Great Eastern Railway to Ilford. Bethnal Green
Great Eastern Railway from Liverpool Street to Ilford
The railway running from Bethnal Green Station goes north eastwards
TQ 35275 82777
This posting covers only the north west corner of the square
This is the inner city but Bethnal Green still has its village green, and here it is. There is also a museum and a grand church - as well as a poshish square full of good works. There are many other churches and philanthropic organisations in this corner. There are also railways - the Great Eastern railway runs eastwards with the first of several ghost stations here and the Central Line is also here, with memorials to the terrible wartime accident. This is a busy area and it is where people live and work - there is a lot going on, and there is also a Bhuddist fire station.
Post to the south Bethnal Green
Post to the east Globe Town
Post to the west Bethnal Green
Bancroft Road
This part of Bancroft Road was called Devonshire Street in the 19th
Devonshire Street Station. Opened in 1839 by the Eastern Counties Railway. It was a simple wooden station used as a temporary terminus for the Eastern Counties Railway while Bishopsgate was being built. The entrance was to the north of the viaduct reached by an alley way from the alley called Providence Place. It closed in 1840 when the line was extended to Shoreditch.
Bethnal Green – the Green and the Gardens
The Green. This is the medieval Green or Poors' Lands which lies along Cambridge Heath Road. It was originally, part of the common land of Stepney. When building increased in the area in the late 17th land was purchased by a group of people anxious to preserve open land in the area and set up as a trust in 1696. This included a charge for the support of the poor of Bethnal Green and money to lay the land out as a public garden. Maintained by London County Council part was preserved as Bethnal Green Gardens and recreation ground by the LCC in 1895. The green is triangular and stretches from Old Ford Road, tapering to a point at the railway line. In 1825 some of the land was purchased for St John’s Church which divided the Green into two. In 1868 more and was sold for the Bethnal Green Museum. In 1888 following attempts by the trustees to allow land to be sold for development the land was passed to the London County Council on condition it remained as a ‘recreation-ground’. It was remodelled as a public park under Lt. Col Sexby with an ornamental wrought-iron enclosing fence; walks and shrubberies; a sunk garden with a central fountain, a rockery; a gymnasium for children. The park opened in 1895.
Museum of Childhood. In 1851 William Gladstone, suggested a museum be built in Bethnal Green while leading locals bought the common land and lobbied for a museum. In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park and a museum was conceived as a result. This was housed in a temporary iron structure in Brompton - nicknamed the Brompton Boilers. It was then decided to add similar Museums elsewhere in London but only Bethnal Green was e interested and in 1868, construction began under architect, J.W.Wild. The work was carried out by S Perry & Co., led by Col Henry Scott, of the Royal Engineers. The Prince of Wales opened the Museum in 1872. The final structure was much less grand than Wild’s original plans. Female inmates of Woking Gaol laid the fish scale pattern marble floor and F W Moody designed murals – agriculture on the south wall and art and industry on the north - with female students of the South Kensington Museum Mosaic Class. The exhibits were made up of Food and Animal Products Great Exhibition, bits of various the South Kensington collections plus 18th French art from the Wallace Collection. The Royal family began to pass stuff they had been given to the museum. In 1922 Arthur Sabin became curator and decided to make it more child-friendly. He began to put together child-related objects helped by Queen Mary and a donation of a collection of toys. In the Second World War the building became a British Canteen. In 1974 Roy Strong, director of the V&A, reopened it as the Museum of Childhood transferring relevant collections there. In 2005 the Museum was closed for refurbishment and new extensions and facilities were added,
Bethnal Green Museum Gardens. The section of open ground round the museum was initially maintained by the Government but in 1887 it passed to the Metropolitan Board of Works, subsequently the LCC, then the GLC and now London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is required under the Act for the purchase of the land that it is 'laid out and for ever maintained ... as an ornamental garden'. The original layout was designed by A. McImyre, the superintendent of Victoria Park. The gardens are separated from the museum by Museum Passage and until recent refurbishment works the gardens consisted of lawns, with rose beds, plane trees on the perimeter, with picnic tables on each side. The semi-circular area at the front has now been changed as ramped access to the building and there is increased planting.
The Eagle Slayer. The sculpture by John Bellshows a shepherd, who, upon discovering one of his sheep has been killed by an eagle, fires an arrow and kills the eagle. This may be the version cast in iron by the Coalbrookdale Company in 1851 and shown at the Great Exhibition at the centre of a fantastic cast-iron structure, referred to as a 'rustic summerhouse'; It was placed in the garden in 1927 and was much damaged. It has now been restored and taken inside the museum, although the plinth remains in the gardens
St. George’s Fountain. The fountain which was the largest piece of majolica work ever made, stood at the centre of the International Exhibition in South Kensington in 1862. It was by by the sculptor J. Thomas for Minton made up of 369 parts and was 10 metres tall. It was displayed outside the Bethnal Green Museum until 1926 when St.George fell off and it had deteriorated beyond repair. The statue of Sr. George is now held at the Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent and much of it is said to be crushed in the museum pathways.
Memorial fountain in Museum Gardens. This is dedicated to the memory of Alice Maud Denman and Peter Regelous, who lost their lives while attempting to save others in a fire at 423 Hackney Road on 20 April 1902.
St John’s Church. This was originally a Chapel of ease to St. Matthew in 1828The church itself was built in 1826-8 by John Soane, as his third church for the Commissioners. It is in brick with a tower made up of detached pillars and a circular cupola. An intermediate storey was omitted on cost grounds. There were later alterations by Teulon and it was badly damaged in the blitz so in 2004 there has been a larger renovation programme. The interior was remodelled in 1871 by William Mundy after a fire. Paintings of the Stations of the Cross, by Chris Gollon, were commissioned 2002. There are bronze tablets members of the East London Regiment of Royal Engineers as from the Boer War till 1945; St John’s was the regimental church for the Regiment. From 1844 the Patron was Brasenose College Oxford and incumbents came from there. In the 19th however the church supported a staff of three assistant curates, a scripture reader and 24 women visitors 1858. The church now supports a programme of contemporary arts and multiculturalism.
Vicarage built on former Poor's Land east f the church in.1852. It was enlarged by G.M. Hills in 1879 and destroyed by bombing in 1941 and replaced in Victoria Park Square.
Churchyard. This includes a Great War Memorial. This is a granite cross bearing a figure of Christ. On the base is inscribed the single word: ‘REMEMBER’.
Bethnal Green Library. This is in a wing of what was latterly a private Lunatic Asylum. The library opened in 1922 partly funded by the Carnegie Trust The brick building of 1896, was converted as into Bethnal Green Public Library and incorporates a cottage and a wing of the had been Bednal House. The Library had been the male ward block of Bethnal House Asylum of l896 probably built by James Tolley jun. and converted in 1922 by A.E. Darby, Borough Surveyor and Engineer. The entrance was remodelled in the 1920s, with an inscription above and there is also a 1920s service wing. The lending library was added in 1922 and is top-lit with decorative glass lights. On the wall are oval plaster reliefs of Darwin, Marx, Morris and Wagner, by a local artist, Karl Roberts.
War Memorial, on first floor of the library which was unveiled in 1923. There is a stained glass of 'Peace', flanked by ‘Manhood’ and 'Motherhood'. Bethnal Green's War Memorial Committee had hoped to pay for a Children's lending library and Reading Room but only raised enough for the window.
Bethnal or Bednal House also called Kirby's Castle stood facing on the green. It had been built for Kirby in 1570 and became known as the Blind Beggar's House. In 1727 it was leased by Matthew Wright, who opened a private asylum here incorporating adjacent the Red House and White House. In 1843 Kirby House itself was pulled down and rebuilt with a new block for male patients. The asylum eventually moved to Salisbury and the site was purchased by Bethnal Green Council
Shadwell War Memorial in Bethnal Green Gardens. This is a tall crucifix on a Portland stone base. The base is inscribed as follows: “A.M.D.G. / IN LOVING AND HONOURED MEMORY OF/ THE MEN OF SHADWELL WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES/ FOR KING AND COUNTRY IN THE WAR 1914-1918/ R.I.P.” The plaque was replaced in November 2013 by the Council.
Public Shelter, which disguises vents to the underground built in the 1940s in the manner of Holden's stations with rounded ends and a thin, projecting concrete roof
Kiosk, erected in the late 1940s. In modernist style.
Stairway to Heaven. By Harry Paticas as a memorial to the 170 people who lost their lives on the stairway of the tube station in 1943. It is a white concrete plinth with Bronze plaques to those who died. Opened in 2013.
Braintree Street
123 The Fountain Pub. Demolished in 2013
49 Baitul Aman Mosque and Cultural Centre. This was set up in a disused garage in 1998 and it is hoped to build a permanent mosque.
Burnham Street
Drill Hall. Army Cadet Centre in what was Tower Hamlets Engineers Volunteers Centre
Museum House. Built by the East End Dwellings Co., was founded in 1884 to house the very poor while realizing some profit. Following clearances by the Metropolitan Board of Works the Metropolitan Street Improvements Act of 1883, the company was leased a plot where it built four-storeyed Museum House in 1888.
Cambridge Heath Road
Bethnal Green tube station is on the Central line and lies between Liverpool Street and Mile End stations. It was opened as part of the delayed Central Line eastern extension in 1946 as part of the New Works programme. It is finished with pale yellow tiling, originally made by Poole Pottery and some original panels remain on the platforms. Some tiles showing symbols of London designed by Harold Stabler. The station, and some above ground ancillary buildings, show the design influence of Charles Holden. In the Second World War the unfinished satin was used as an air raid shelter under the administration of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green – who had warned that crash barriers were needed - and became an overnight shelter. The stairs into the station were the site of a crush during an air raid when 170 people died.
memorial bronze plaque above the stairs to the station. This has an inscription below an enamelled coat of arms: “Site of the worst civilian disaster of the Second World War. In memory of 173 men, women and children who lost their lives on the evening of Wednesday 3rd March 1943 descending these steps to Bethnal Green Underground Air Raid Shelter, Not forgotten.
Gate Piers, The station was built beneath Bethnal Green gardens and at the entrance are classical gate piers designed to disguise vents.
Cornwall Gardens
Sutton Dwellings. Three blocks built in 1909 by the ‘charitable trusts' of William Richard Sutton, carrier of Golden Lane. Painted crests on the walls.
Digby Street
In the 1840s the road had included a dump for night soil taken from houses by refuse collectors.
Digby Estate - pre-war art deco council blocks of the Digby Estate, 1935-6 by E.C.P Monson, Bethnal Green Met. Borough Architect. This includes Butler House by Monson from 1934, with the same stripy brick
Digby Greenways Community centre. Regeneration of the estate in 1998 by Levin Bernstein included the conversion of what is said to be a depot for London Council Trams. Said to be of 1900, into a community centre. My guess is it’s a transformer substation built by Bethnal Green in 1916
Digby Street depot. Local authority engineering department and depot which included a disinfecting station and stables. Now housing and community space. An electrical substation was opened here by the Mayor of Bethnal Green in 1916. Although Bethnal Green had applied for an order giving them powers for electrical generation plus a dust destructor in 1899 they continued to receive power from the Stepney generator until 1916. Transformers were built at New Tyssen Street and here at Digby Street depot in 1916 with Westinghouse equipment. This was later taken over by the London Electricity Board following nationalisation.
Godley VC House memorial plaque. In 1992 the Council renamed a housing block to commemorate Sidney Frank Godley who was awarded the Victoria Cross in management of machine guns under heavy fire after he had been wounded in August 1914. He subsequently worked as a caretaker at Cranbrook School in Tower Hamlets
Gawber Street
Globe Primary School. The school opened in 1874 as a Board School called Globe Terrace School. It was remodelled in 1900 and renamed Globe Road School. Following evacuation in the Second World War the empty school building was used by local fire-fighters to store the fire engines and trucks needed to fight fires during the blitz. The school was also used as a base by the ARP wardens and the ground floor was filled with families after their own houses were destroyed by the bombs and fires of the blitz. The school re opened in 1944 for both Junior and Infants and was renamed Globe Primary School. For a while in the 1950s it was also known as Pilgrim School,
Globe Road
Globe Town. This was Globe Lane in the 18th 1708 probably because it was a track from Bethnal Green to the Globe pub at Mile End. Before that it was called Theeving Lane. The northern part of Globe Road was once known as Back Lane and the southern part as Globe Piece - Cattle were pastured at Globe Fields on route to Mile End cattle market. Globe Town devolved after land on the Eastfields estate was developed in the late 18th by a consortium of builders and aimed at a middle-class market. The name was revived in the 1980s when the borough was divided into small neighbourhoods for governance
264 Sweet Tea House. Tibetan Art Gallery
Housing by Samuel Barnett’s East End Dwellings Company. A group of cottages in a terrace designed by Henry Davis in red brick with rendered arched panels over doors – one of which shows the company name. They replaced weavers' cottages of the 1850s removed in slum clearances between 1900 and 1906.
Merceron House. Red and yellow-brick with terracotta decorations designed by Ernest Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Company in 1901
Montfort House. Red and yellow-brick with terracotta decorations designed by Ernest Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Company in 1901
Globe Primary school. Mosaics along the wall facing Globe road. The theme is s animals from around the globe and everything in the design was drawn by children in Artyface workshops.
Gretton Houses. Five-storeyed parallel blocks with terracotta decoration for the East End Dwellings Company. Originally built as two blocks with a wide carriage arch between them. The rear blocks were rebuilt after bomb damage by Henry C. Smart & Partners in 1947. .
156 Sigsworth Hall. Victory Baptist Church. This is on the site of what was the Weslyan Methodist Chapel. It was previously a base for the Salvation Army who bought what was then Gordon Hall, from the Methodist Church in 1959. They rebuilt it and renamed it Sigsworth Hall after one of their staff Alice Sigsworth in 1960
Globe Road Wesleyan Chapel, now demolished, was opened in 1819 and later taken over by Dr. T.B. Stephenson of Children's Home as a mission hall named after General Gordon. It was sold to the Salvation Army in 1959. Its burial ground was once known as Mile End Cemetery’
Craft School Memorial Garden. The garden was created on the old Wesleyan burial ground to ‘perpetuate the memory of its work, and of the ideals of beauty and hand craftsmanship for which it stood’. The design was carried out by F W Troup, adviser and governor of the Craft School. The entrance gate and Art Nouveau boundary railings were by a former blacksmith who had taught at the School with the Rose and Ring emblem recalling the ‘Rose and Ring Club, from which the Craft School grew’. The bronze plaque on the gate of 1925 shows The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and inside is an inscribed plaque by two craftswomen. A copper weather vane with a globe on a flagpole showed East India Company 17th ship, The Globe. A copper flower bowl was placed on the central mausoleum and an oak-framed map showed East London in 1703. Flagstones were donated by Bank of England. The garden was opened in 1926.
The Crafts School was established in 1890 and closed in 1915 because of financial problems during the Great War. They had moved to this site from Whitechapel where they had grown from ‘The Rose and Ring Club’ and later in 1907 moved to Stepney Green.
Saint Anthony’s church This church was funded by the sale of the building and site of All Hallows Staining in the City of London. It was designed by Ewan Christian and consecrated in 1879. The parish was united with that of Saint Simon Zelotes in 1936 and it was demolished in 1937
Flats - blocks of London County Council flats between this road and Sceptre Road.
277 Camel pub. Faced in vaguely Art Nouveau tiles in plain brown exterior tiles. Inside is an etched Camel mirror.
Globe Road and Devonshire Street Station opened in 1884 Built by the Great Eastern Railway to the west of the site of Devonshire Street. The station was at the junction with Globe Road. There were two entrances - on the east side of Globe Road and facing onto the rod. The entrance remained into the 1950s with an elaborate arch and gates with the station name above in the ironwork. The other entrance serving Devonshire Street, now Bancroft Road, but also Morpeth Street via a subway under the viaduct. The station only had two platforms which were served by new local lines on the then quadrupled railway. These platforms were on the viaduct and the booking office was at street level at the London end in Globe Road with another in Devonshire Street. The Devonshire street booking office and arch was still identifiable in the 1970s with ‘Great Eastern Railway’ in stonework on the bridge over. It was closed in 1916. In 1938 it was demolished but the entrance gates survived
Globe Street Junction Signal Box. Closed 1894
Devonshire Street Signal Box. This was above the tracks at the London end. It closed in 1916.
Devonshire Street West signal box. This was at the country end of the station. Built in 1884 to replace an earlier box.
Acton Engineering. On the station site in the 1950s.
184 Muaythai. Thai boxing club. This appears to be in premises adjacent to and under the railway arches, previously used as a snooker club.
131 The Railway Tavern
Buddhist Centre entrance. This is behind the centre which is in Roman Road. There is a large mural of flowers on the party wall with 343 Globe Road. There is also a sculpture over the gateway which shows the Nalanda crest with other symbols. This includes a lotus flower, a pair of deer and the wheel with eight spokes symbolic of the path to enlightenment. Nalanda was the name of a university which flourished in India from the 5th century BCE to about 100 CE. The design of the crest is at least a thousand years old.
Knottisford Street
Tuscan House. A twelve-storey system-built tower by Tower Hamlets Council. 1965.
Museum Passage
Four ornate cast iron lamp posts of 1897. This is an old path across Bethnal Green which in 1872 was planted with plane trees as a division between the Green and the Museum.
Old Ford Road
5 Netteswell House 17th brick house with later alterations and the oldest surviving house in Bethnal Green. Above the entrance which now leads to garden is inscription "Netteswell House - AD1553 - Remodelled 1705 and 1862". The entrance is from Old Ford Road and the house overlooks the grounds of Bethnal Green Museum. It was originally attached to the chapel of ease built in.1512. This house was built in 1553 by Sir Ralph Warren, Lord Mayor of London, and Oliver Cromwell's great-grandfather. But this was been replaced by two houses in 1720; and themselves replaced in 1787-91 by Ruby for Anthony Natt Rector of Netteswell in, Essex. It was for a while the museum curator's official residence, but is now in private ownership.
Community food garden. This was established in April 2012 and is managed by the Globe Community Food Garden Committee who allocate plots to residents.
Peary Place
This was once called North Passage – which presumably is why the name was changed to that of the Polar explorer, Robert Peary.
Roman Road
This was once called Green Street and at the Cambridge Heath end it divides the closes of the Green. It is shown on Gascoyne's map of 1703 as a drift way but it was called Green Street by 1883. It was renamed because of Roman finds in the 19th
11 Bethnal Green Fire Station. Built 1969 by the GLC Architect's Department. in dark brick and concrete
19-35 Museum House. Built in 1888 this is the the earliest surviving tenement by Davis & Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Co. It has three storeys above shops on and had flats with shared WCs.
50 Bacton Tower. This was built in 1965 by Yorke Rosenberg & Mardell. It was the first fully. System built tower in what was then the new Borough of Tower Hamlets, It is in pre-cast reinforced concrete clad with YRM's trademark white tiles. Since 1990 it has had a pitched roof and flimsy porch
51 the old Bethnal Green Fire Station which has since become the Western Order of Buddhists. London Buddhist Centre. The fire station was built in 1888-9 by Robert Pearsall for the Metropolitan Board of Works, in a free Arts and Crafts Gothic in red brick and -terracotta decoration. It has a symmetrical front, with entrances through brick arches. The hose tower was once topped by a, turret. A new entrance has been made, through a gateway with a wrought-iron design depicting the crest of Nalanda, by Arya Daka. The interior was remodelled by M.E Wharton with Windhorse Design and includes murals of natural landscapes by Chintamani. There are two shrine rooms with figures of Buddha, also by Chintamani. There is a courtyard with flowers and a water sculpture. The main entrance to the building is a glass-walled conservatory with a gilded Buddha surrounded by plants
37 The Atlas Pub. This pub was here before 1869 and closed towards the end of the Second World War. It has since been in use as a shop.
62 Albert Jacobs house. Council offices
62-66 Empire Picturedrome. This opened in 1913 with independent operators throughout its existence. In 1946 it was renamed Empire Cinema and in 1955, Premier Cinema. It was closed in 1959. The building was demolished and the site is now under Alfred Jacob House
63 The Devon Arms. This pub was here before 1852, and then called Lord John Russell. It closed in 1924.
67 Black Horse Pub – which is written in cement lettering on the gable. This pub was there before 1869 and in 1883 rebuilt by Hammack & Lambert. It was a Truman’s Brewery house but bought by Bellhaven Brewery in 1985. It closed in 1995 and was used as an art gallery.
85 Baitful Murmur academy. This mosque and cultural centre moved to 100 Roman Road. However following a dispute some members moved back here.
100 site of The Weavers Arms. This was a Taylor Walker Brewery pub, which was here before 1850. It was rebuilt after the Second World War as the ground floor of a block of flats. It closed in 1994 and was used as council offices. It later became a mosque and an Islamic cultural centre.
100 Globe Town Mosque and Cultural Centre. The Group moved from 85 Roman Road to these former council offices.
109 The Ship pub was there before 1860 and closed during the Great War. It remained a beer house throughout its existence/
123 The Star & Garter Pub, This was open from before 1869 to 1914.
129 The Old Friends Pub, This was Watney’s House there before 1869. It closed in 2009 and is now a Chinese takeaway.
Brick arch surmounted by a globe and a small public garden on the corner with Globe Road as some sort of entrance to Globe Town
Sceptre Road
London County Council flats with sun balconies and courtyards. Five stories high
Stainsbury Street
Bonner School, Bethnal Green is a two form entry school. This was originally Bonner Street Board School built on the site of Twig Folly British School in 1875 in Queen Anne style buildings by Edward Robson and John Stevenson. It was reorganised in 1930 and again, following evacuation in 1945 and then renamed Bonner Primary in 1949. The previous school on the site had been Twig Folly British School which had opened on 1830 as a Lancastrian School in Sidney Street. It had been built here with money from both Parliament and the British and Foreign Schools. Society and conveyed to trustees in 1837. It was eventually replaced by Bonner Street School. The Board School buildings were demolished in 2005 and replaced.
Memorial on the school wall on the corner of Hartley and Bonner Street. This is a stone tablet beneath a Della Robbia style roundel of infant in swaddling bands. Erected in 1936, in place of a temporary wooden shrine of 1916, to commemorate the dead of Mace Street, "Love shall tread out the baleful fires of anger & in its ashes plant the tree of peace"
Sugar Loaf Walk
The name is thought to come from a public house. There was a clothing factory here, making uniforms during World War One.
Victoria Park Square
Flats rugged Brutalist for the fire station round the corner in Roman Road.
12 Police Station built in 1997
16 This was the clubhouse and chapel of the Bethnal Green University Settlement,. Built in 1888 it is a 2-storey clubhouse and a chapel both in red: The University Settlement was established here by three Oxford theology graduates to provide 'entertainment, rational amusement, and social intercourse' for the people of the East End. In 1887 they were based in No.17 and built this at No.16 plus a hall to the rear which is now demolished They Shared the premises with the Repton Club, which included one of the largest boxing clubs in the country. The building is now offices and flats.
Victoria Park Square Hall operated as a cinema during 1912 and 1913.
17 Temple House. Workers Educational; Association. Offices. The staircase incorporates a dog-gate. Its gateway was brought from Hythe Church, Kent, by Sir Wyndham Deedes, principal of the University House Settlement, who lived here. from 1923 to 1939. He retired to Bethnal Green from the army and served on the council and the L.C.C. The house was built as a pair with 18 in the late 17th.
18 The house is said to have a Tudor Well in the cellar. It houses the Young Foundation and was the Institute of Community Studies. The Young Foundation is in the same buildings where Michael Young and Peter Willmott researched and wrote Family and Kinship in East London in the 1950s. The Institute for Community Studies had been set up in 1954 as an urban studies think tank, bringing academic research and practical social innovation together. It helped create over 60 organisations, including the Open University and the Consumers’ Association. Michael Young has been described as “the world’s most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises” As the author of Labour’s manifesto in 1945 he played a key role in shaping the post-war welfare state. In the early 1950s he set up the Institute of Community Studies. He was involved in the creation of NHS Direct, the spread of after-school clubs and neighbourhood councils and in his later life was instrumental in creating the University of the Third Age and Grandparents Plus.
21 In 1853 Henry Merceron leased this to the Queen's Own Light Infantry Regiment of the Tower Hamlets militia. by the 1860s this included a barracks and the Territorial Army site in Globe Road still used by army cadets.
26 Montfort House. Flats built for the East End Dwellings Company by its architects Davis & Emmanuel in 1901 as part of their scheme between here and Globe Road. Inside are enclosed stairs and self-contained flats rather than single rooms. The name reflects the legend of the blind beggar, who was supposedly Simon de Montfort in disguise.
Mulberry House. This was one of the last schemes for the East End Dwellings Co. Built by Arthur Kenyan in 1934-6. It is on the ground of what was Aldgate House in 1643,
Our Lady of the Assumption. The Church and Priory of the Assumptionists is on the site of Aldgate House, and later Park Congregational Chapel. It is Roman Catholic built 1911-12 by Edward Goldie. The site was given by Florence Cottrell-Dormer.
Priory of the Assumptionist Fathers. .
Aldgate House. This had been built in 1643 and the site of the house and its gardens are now covered by Mulberry House and the Church and Priory of the Assumption. In 1760 Ebenezer Mussell had bought part of the City gate of Aldgate when it was demolished, and used the bricks and stones to build an annexe to this house – hence the name.. It was demolished in 1806 and replaced by houses, and in 1816 by the Park Chapel
Park or Ebenezer Chapel was built on site of Aldgate House in 1811 and originated in Independent Calvinists under minister .Robert. Langford . It closed in 1876.
Swinburne House stands on the site of the Red House.
Red House. This was one of the buildings of the Bethnal Green Asylum. Built before 1831.
Welwyn Street
Mendip House. Built by the East End Dwellings Company in 1900, with a plaque on the wall facing Globe Road.
Wessex Street
28 Bangabandhu Primary School. The school dates from1989 and has been in these premises since 1991. The name of the school means 'Friend of Bengal'. It is the honorary title given to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who helped found Bangladesh in 1971
National School. The John Scurr Primary School was previously on this site and it was later an annexe for Morpeth School.
Sources
Aldous. London Villages
Bethnal Green Free Art and History. Web site
Bethnal Green tube Station. Wikipedia, Web site.
British History Online. Bethnal Green
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
City and East London Beer Guide
Closed Pubs. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor. Liverpool Street to Ilford
Devonshire Street Station. Wikipedia. Web site
East London History Society Review
GLIAS Newsletter
Globe Primary School. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Web site
London Gardens Online. Web site.
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Lucas, London
Robinson and Chesshyre. The Green,
St.John on Bethnal Green. Web site
V&A Museum of Childhood. Web site.
Young Foundation. Web site
The railway running from Bethnal Green Station goes north eastwards
TQ 35275 82777
This posting covers only the north west corner of the square
This is the inner city but Bethnal Green still has its village green, and here it is. There is also a museum and a grand church - as well as a poshish square full of good works. There are many other churches and philanthropic organisations in this corner. There are also railways - the Great Eastern railway runs eastwards with the first of several ghost stations here and the Central Line is also here, with memorials to the terrible wartime accident. This is a busy area and it is where people live and work - there is a lot going on, and there is also a Bhuddist fire station.
Post to the south Bethnal Green
Post to the east Globe Town
Post to the west Bethnal Green
Bancroft Road
This part of Bancroft Road was called Devonshire Street in the 19th
Devonshire Street Station. Opened in 1839 by the Eastern Counties Railway. It was a simple wooden station used as a temporary terminus for the Eastern Counties Railway while Bishopsgate was being built. The entrance was to the north of the viaduct reached by an alley way from the alley called Providence Place. It closed in 1840 when the line was extended to Shoreditch.
Bethnal Green – the Green and the Gardens
The Green. This is the medieval Green or Poors' Lands which lies along Cambridge Heath Road. It was originally, part of the common land of Stepney. When building increased in the area in the late 17th land was purchased by a group of people anxious to preserve open land in the area and set up as a trust in 1696. This included a charge for the support of the poor of Bethnal Green and money to lay the land out as a public garden. Maintained by London County Council part was preserved as Bethnal Green Gardens and recreation ground by the LCC in 1895. The green is triangular and stretches from Old Ford Road, tapering to a point at the railway line. In 1825 some of the land was purchased for St John’s Church which divided the Green into two. In 1868 more and was sold for the Bethnal Green Museum. In 1888 following attempts by the trustees to allow land to be sold for development the land was passed to the London County Council on condition it remained as a ‘recreation-ground’. It was remodelled as a public park under Lt. Col Sexby with an ornamental wrought-iron enclosing fence; walks and shrubberies; a sunk garden with a central fountain, a rockery; a gymnasium for children. The park opened in 1895.
Museum of Childhood. In 1851 William Gladstone, suggested a museum be built in Bethnal Green while leading locals bought the common land and lobbied for a museum. In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park and a museum was conceived as a result. This was housed in a temporary iron structure in Brompton - nicknamed the Brompton Boilers. It was then decided to add similar Museums elsewhere in London but only Bethnal Green was e interested and in 1868, construction began under architect, J.W.Wild. The work was carried out by S Perry & Co., led by Col Henry Scott, of the Royal Engineers. The Prince of Wales opened the Museum in 1872. The final structure was much less grand than Wild’s original plans. Female inmates of Woking Gaol laid the fish scale pattern marble floor and F W Moody designed murals – agriculture on the south wall and art and industry on the north - with female students of the South Kensington Museum Mosaic Class. The exhibits were made up of Food and Animal Products Great Exhibition, bits of various the South Kensington collections plus 18th French art from the Wallace Collection. The Royal family began to pass stuff they had been given to the museum. In 1922 Arthur Sabin became curator and decided to make it more child-friendly. He began to put together child-related objects helped by Queen Mary and a donation of a collection of toys. In the Second World War the building became a British Canteen. In 1974 Roy Strong, director of the V&A, reopened it as the Museum of Childhood transferring relevant collections there. In 2005 the Museum was closed for refurbishment and new extensions and facilities were added,
Bethnal Green Museum Gardens. The section of open ground round the museum was initially maintained by the Government but in 1887 it passed to the Metropolitan Board of Works, subsequently the LCC, then the GLC and now London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is required under the Act for the purchase of the land that it is 'laid out and for ever maintained ... as an ornamental garden'. The original layout was designed by A. McImyre, the superintendent of Victoria Park. The gardens are separated from the museum by Museum Passage and until recent refurbishment works the gardens consisted of lawns, with rose beds, plane trees on the perimeter, with picnic tables on each side. The semi-circular area at the front has now been changed as ramped access to the building and there is increased planting.
The Eagle Slayer. The sculpture by John Bellshows a shepherd, who, upon discovering one of his sheep has been killed by an eagle, fires an arrow and kills the eagle. This may be the version cast in iron by the Coalbrookdale Company in 1851 and shown at the Great Exhibition at the centre of a fantastic cast-iron structure, referred to as a 'rustic summerhouse'; It was placed in the garden in 1927 and was much damaged. It has now been restored and taken inside the museum, although the plinth remains in the gardens
St. George’s Fountain. The fountain which was the largest piece of majolica work ever made, stood at the centre of the International Exhibition in South Kensington in 1862. It was by by the sculptor J. Thomas for Minton made up of 369 parts and was 10 metres tall. It was displayed outside the Bethnal Green Museum until 1926 when St.George fell off and it had deteriorated beyond repair. The statue of Sr. George is now held at the Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent and much of it is said to be crushed in the museum pathways.
Memorial fountain in Museum Gardens. This is dedicated to the memory of Alice Maud Denman and Peter Regelous, who lost their lives while attempting to save others in a fire at 423 Hackney Road on 20 April 1902.
St John’s Church. This was originally a Chapel of ease to St. Matthew in 1828The church itself was built in 1826-8 by John Soane, as his third church for the Commissioners. It is in brick with a tower made up of detached pillars and a circular cupola. An intermediate storey was omitted on cost grounds. There were later alterations by Teulon and it was badly damaged in the blitz so in 2004 there has been a larger renovation programme. The interior was remodelled in 1871 by William Mundy after a fire. Paintings of the Stations of the Cross, by Chris Gollon, were commissioned 2002. There are bronze tablets members of the East London Regiment of Royal Engineers as from the Boer War till 1945; St John’s was the regimental church for the Regiment. From 1844 the Patron was Brasenose College Oxford and incumbents came from there. In the 19th however the church supported a staff of three assistant curates, a scripture reader and 24 women visitors 1858. The church now supports a programme of contemporary arts and multiculturalism.
Vicarage built on former Poor's Land east f the church in.1852. It was enlarged by G.M. Hills in 1879 and destroyed by bombing in 1941 and replaced in Victoria Park Square.
Churchyard. This includes a Great War Memorial. This is a granite cross bearing a figure of Christ. On the base is inscribed the single word: ‘REMEMBER’.
Bethnal Green Library. This is in a wing of what was latterly a private Lunatic Asylum. The library opened in 1922 partly funded by the Carnegie Trust The brick building of 1896, was converted as into Bethnal Green Public Library and incorporates a cottage and a wing of the had been Bednal House. The Library had been the male ward block of Bethnal House Asylum of l896 probably built by James Tolley jun. and converted in 1922 by A.E. Darby, Borough Surveyor and Engineer. The entrance was remodelled in the 1920s, with an inscription above and there is also a 1920s service wing. The lending library was added in 1922 and is top-lit with decorative glass lights. On the wall are oval plaster reliefs of Darwin, Marx, Morris and Wagner, by a local artist, Karl Roberts.
War Memorial, on first floor of the library which was unveiled in 1923. There is a stained glass of 'Peace', flanked by ‘Manhood’ and 'Motherhood'. Bethnal Green's War Memorial Committee had hoped to pay for a Children's lending library and Reading Room but only raised enough for the window.
Bethnal or Bednal House also called Kirby's Castle stood facing on the green. It had been built for Kirby in 1570 and became known as the Blind Beggar's House. In 1727 it was leased by Matthew Wright, who opened a private asylum here incorporating adjacent the Red House and White House. In 1843 Kirby House itself was pulled down and rebuilt with a new block for male patients. The asylum eventually moved to Salisbury and the site was purchased by Bethnal Green Council
Shadwell War Memorial in Bethnal Green Gardens. This is a tall crucifix on a Portland stone base. The base is inscribed as follows: “A.M.D.G. / IN LOVING AND HONOURED MEMORY OF/ THE MEN OF SHADWELL WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES/ FOR KING AND COUNTRY IN THE WAR 1914-1918/ R.I.P.” The plaque was replaced in November 2013 by the Council.
Public Shelter, which disguises vents to the underground built in the 1940s in the manner of Holden's stations with rounded ends and a thin, projecting concrete roof
Kiosk, erected in the late 1940s. In modernist style.
Stairway to Heaven. By Harry Paticas as a memorial to the 170 people who lost their lives on the stairway of the tube station in 1943. It is a white concrete plinth with Bronze plaques to those who died. Opened in 2013.
Braintree Street
123 The Fountain Pub. Demolished in 2013
49 Baitul Aman Mosque and Cultural Centre. This was set up in a disused garage in 1998 and it is hoped to build a permanent mosque.
Burnham Street
Drill Hall. Army Cadet Centre in what was Tower Hamlets Engineers Volunteers Centre
Museum House. Built by the East End Dwellings Co., was founded in 1884 to house the very poor while realizing some profit. Following clearances by the Metropolitan Board of Works the Metropolitan Street Improvements Act of 1883, the company was leased a plot where it built four-storeyed Museum House in 1888.
Cambridge Heath Road
Bethnal Green tube station is on the Central line and lies between Liverpool Street and Mile End stations. It was opened as part of the delayed Central Line eastern extension in 1946 as part of the New Works programme. It is finished with pale yellow tiling, originally made by Poole Pottery and some original panels remain on the platforms. Some tiles showing symbols of London designed by Harold Stabler. The station, and some above ground ancillary buildings, show the design influence of Charles Holden. In the Second World War the unfinished satin was used as an air raid shelter under the administration of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green – who had warned that crash barriers were needed - and became an overnight shelter. The stairs into the station were the site of a crush during an air raid when 170 people died.
memorial bronze plaque above the stairs to the station. This has an inscription below an enamelled coat of arms: “Site of the worst civilian disaster of the Second World War. In memory of 173 men, women and children who lost their lives on the evening of Wednesday 3rd March 1943 descending these steps to Bethnal Green Underground Air Raid Shelter, Not forgotten.
Gate Piers, The station was built beneath Bethnal Green gardens and at the entrance are classical gate piers designed to disguise vents.
Cornwall Gardens
Sutton Dwellings. Three blocks built in 1909 by the ‘charitable trusts' of William Richard Sutton, carrier of Golden Lane. Painted crests on the walls.
Digby Street
In the 1840s the road had included a dump for night soil taken from houses by refuse collectors.
Digby Estate - pre-war art deco council blocks of the Digby Estate, 1935-6 by E.C.P Monson, Bethnal Green Met. Borough Architect. This includes Butler House by Monson from 1934, with the same stripy brick
Digby Greenways Community centre. Regeneration of the estate in 1998 by Levin Bernstein included the conversion of what is said to be a depot for London Council Trams. Said to be of 1900, into a community centre. My guess is it’s a transformer substation built by Bethnal Green in 1916
Digby Street depot. Local authority engineering department and depot which included a disinfecting station and stables. Now housing and community space. An electrical substation was opened here by the Mayor of Bethnal Green in 1916. Although Bethnal Green had applied for an order giving them powers for electrical generation plus a dust destructor in 1899 they continued to receive power from the Stepney generator until 1916. Transformers were built at New Tyssen Street and here at Digby Street depot in 1916 with Westinghouse equipment. This was later taken over by the London Electricity Board following nationalisation.
Godley VC House memorial plaque. In 1992 the Council renamed a housing block to commemorate Sidney Frank Godley who was awarded the Victoria Cross in management of machine guns under heavy fire after he had been wounded in August 1914. He subsequently worked as a caretaker at Cranbrook School in Tower Hamlets
Gawber Street
Globe Primary School. The school opened in 1874 as a Board School called Globe Terrace School. It was remodelled in 1900 and renamed Globe Road School. Following evacuation in the Second World War the empty school building was used by local fire-fighters to store the fire engines and trucks needed to fight fires during the blitz. The school was also used as a base by the ARP wardens and the ground floor was filled with families after their own houses were destroyed by the bombs and fires of the blitz. The school re opened in 1944 for both Junior and Infants and was renamed Globe Primary School. For a while in the 1950s it was also known as Pilgrim School,
Globe Road
Globe Town. This was Globe Lane in the 18th 1708 probably because it was a track from Bethnal Green to the Globe pub at Mile End. Before that it was called Theeving Lane. The northern part of Globe Road was once known as Back Lane and the southern part as Globe Piece - Cattle were pastured at Globe Fields on route to Mile End cattle market. Globe Town devolved after land on the Eastfields estate was developed in the late 18th by a consortium of builders and aimed at a middle-class market. The name was revived in the 1980s when the borough was divided into small neighbourhoods for governance
264 Sweet Tea House. Tibetan Art Gallery
Housing by Samuel Barnett’s East End Dwellings Company. A group of cottages in a terrace designed by Henry Davis in red brick with rendered arched panels over doors – one of which shows the company name. They replaced weavers' cottages of the 1850s removed in slum clearances between 1900 and 1906.
Merceron House. Red and yellow-brick with terracotta decorations designed by Ernest Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Company in 1901
Montfort House. Red and yellow-brick with terracotta decorations designed by Ernest Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Company in 1901
Globe Primary school. Mosaics along the wall facing Globe road. The theme is s animals from around the globe and everything in the design was drawn by children in Artyface workshops.
Gretton Houses. Five-storeyed parallel blocks with terracotta decoration for the East End Dwellings Company. Originally built as two blocks with a wide carriage arch between them. The rear blocks were rebuilt after bomb damage by Henry C. Smart & Partners in 1947. .
156 Sigsworth Hall. Victory Baptist Church. This is on the site of what was the Weslyan Methodist Chapel. It was previously a base for the Salvation Army who bought what was then Gordon Hall, from the Methodist Church in 1959. They rebuilt it and renamed it Sigsworth Hall after one of their staff Alice Sigsworth in 1960
Globe Road Wesleyan Chapel, now demolished, was opened in 1819 and later taken over by Dr. T.B. Stephenson of Children's Home as a mission hall named after General Gordon. It was sold to the Salvation Army in 1959. Its burial ground was once known as Mile End Cemetery’
Craft School Memorial Garden. The garden was created on the old Wesleyan burial ground to ‘perpetuate the memory of its work, and of the ideals of beauty and hand craftsmanship for which it stood’. The design was carried out by F W Troup, adviser and governor of the Craft School. The entrance gate and Art Nouveau boundary railings were by a former blacksmith who had taught at the School with the Rose and Ring emblem recalling the ‘Rose and Ring Club, from which the Craft School grew’. The bronze plaque on the gate of 1925 shows The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and inside is an inscribed plaque by two craftswomen. A copper weather vane with a globe on a flagpole showed East India Company 17th ship, The Globe. A copper flower bowl was placed on the central mausoleum and an oak-framed map showed East London in 1703. Flagstones were donated by Bank of England. The garden was opened in 1926.
The Crafts School was established in 1890 and closed in 1915 because of financial problems during the Great War. They had moved to this site from Whitechapel where they had grown from ‘The Rose and Ring Club’ and later in 1907 moved to Stepney Green.
Saint Anthony’s church This church was funded by the sale of the building and site of All Hallows Staining in the City of London. It was designed by Ewan Christian and consecrated in 1879. The parish was united with that of Saint Simon Zelotes in 1936 and it was demolished in 1937
Flats - blocks of London County Council flats between this road and Sceptre Road.
277 Camel pub. Faced in vaguely Art Nouveau tiles in plain brown exterior tiles. Inside is an etched Camel mirror.
Globe Road and Devonshire Street Station opened in 1884 Built by the Great Eastern Railway to the west of the site of Devonshire Street. The station was at the junction with Globe Road. There were two entrances - on the east side of Globe Road and facing onto the rod. The entrance remained into the 1950s with an elaborate arch and gates with the station name above in the ironwork. The other entrance serving Devonshire Street, now Bancroft Road, but also Morpeth Street via a subway under the viaduct. The station only had two platforms which were served by new local lines on the then quadrupled railway. These platforms were on the viaduct and the booking office was at street level at the London end in Globe Road with another in Devonshire Street. The Devonshire street booking office and arch was still identifiable in the 1970s with ‘Great Eastern Railway’ in stonework on the bridge over. It was closed in 1916. In 1938 it was demolished but the entrance gates survived
Globe Street Junction Signal Box. Closed 1894
Devonshire Street Signal Box. This was above the tracks at the London end. It closed in 1916.
Devonshire Street West signal box. This was at the country end of the station. Built in 1884 to replace an earlier box.
Acton Engineering. On the station site in the 1950s.
184 Muaythai. Thai boxing club. This appears to be in premises adjacent to and under the railway arches, previously used as a snooker club.
131 The Railway Tavern
Buddhist Centre entrance. This is behind the centre which is in Roman Road. There is a large mural of flowers on the party wall with 343 Globe Road. There is also a sculpture over the gateway which shows the Nalanda crest with other symbols. This includes a lotus flower, a pair of deer and the wheel with eight spokes symbolic of the path to enlightenment. Nalanda was the name of a university which flourished in India from the 5th century BCE to about 100 CE. The design of the crest is at least a thousand years old.
Knottisford Street
Tuscan House. A twelve-storey system-built tower by Tower Hamlets Council. 1965.
Museum Passage
Four ornate cast iron lamp posts of 1897. This is an old path across Bethnal Green which in 1872 was planted with plane trees as a division between the Green and the Museum.
Old Ford Road
5 Netteswell House 17th brick house with later alterations and the oldest surviving house in Bethnal Green. Above the entrance which now leads to garden is inscription "Netteswell House - AD1553 - Remodelled 1705 and 1862". The entrance is from Old Ford Road and the house overlooks the grounds of Bethnal Green Museum. It was originally attached to the chapel of ease built in.1512. This house was built in 1553 by Sir Ralph Warren, Lord Mayor of London, and Oliver Cromwell's great-grandfather. But this was been replaced by two houses in 1720; and themselves replaced in 1787-91 by Ruby for Anthony Natt Rector of Netteswell in, Essex. It was for a while the museum curator's official residence, but is now in private ownership.
Community food garden. This was established in April 2012 and is managed by the Globe Community Food Garden Committee who allocate plots to residents.
Peary Place
This was once called North Passage – which presumably is why the name was changed to that of the Polar explorer, Robert Peary.
Roman Road
This was once called Green Street and at the Cambridge Heath end it divides the closes of the Green. It is shown on Gascoyne's map of 1703 as a drift way but it was called Green Street by 1883. It was renamed because of Roman finds in the 19th
11 Bethnal Green Fire Station. Built 1969 by the GLC Architect's Department. in dark brick and concrete
19-35 Museum House. Built in 1888 this is the the earliest surviving tenement by Davis & Emmanuel for the East End Dwellings Co. It has three storeys above shops on and had flats with shared WCs.
50 Bacton Tower. This was built in 1965 by Yorke Rosenberg & Mardell. It was the first fully. System built tower in what was then the new Borough of Tower Hamlets, It is in pre-cast reinforced concrete clad with YRM's trademark white tiles. Since 1990 it has had a pitched roof and flimsy porch
51 the old Bethnal Green Fire Station which has since become the Western Order of Buddhists. London Buddhist Centre. The fire station was built in 1888-9 by Robert Pearsall for the Metropolitan Board of Works, in a free Arts and Crafts Gothic in red brick and -terracotta decoration. It has a symmetrical front, with entrances through brick arches. The hose tower was once topped by a, turret. A new entrance has been made, through a gateway with a wrought-iron design depicting the crest of Nalanda, by Arya Daka. The interior was remodelled by M.E Wharton with Windhorse Design and includes murals of natural landscapes by Chintamani. There are two shrine rooms with figures of Buddha, also by Chintamani. There is a courtyard with flowers and a water sculpture. The main entrance to the building is a glass-walled conservatory with a gilded Buddha surrounded by plants
37 The Atlas Pub. This pub was here before 1869 and closed towards the end of the Second World War. It has since been in use as a shop.
62 Albert Jacobs house. Council offices
62-66 Empire Picturedrome. This opened in 1913 with independent operators throughout its existence. In 1946 it was renamed Empire Cinema and in 1955, Premier Cinema. It was closed in 1959. The building was demolished and the site is now under Alfred Jacob House
63 The Devon Arms. This pub was here before 1852, and then called Lord John Russell. It closed in 1924.
67 Black Horse Pub – which is written in cement lettering on the gable. This pub was there before 1869 and in 1883 rebuilt by Hammack & Lambert. It was a Truman’s Brewery house but bought by Bellhaven Brewery in 1985. It closed in 1995 and was used as an art gallery.
85 Baitful Murmur academy. This mosque and cultural centre moved to 100 Roman Road. However following a dispute some members moved back here.
100 site of The Weavers Arms. This was a Taylor Walker Brewery pub, which was here before 1850. It was rebuilt after the Second World War as the ground floor of a block of flats. It closed in 1994 and was used as council offices. It later became a mosque and an Islamic cultural centre.
100 Globe Town Mosque and Cultural Centre. The Group moved from 85 Roman Road to these former council offices.
109 The Ship pub was there before 1860 and closed during the Great War. It remained a beer house throughout its existence/
123 The Star & Garter Pub, This was open from before 1869 to 1914.
129 The Old Friends Pub, This was Watney’s House there before 1869. It closed in 2009 and is now a Chinese takeaway.
Brick arch surmounted by a globe and a small public garden on the corner with Globe Road as some sort of entrance to Globe Town
Sceptre Road
London County Council flats with sun balconies and courtyards. Five stories high
Stainsbury Street
Bonner School, Bethnal Green is a two form entry school. This was originally Bonner Street Board School built on the site of Twig Folly British School in 1875 in Queen Anne style buildings by Edward Robson and John Stevenson. It was reorganised in 1930 and again, following evacuation in 1945 and then renamed Bonner Primary in 1949. The previous school on the site had been Twig Folly British School which had opened on 1830 as a Lancastrian School in Sidney Street. It had been built here with money from both Parliament and the British and Foreign Schools. Society and conveyed to trustees in 1837. It was eventually replaced by Bonner Street School. The Board School buildings were demolished in 2005 and replaced.
Memorial on the school wall on the corner of Hartley and Bonner Street. This is a stone tablet beneath a Della Robbia style roundel of infant in swaddling bands. Erected in 1936, in place of a temporary wooden shrine of 1916, to commemorate the dead of Mace Street, "Love shall tread out the baleful fires of anger & in its ashes plant the tree of peace"
Sugar Loaf Walk
The name is thought to come from a public house. There was a clothing factory here, making uniforms during World War One.
Victoria Park Square
Flats rugged Brutalist for the fire station round the corner in Roman Road.
12 Police Station built in 1997
16 This was the clubhouse and chapel of the Bethnal Green University Settlement,. Built in 1888 it is a 2-storey clubhouse and a chapel both in red: The University Settlement was established here by three Oxford theology graduates to provide 'entertainment, rational amusement, and social intercourse' for the people of the East End. In 1887 they were based in No.17 and built this at No.16 plus a hall to the rear which is now demolished They Shared the premises with the Repton Club, which included one of the largest boxing clubs in the country. The building is now offices and flats.
Victoria Park Square Hall operated as a cinema during 1912 and 1913.
17 Temple House. Workers Educational; Association. Offices. The staircase incorporates a dog-gate. Its gateway was brought from Hythe Church, Kent, by Sir Wyndham Deedes, principal of the University House Settlement, who lived here. from 1923 to 1939. He retired to Bethnal Green from the army and served on the council and the L.C.C. The house was built as a pair with 18 in the late 17th.
18 The house is said to have a Tudor Well in the cellar. It houses the Young Foundation and was the Institute of Community Studies. The Young Foundation is in the same buildings where Michael Young and Peter Willmott researched and wrote Family and Kinship in East London in the 1950s. The Institute for Community Studies had been set up in 1954 as an urban studies think tank, bringing academic research and practical social innovation together. It helped create over 60 organisations, including the Open University and the Consumers’ Association. Michael Young has been described as “the world’s most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises” As the author of Labour’s manifesto in 1945 he played a key role in shaping the post-war welfare state. In the early 1950s he set up the Institute of Community Studies. He was involved in the creation of NHS Direct, the spread of after-school clubs and neighbourhood councils and in his later life was instrumental in creating the University of the Third Age and Grandparents Plus.
21 In 1853 Henry Merceron leased this to the Queen's Own Light Infantry Regiment of the Tower Hamlets militia. by the 1860s this included a barracks and the Territorial Army site in Globe Road still used by army cadets.
26 Montfort House. Flats built for the East End Dwellings Company by its architects Davis & Emmanuel in 1901 as part of their scheme between here and Globe Road. Inside are enclosed stairs and self-contained flats rather than single rooms. The name reflects the legend of the blind beggar, who was supposedly Simon de Montfort in disguise.
Mulberry House. This was one of the last schemes for the East End Dwellings Co. Built by Arthur Kenyan in 1934-6. It is on the ground of what was Aldgate House in 1643,
Our Lady of the Assumption. The Church and Priory of the Assumptionists is on the site of Aldgate House, and later Park Congregational Chapel. It is Roman Catholic built 1911-12 by Edward Goldie. The site was given by Florence Cottrell-Dormer.
Priory of the Assumptionist Fathers. .
Aldgate House. This had been built in 1643 and the site of the house and its gardens are now covered by Mulberry House and the Church and Priory of the Assumption. In 1760 Ebenezer Mussell had bought part of the City gate of Aldgate when it was demolished, and used the bricks and stones to build an annexe to this house – hence the name.. It was demolished in 1806 and replaced by houses, and in 1816 by the Park Chapel
Park or Ebenezer Chapel was built on site of Aldgate House in 1811 and originated in Independent Calvinists under minister .Robert. Langford . It closed in 1876.
Swinburne House stands on the site of the Red House.
Red House. This was one of the buildings of the Bethnal Green Asylum. Built before 1831.
Welwyn Street
Mendip House. Built by the East End Dwellings Company in 1900, with a plaque on the wall facing Globe Road.
Wessex Street
28 Bangabandhu Primary School. The school dates from1989 and has been in these premises since 1991. The name of the school means 'Friend of Bengal'. It is the honorary title given to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who helped found Bangladesh in 1971
National School. The John Scurr Primary School was previously on this site and it was later an annexe for Morpeth School.
Sources
Aldous. London Villages
Bethnal Green Free Art and History. Web site
Bethnal Green tube Station. Wikipedia, Web site.
British History Online. Bethnal Green
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
City and East London Beer Guide
Closed Pubs. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor. Liverpool Street to Ilford
Devonshire Street Station. Wikipedia. Web site
East London History Society Review
GLIAS Newsletter
Globe Primary School. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Web site
London Gardens Online. Web site.
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Lucas, London
Robinson and Chesshyre. The Green,
St.John on Bethnal Green. Web site
V&A Museum of Childhood. Web site.
Young Foundation. Web site
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