Houses, History, Restoration & Us.

Stephen Bull is a creative artisan specialising in the conservation and repair of Georgian and other historic listed buildings. Born in Leytonstone in 1952, he left school at 15 to pursue his own path through art and architecture, working as a fine artist, illustrator, typographer, visualiser and art director before focusing on historic buildings.

After training as a commercial artist and studying the arts intensively in evening classes, Stephen built a successful career in graphic design and editorial work, including senior roles with leading London and Paris publishers. He designed influential interiors titles such as the 1985 New House Book for Conran Octopus, working directly with Sir Terence Conran and contributing to the early conversation around what would become known as “shabby chic”.

In the mid‑1980s he turned his attention from page to place, repairing his own Soho premises and then an 1826 terrace house on London’s South Bank. This led to the founding of Stephen Bull HBCR (Historic Building Conservation and Repair) in 1988. Since then he has worked on a wide range of notable Georgian and Victorian buildings, including the Robert Adam-designed headquarters of The Georgian Group in Fitzroy Square, the Grade II* German Lutheran Church in Alie Street, the Master Shipwrights House in Deptford and the Grade I Union Chapel in Islington, as well as many residential Georgian houses from Vauxhall to Greenwich.

Stephen has long been active within the conservation world. A member of both The Georgian Group and SPAB since 1988, he was elected SPAB Guardian and Trustee, serving as Vice Chair of the Technical Panel and Chair of the SPAB London Group between 2010 and 2019. He has delivered lectures and talks to conservation officers, professionals, homeowners and postgraduate students for organisations including the Historic Chapels Trust, IHBC, SPAB, The Georgian Group, The Union Chapel, the Weald & Downland Museum and the MSc Architectural Conservation course at the University of Kent.

Simon’s path to Georgian houses was perhaps less deliberate, but no less formative. Born into working-class roots, ancestry research led Simon to uncover not only two generations born and buried in Christ Church, Spitalfields, during the mid-1700s, but also Huguenot descendants on his maternal side of the family.

After a series of unremarkable jobs following school, a chance opportunity in 1994 led him into estate agency as a trainee in Lewisham. From there, his career took him across much of South East London, including Forest Hill, Brockley, Blackheath and Greenwich.

The pivotal moment came in 1999, when he moved to the city fringe and joined Stirling Ackroyd in Shoreditch. It was there, amid the Huguenot houses of the then emerging Spitalfields conservation area, that he first encountered the architectural world that would come to define his career. What began as a professional step soon became a lasting fascination, particularly with Georgian architecture and, in time, the Baroque.

Beyond architecture, Simon was equally drawn to Georgian history, captivated by the culture of the period and by the lasting mark it has left on the way we live, build and think today.

Over the past 32 years, Simon has worked as an estate agent and later founded and grew his own Shoreditch agency, Davey Stone, specialising in historic homes and unique spaces. This allowed him to pursue a lifelong passion for distinctive property, one that has deepened with every Georgian home sold in London and beyond. In 2014, he acquired Unique Property Company, a specialist agency devoted to unusual, historic and alternative homes across London and the South East. Today, Georgian Houses of London sits alongside Unique as a dedicated specialist division of that brand.