design for another attempt in 1865, and a fourth in 1866, both times with the Great Eastern as the cable-laying ship, and by the end of 1866 had achieved the first successfully working transatlantic telecommunications cable connection. 

The building is listed partly for its important associations with the history of industry and technology, especially the laying of the first transatlantic cable.

Listing NGR: TQ3914178761

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26350500

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)