Monmouth Coffee takes over five railway arches in London

Anita le Roy set up Monmouth Coffee Company in 1978, and while other coffee shop operators have mutated into global chains, Monmouth has stuck to its knitting. It sources and roasts coffee from single farms, estates and cooperatives, which it sells to wholesale customers, and from its two London coffee shops.
Le Roy has now moved the roasting, office and training facilities into a new home in Bermondsey. ID:SR, the interiors arm of architecture firm Sheppard Robson, was tasked with converting five 1830s railway arches – which more typically house light-industrial workshops – to accommodate Monmouth’s myriad needs.
‘On our first visit, we walked around with torches,’ says le Roy. ‘It had no windows, dirt floors, was drippy and dark.’ The challenge for ID:SR’s Helen Berresford, was to make it into an inviting, functional workspace for Monmouth’s twenty staff.
Now, light floods in from either end through shuttered glass doors. The brick walls of the barrel vaults have white metal cladding, which is tastefully up-lit. In the front area with its three high tables, samples from the previous day’s roasting are tasted. Beyond that, the enclosed office space has a black metal frame to give it structure, and staff sit at white-topped desks made by plywood furniture maker, Uncommon Projects.
Aesthetically, le Roy runs a tight ship, with ‘no random objects, everything in its place’. Hence faded brown aprons hang off a neat row of hooks, and sacks of beans are orderly stacked in the roasting room.
This room also houses two massive shiny roasteries. And while Monmouth echews ambitious roll-out plans, it now operates a shop and café from the arches on Saturday mornings.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Monmouth Coffee Company website
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Clare Dowdy is a London-based freelance design and architecture journalist who has written for titles including Wallpaper*, BBC, Monocle and the Financial Times. She’s the author of ‘Made In London: From Workshops to Factories’ and co-author of ‘Made in Ibiza: A Journey into the Creative Heart of the White Island’.
-
The gayest love story ever told: Jeremy Atherton Lin's memoir is a tribute to home
In 'Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told', Jeremy Atherton Lin mixes memoir with a historical deep-dive into marriage equlaity
-
This monumental Valentino book is a true Italian fashion epic
Spanning oral testimony, sketches and magazine spreads, ‘Valentino: A Grand Italian Epic’ (published by Taschen) charts the career of Valentino Garavani, whose mononymous Roman house would define a vision of Italian glamour
-
At the Royal Academy summer show, architecture and art combine as never before
The Royal Academy summer show is about to open in London; we toured the iconic annual exhibition and spoke to its curator for architecture, Farshid Moussavi