Inside the creepy mansion that time forgot

An East End mansion that was abandoned for more than 100 years is up for sale, packed with historic details.

The current owners of Malplaquet House, on the Mile End Road in Stepney, have restored the five-bedroom house, guided by historic documents and photographs.

They've also crammed it full of religious statues, period furnishings, wall-mounted animal heads and other taxidermy to recreate a nineteenth-century, if rather spooky, appearance.

"Recently sympathetically restored, it is one of the most remarkable and atmospheric houses in London," say agents Fyfe Mcdade.

"One of the grandest and best-preserved of all the historic old houses in the area, Malplaquet House is one of London's forgotten mansions."

The Grade II-listed house, up for sale for £2,950,000, was built in 1741 of London stock brick and extended around 1800.

But in the 1830s it was divided up into lodgings, and twenty years later two shops were built across the front garden, hiding the house from view. By 1895, the house was deserted, with just a few rooms used as storage.

All this changed when in 1997 the house was rescued by the Spitalfields Trust which has, with the present owners, painstakingly restored it.

The 4,500sqft of internal space includes five bedrooms and seven reception rooms, and stands in a lavishly-planted garden.

Original features include a baroque chimneypiece in the drawing room, stone-flagged floors and original panelling, joinery and moulding.

And the decor is authentic too, with rooms painted in the original 'arsenical' green. There are four-poster beds, a staircase is lined with animal heads, and one bathroom contains a collection of crucifixes.

Other items on display include Napoleon's death mask, human and elephant skulls and an ancient Egyptian sphinx with hieroglyphic text. There's also There's also a sedan chair made for Queen Charlotte and painting by Sir Anthony Van Dyck.

The lower ground floor kitchen has been restored with salvaged marble worktops and glass-fronted cupboards.

"The accommodation, on the raised ground, lower ground and two upper floors, is particularly spacious and flexible, while its north-south axis makes it exceptionally light and pleasant to live in," say the agents.