Sutton Place was built on a site originally occupied by Tan House, the residence in Tudor times of Thomas Sutton, the founder of Charterhouse School. Built between 1790 - 1806, the terrace of town houses on Sutton Place are flanked on either side by the churchyard and gardens of St John at Hackney church and Grade II* listed, Sutton House, the Tudor residence of Sir Ralph Sadler, Secretary of State under Henry VIII. Sutton House is the oldest residential building in Hackney and a rare example of a red brick building from the Tudor period.

At the rear of all the houses on the street are 130 foot gardens leading to a jointly owned 'night soil' path. This was for the removal of waste from the houses, which would be collected by cart. Main sewerage arrived with the culverting of the famous Hackney Brook in the mid 1800s, which runs in a large cast iron tube far below the back gardens, before turning South down Isabella Road to join the main sewer network at Old Ford.

As many as three servants would live and work in the basement of each house, hauling coal from the cellars to the grates in the upper house. The basements would have consisted of a small sitting (and sleeping) room, together with a kitchen at the back; with all the household cooking performed on a small range. Because this was such a small space, many of the washing and cooking activities took place in a range of small sheds at the rear of the buildings.