This south London apartment celebrates historic features inherited from its time as a Victorian school.

The Peckham loft is listed for £675,000 via The Modern House and is within the Assembly Apartments building on leafy York Grove. The school was converted in the 1980s and this one-bedroom bolthole has the hallmarks of its time as a classroom, with exposed yellow brick walls and handsome herringbone parquet flooring.

Victorian classrooms typically had tall windows, but they were placed high up the wall, so that daydreaming students couldn’t peer out of them while seated at their desks. Within a reconfigured domestic setting, the double-height windows flood the space with north-eastern light while maintaining privacy in the seating area.

Living spaces are split-level, with a mezzanine inserted above the kitchen to create a bedroom.

Crittall glass maintains lightflow into the bedroom while creating the feeling of enclosure and privacy. Meanwhile cabinetry and built-ins pick their cues from the flooring, with solid wood countertops, a freestanding butcher’s block in the kitchen, and an open tread staircase connecting the levels.

The Bussey Building and Queen’s Road are a short walk away from restaurants, bars and stores, as is Peckham Rye Park and the green expanse of Telegraph Hill.

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