Stepney
this post has not been edited or checked
Post to the west Stepney and Mile End
Barnes Street
Boundary markers between Limehouse
and Ratcliffe
Beccles
Street
early 19th houses, which look like a pair but have only one doorway.
Bekesbourne Street
Railway extension. originally built in 1847-9 to link up with the Great Eastern Railway at
Bow but later rebuilt by London & Tilbury railway. The short bridge over
Bekesbourne Street is by Joseph Westwood, engineers, 1889.
Belgrave Street
Ben Johnson Road.
Crown and Sceptre also called the Jug House.
Bow Common Lane.
Hill Jones chemical co. 1830.
Branch
Road
Leads
towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
re-erected over the entrance is one of the
flanged-and-bolted cutting edges of the tunneling shields (its pair frames the
entrance of the Rotherhithe side). Polished pink-granite piers to the portal.
Crossing
the tunnel entrance is a cable-stayed footbridge, which links gardens
on each side and provides a route to the Foundation of St Katharine at
Ratcliffe
Low single-storey Neo-Georgian building of 1912 built 'to commemorate the 30th
Anniversary ‘ of the inauguration of the Finnish Seamen's mission in London’.
Brayford Square.
Holland’s Pub. In the family since 19th ‑
treasure house.
Brickfields Gardens,
a
figure-of-eight green designed to provide a continuous link to the grander
space to be realized when St George’s Fields was linked to Mile End Park.
Redbourn
House Two eight-storey blocks of 1954-6,
Gatwick
House. Quieter on the side which has recessed private balconies and generous living-room windows.
Gulliver.
In the garden in front of Gatwick House, the novelty of a concrete play
sculpture in Festival of Britain spirit: figure by Trevor Tennantt now
battered
Brunton Place
Stephen Hawking School. 1997 by Haverstock Associates. A special needs school. long classrooms, each opening to outdoor play spaces.
Burdett Road.
Built 1862
across Bow Common as the approach to Victoria Park . The name preserves the memory of valiant Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, philanthropist, reformer, and ally of Charles Dickens.
St.Paul’s
church 1956-60 by Maguire and
Keith Murray, replacing a bombed church of 1856. Commissioned by a Marxist
vicar. Their first church, and the first major expression in England of the
principles of the liturgical movement. daringly innovative in the late 1950s, bold lettering by Ralph Beyer. 'This is the
house of God, this is the gate of heaven.' font is an industrial stoneware vat set on an octagonal concrete
block. Mosaics by Charles Lutyens, 1964-9, - funded by war-damage money Original 1858 church. Queen Adelaide gold money service. 1856 badly
damaged.
Vicarage
Victoria Lead Works Lancaster
& Johnson & Sons white lead and paint manufacturer and lead smelters. . W. W. & R. Johnson's second works. Adjacent to the Limehouse
Cut. There were eight stacks for making
white lead. In 1862 a furnace was installed to smelt the returns from the
stacks. More stacks were added and, by 1939, there were 29 stacks together with
melting house, tan shed, grinding and preparation rooms, three drying stoves
and various ancillary buildings. Victoria Lead Works closed in 1951 and the
premises were demolished in 1984. A pot was recovered from the site and
presented to the Tower Hamlets Local History Library. In 1833 Robert Johnson, invited Dickens to visit their factory. Dickens
provided a vivid account in ‘On an Amateur Beat’. In 1881, in Poplar, 23 women
and 7 men were reported with lead poisoning. The most dangerous part of the
process was said to be the removal of the white lead from the stack and
afterwards. W. W. & R. Johnson & Sons provided their women workers with
dresses, gloves, aprons, respirators and caps. The men were provided with
jackets, aprons, gloves and respirators. The company also provided washrooms
with petroleum, soap, warm water, towels and brushes for clothing and shoes.
Seven minutes were allowed for washing and cleaning. Also a
constant supply of sulphuric acid drink is kept and used, which is free to all
workers in the factory. But, as the figures show, these measures were not enough to prevent
lead poisoning. As R Campbell wrote in 1747, the labourers are sure in a few
years to become paralytic by the Mercurial Fumes of the lead: and seldom live a
dozen years in the business.
Copenhagen
Place
Area of Locksley Estate. maisonette blocks, added in the 1970s and typical of the GLC era; red brick
with exposed-concrete floors and linking upper walkways. This late addition
replaced industrial buildings along Limehouse Cut.
Sir Joseph Huddart & Company. the Elder Brethren of Trinity House witnessed a in Pimlico in 1789,
one of whom was Joseph Cotton. His son, William, was to become the managing partner
in a Limehouse rope works. Cotton's partner was Joseph Huddart who had patented
a new method of making rope and the Limehouse factory was set up to make this.
Boulton and Watt were asked to install the power raising equipment. and it was
to them that they went for gas making plant sometime between 1806 and 1811. The
‘works’ where the gas making plant was situated was just north of today’s
Commercial Road alongside the Limehouse Cut.
The rope walk itself stretched north into an area which was then roughly
known as Bow Common. The gas works was at the end on the Cut in the present
Copenhagen Place, E3. Also demolition of a lead works on part of the site.
Canal
Copperfield Road factories backs
Johnson’s Lock furthest lock is now a
weir. On a central island is a post carrying a rack and pinion which operated
the paddle controlling the flow between the locks
Barnardo School. Now
Ragged School Museum Trust. The school was opened in 1877 and in 1896 extended
into the limejuice factory, but the school closed in 1908.
Gas Works wharves with coal tramway running along them
Victory
Bridge with
Ben Johnson Road
Brick stack, which is ventilation for a
sewer c. 1906 by the L.C.C.
Salmon Lane Lock with lock cottage and pump house of 1864.
Path with access to Parnham Road, Salmon Lane and
Commercial Road
Railway line from Stratford to Isle of Dogs and
Millwall disused
On the bank Regent’s Canal Works of the Gospel Oak
Iron Co. between railway and Commercial Road
Iron control valve on the bank and inspection cover to
operate back pumping along the towpath to Mile End Lock.
Bridge a small twin arched 1820 carries
Commercial Road across the canal
Commercial Road Lock.
Twin locks. Right hand lock is a weir.
Over the lock is a 36” iron pipe, part of back pumping system-carrying
water from the Thames on the other side of the basin to the towpath. 12 locks from Hampstead Road and goes into
Regent Canal Dock.
Steps to A13
Carbis Road
Further variety provided by
two-storey cottage terraces in, a bomb-damaged area.
Stepney
Greencoat C.E Primary School of one and two storeys. 1970, succeeding to the
Hamlet of Ratcliffe charity school
Leopold Street
St Paul's Church
of England primary school. One big room
divided up. Cheerful
Clemence
Street
Remains to show the modest mid-c19
character of the original streets; small stucco-trimmed terraces two storeys
over basements,
Prince
Alfred pub. More elaborate
Commercial Road
A rare example in recent times of roads cut with a Roman
or Parisian ruthlessness across what was formerly a mass of east London
streets. Before the coming of the docks these great arteries were not
necessary. All heavy transport to and from the City was by water. There had
been formerly a network of straggling villages, from Spitalfields to Poplar.
Many of their highways were superseded in importance by these 'commercial
roads, built in the period 1803-10
Crossroads - Commercial Road, constructed in 1810, meets
with East and West India Dock Roads and Burdett Road at a major junction at
Limehouse. In order to pay for the road, tolls were levied on vehicles passing
through. A toll house stood at this junction until 1871.
660
London Joint Stock Bank tall and classical; entrance at the corner with Gill
Street. Rusticated floor, upper floors
with giant Corinthian columns of granite
Housing
of 2000, by Baily Garner, shallow curved roof.
680 Passmore Edwards Sailors Palace. HQ of the British and Foreign
Sailors’ Society. An unusually pretty
building of 1901 by Niven & Wigglesworth. lavish carving on a nautical theme, including a regal figurehead keystone - presumably Britannia - grasping two
galleons, flanked by the names of the winds, finely lettered. A rope moulding twisted around the names of
the continents, and reliefs of seagulls touching down lightly on the
waves as label stops. Anchors, dolphins,
shields etc., embossed on the metal panels here and on the side to Beccles
Street, Converted into flats
1983-4 by Shankland Cox for Rodinglea Housing Association. Also housed the King Edward VII Nautical College and was opened in
1901. The Tower Hamlets Chinese Association has its office here. The hostel was
referred to locally as the 'stack o' bricks', because of the distinctive red
bands on its frontage.
Limehouse station. 3rd August 1840.
Between West Ferry and Shadwell on Docklands Light Railway. Between West Ham
and Fenchurch Street on C2C. 1840 Built 1840 as Stepney Station. 1847 Junction when line built to Bow and
Stratford. 1876 Rebuilt. Still has
early wooden structure from the 1850s on the down platform. 1926 London and
Blackwall station closed. Also called
Stepney East renamed for DLR. On the right hand side under the railway arch can
be seen two disused doorways, which at one time afforded an alternative entrance
to Stepney East (later Limehouse) platforms. Vintage looking gas lamp supports
sprout from above the door- ways This pair of doorways beneath the bridge on
the south side of Commercial Road at the present Limehouse station are not what
they seem. They look pretty convincing,
but the entrances were actually bricked-up in the 1990s. The doors themselves,
which differ in styling to those, which they replaced, are therefore modern, although
the matt grey paint and subsequent weathering give them an authentic look. Up
above there are two lamp brackets although for many years only one survived.
Where did the other one come from? Is it genuine and retrieved from storage or
a modern cast? Why should anyone put false doors over blocked openings, both
here and on the other side of Commercial Road? In the name of conservation
perhaps? Bold voussoirs
Limehouse Town Hall, 1879-81 by A. & C. Harston. A white brick palazzo with stone
dressings. Arched moulded windows, channelled angle piers, central pediment and
strong projecting cornice; chimneys rising from stone aprons on the face of the building. . Originally Limehouse Vestry Hall. For a while was the Museum of Labour History. this white brick vestry hall by A
& C. Harston became the town hall in 1900. The large hall on the first
floor survives relatively unaltered. Unusually equipped with a small internal
balcony on wrought iron brackets.
15 Coade stone towers.
Passmore Edwards
District Public Library. 1900-1 by
J. G &.F. Clarkson. Stone except for the yellow brick upper outer bays with
shaped gables. Two storey with attics in gables. Behind, the main library looks
post-1945. Large
mural of Limehouse Reach by Claire Smith, 1986. An androgynous angel broods
over a Turneresque river with unpleasant flotsam. In front. Clement Attlee, Prime Minister
1945-51, and member for Limehouse 1922-50.
A touchingly prosaic portrait in bronze, 1988, by Frank Forster, who won
GLC competition in 1986.
Smartly painted girder bridge crosses Commercial Road which, despite
having the ' appearance of a modern, functioning bridge carries no railway and
has not done either for four decades! This carried the 'Salmon Lane' or 'Limehouse' Curve
which linked the London & Blackwall proper with the Blackwall Extension
Line between Stepney East and Burdett Road, opening in 1880. After two unsuccessful early attempts at a
passenger service in the late nineteenth century, the spur settled down to a
life of pure freight traffic until 1962, shortly after the Southend
electrification scheme was completed and goods traffic towards Millwall
Junction via Limehouse had virtually ceased.
Railway extension originally built in 1847-9 to
link up with the Great Eastern Railway at Bow but later rebuilt by London &
Tilbury railway. The main viaduct of
1874-6 by Langley. Think this might have been demolished.
777-85 hugging the curve
around St Anne's churchyard, and overlooking the Limehouse Cut, a group of red
brick industrial buildings the former offices and engineering workshops of
Caird & Rayner, a firm established 1889, which specialized in evaporators
and condensers for distilling water. The
Peabody Trust owns 773-785. built for and occupied in stages from 1889 by Caird
& Rayner. They were engineers and coppersmiths who specialised in the
design and manufacturer of sea water distilling plant for supplying boilers and
drinking water on Royal Navy vessels, Cunard liners, cargo ships and oil
tankers. In 1964, Caird & Rayner Ltd was described as 'one of the two big
names in British marine distillation'. The company left Limehouse in about 1972
and was dissolved in 1995. Included among the many Royal Navy vessels fitted
with Caird & Rayner plant were torpedo boats built by Yarrow and Company in
Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs; First World War battleships and battlecruisers; HMS Belfast
(1938) now moored on the River Thames; HMS Albion (1954) and HMS Hermes (1959)
when they were converted from aircraft carriers to commando carriers. Starting
with the Mauretania in 1906, Caird & Rayner's plant was installed on most
of Cunard's great passenger liners, including Queen Mary (now at Long Beach,
California) and Queen Elizabeth. For the QE2, Caird & Rayner's Limehouse
works made treatment plant for domestic water and her four swimming pools.
Caird & Rayner were the sole manufacturers of several related products,
mostly patented by Thomas Rayner who was born in Stepney in 1852. His patent automatic
evaporator has been on display at the Science Museum since 1902. Although he
left the partnership in 1907, the firm continued to design new types of
desalination plant, especially during and after the Second World War. All the designs were produced in the drawing
office on the first floor of the 1896-97 office building next door to the
1893-94 office building which housed the managers' offices and general office.
Both red-brick office buildings were architect designed in a Queen Anne style
to respect the church and churchyard. The engaged octagonal buttresses on the
1896-97 building articulate its angled front around the curved site boundary on
811 more varied group is a tiny two-storey
building, with shop front elaborately lettered for a funeral director. C. Walters, undertakers, were known as Francis the beginning of the 20th century. The
establishment is over 200 years old and its frontage was refurbished in the
1990s with the help of English Heritage
815-21, early c19 terrace with the
common motif of first floor windows within arches.
Star of the East. The
dominant centrepiece in the terrace. Colourfully detailed later c19 front. Carved heads in all the tympana. . an imposing example of pub architecture. A pair of gas lamps
survives on the pavement outside the premises.
777 have an office building of 1893-4 in front
of a workshop converted in 1889 from a sail-maker's and ship chandler’s
warehouse and sail loft of 1869. Original timber upper floor on strutted timber
posts; queen- rod roof trusses. Loading door at first-floor level
747 The Mission, the former Empire Memorial
Sailors' Hostel, by Thomas Brammall Daniel & Horace W Parnacott,
1923-4. Salmon Lane wing 1932 by George
Baines & Son. A stripped
Perpendicular exterior on a cathedral-like scale. The inspiration must have
been the Sailors' Palace down the road. Subdivided as flats
in 1989. a war memorial.
Wrought-iron railway bridge built on the
Limehouse Curve in 1880 as a link between the London and Blackwall Railway and
extension to Bow. Now gone.
Lady Immaculate with St
Frederick R.C. Begun 1926-8 by
A.J. Sparrow, but not finished until 1934.
Plain brick Early Christian basilica. campanile, and an odd turret crowned with a statue of
the Sacred Heart, designed as a war memorial to be seen from the river. Replacing a temporary church of 1881 by H.J. Hanson. oak statue of
Christ the Steersman, designed to be seen from the river. In front of the
church, bronze sculpture of Christ
Crucified, with low relief panels on both front and back. 1997 by Sean Henry,
made by Bronze Age, a local foundry. On the apse, memorial to Father Higley
1934, builder of the church. Sculpture of Our Lady of Grace, French c19, finely
carved white marble, from Sisters of Charity convent. Mill Hill, now
effectively set against a silkscreen print with red oval on blue, by Pauline
Corfteld, c. 2000. Small carved wooden figure of St John Roche, shown as a
boatman. , c. 1999.
Hall Below the
church and Presbytery, 1934
Danish Seamen's Church In Foreign Ports now London City Mission. A haven on this tight wedge of land hemmed in
by road and railway. 1958-9 by Holgerjensen with Armstrong & McManus.. Like
the other
Scandinavian missions to seamen, an admirable arrangement of homely
accommodation, and a small church within an envelope characteristic of the
seamen's own world. The
church, with roof and clerestory lighting, is linked to rooms. 1958-9 by the Danish
architect Holgerjensen in association with Armstrong & MacManus. The church
forms one corner of a compact block with social rooms and minister's
accommodation.
Bancroft’s Alms Houses. 24 poor men of the Drapers
Company. School for 100 boys. £28,000.
Said that he had got the money by his harsh iniquities as an overseer at the
Lord Mayor’s School.
Docks entrance to Wapping road. Spacious courtyards.
North approach to Rotherhithe Tunnel new blocks of
workers flats.
Fish market
Modelle Court on the corner of Arbour Square 1938.
London Co-operative Society Store 1940 bombed and destroyed
Eastern Hotel where King of Siam lunched. At the Corner into West India
Dock RoadFlamborough Walk
Extraordinary survival a little row
of stuccoed villas in a triangle of land by railway line. Individually
developed by the lessees of the plots from 1819-41 and, unlike neighbouring
houses, set back from Commercial Road behind a meadow.
Devonshire Cottage, 1834, dignified by giant Ionic pilasters
Gill Street
Thomas Gauthor of “Limehouse Nights” and other books,
lived with his uncle for the first nine of his life. Also home to several sea
captains over the years, and there is a headstone in Tower Hamlets cemetery,
which bears the name of Captain Gill of Limehouse, and at least two other sea
captains
Harford Street
Stepney Gas Works original works of Commercial Co.
from 1837 ‑1946. Formed by traders dissatisfied with others. Vestrymen against
it. 1885 enlarged and rebuilt. Three horizontal retort houses with stoking
machinery. Closed 1946 but holder
station plus meter repair shop remained until 1957. Italianate block like a superior
railway station. Behind gasholders three times as high as the one in front.
Ocean Estate, 1950 London County Council housing. . - Immersion
heaters and bathrooms with lavatories.
Ben Johnson School. Education remained the privilege of a minority of children - most
of them boys - until the late nineteenth century when the 1870 Education Act
finally introduced the concept of education for all. Administration of the new
system was placed in the hands of locally elected school boards of which the
largest and most important was the London School Board. The LSB marked its
establishment by holding an architectural competition for the design of an
elementary school for 1,600 pupils. The competition was won by Professor Roger
Smith, and the resulting Ben Johnson School became the forerunner of the first
generation of schools for all
Island Row
272 Bronze Age Sculpture Casting studios
Limehouse Cut
1770 following
report by Smeaton.
Harker Stagg & Morgan chemical works on the canal
1833. Shares and used for transport of coal.
Limehouse
Link
Tunnel 1989-93 engineers Sir Alexander Gibb &
Partners built to link The Highway with new roads on the Isle of Dogs instead
of an over ground relief road, which would have destroyed Limehouse. requiring the construction of an open cofferdam behind Limehouse
Basin and the rehousing of 556 households many of whom were moved to Timber Wharves,
Millwall. The tunnel goes in a
concrete box beneath the dock following a very distinctive route. Cut and cover tunnel, with its
underground slip roads to Westferry and Canary Wharf. It was made bottom upwards behind an open
cofferdam, all involving massive temporary works of strutting and dewatering
and the removal of 1.8 million tons of spoil by barge.
West Service Building closes the view down The Highway. Immense, stripy pink and buff stone structure
designed by Roaney O'Carroll with Anthony Meads, which houses the services strongly
sculptural steps to the gardens. .
Maize Row
Area of lead mills
St.Dunstan’s Church. Built
in a marsh. Very old, has a Saxon
crucifixion on a slab, a Saxon rood. It
was originally a wooden church dedicated to All Saints in 952
St.Dunstan consecrated it – he was sainted in 1209 and it was then
called after him. It was the only church
in Middlesex east of London until 1300. The door on the tower has been there
since the Wars of the Roses. It is a perpendicular building, with registers
dating back to 1568 but the remains of the previous churches lie under it.
Monuments: Colet tomb - he was twice Lord Mayor and lived opposite; "Fish
and ring" monument to Dame Rebecca Berry, who was the heroine of the
ballad called “The Cruel Knight and the Fortunate Farmer's Daughter.” It is
like a village church. In the 1890s it had six working clergymen and nine
scripture readers and 100 volunteer workers. Hit by a V2 in 1940s.
Charrington’s gave aid for restoration.
Mercers Estate
land, originally the estate of Dean Colet,
was developed by the Mercers' Company under the direction of their surveyor,
George Smith, from 1819. The Mercers favoured 'respectable' working-class
tenants and maintained their property more carefully than some other East End
land owners, so early post-war plans for total rebuilding here were abandoned.
Fortunately by the time the property was acquired by the G.L.C. in 1969, the
tide had turned in favour of rehabilitation
Mill Place.
Commercial
Road Bridge c.1820.
Accumulator
tower. The
most impressive survival and, as renovated by Dransfield Design 1994-5,
accessible to the public. The tower,
octagonal with slit windows, and an octagonal chimneystack attached to it, are
the only remains of a hydraulic pumping station of 1868-9, - contemporary with
the new ship lock. It has a huge riveted
wrought-iron weight case, 24 ft high, which held some 80 tons of gravel. This weight-case, which was driven up the
tower to maintain the hydraulic pressure by steam engines under the viaduct,
has been fitted with a helical iron staircase to an exhibition area and, at the
top, a viewing platform. This pumping
station superseded the first of 1852, which had a very early Armstrong
accumulator, and stood, until 1994, on the w side of the Commercial Road
lock. A third station (1898), was
combined with back-pumping the canal to refill the four nearest locks, and the
wrought-iron pumping main for this low-pressure water can be seen crossing the
canal at the Commercial Road Bridge.
These installations became largely redundant with changes of practice. Probably
the first. Yellow stock
brick. Sandstone stringcourse, and
octagonal chimney. Remains of hydraulic
accumulator, side plates removed and gravel contents spilling out. Displaced from its guides. 55' high chimney originally 70' high but truncated. Pit in front of entrance door, contains hydraulic
pipes covered by timbers. Two steam
pumping engines in Arch 267; coal in arch; machine shop, 25 men employed in 1897 in the
hydraulic dept including engine drivers, stokers, and crane men. The date of tower is by 1870. ROD second dock after Poplar dock to use
hydraulic power from 1853. 1869 new
hydraulic pump in conjunction with the new ship dock. Listed Grade II.
Barge Basin infilled c.1842 - under
two western 87 foot arches of London & Blackwall Viaduct. Barge dock - western. Northern enlargement under the triple arches
eastern locks. By 1870 had acquired a timber shed, possibly for
unloading
in conjunction with Henry Page’s rice mill.
Remains of the c18 quarter
around the church.
St.Ann’s
Limehouse. One of Hawksmoor's East
End churches. St Anne was furnished 1723-5 but not consecrated. The master
mason for St Anne was Strong. Gutted by fire in
1850, the interior was reconstructed by Philip Hardwick and the local John
Morris, 1850-1. Restoration, surprisingly faithful to the original, resumed
under P. C. Hardwick in 1856-7 by Hardwick's pupil,
young Arthur Blomfield. In 1891, as Sir A. Blomfield, he remodelled the
chancel. Restoration 1983-93 by Julian Harrap, added tubular steel trusses by
Hockley & Dawson, consulting engineers, to support the 019 roof. crypt, perhaps intended for use as a school and now a clubroom. organ by Gray & Davison, which won
a prize at the Great Exhibition of 1851 130’ high tower. Highest clock
in London.
11 bow-fronted house on the corner was often visited
by Charles Dickens, whose godfather, Christopher Huffam, lived here.
2-4
early-detached villa converted c.1850 for use as a training establishment for
boys. The facade still has a tin plaque reading British and Foreign Sailors'
Society Off-centre entrance through a low fore building articulated to the
street with a row of blind arches. Later 019 extension and paired arched
first-floor windows for a chapel.
6a-b
built into the boundary odd little later c20 houses roofed with big pantiles
and with an Italianate tower.
Norbiton
Road
Pleasantly detailed three-storey
blocks, also of 1957-8, pale brick panels, private balconies, shallow-pitched
roofs
Midhurst
House curves to the street line,
Northumbria Street.
Celestial Church of Christ, 1873-4 by F.J. Of H. Francis. The centre of a little enclave in
Bartlett Park originally with a school as well as
the former clergy house. Built as the Anglican St Saviour, made redundant 1976,
given to the West African sect in 1984.
Ratcliffe
The first landfall downriver with a good straight road to
London. A wharf existed here in 1348, the first known exploitation of the
riverside east of the City, and by the cl6 many famous voyages of discovery
were setting off from here. The hamlet, originally restricted to the riverside,
expanded in the c15 towards Butcher Row, the main route to Stepney and Hackney.
In the early c17 it was the most populous of Stepney's riverside hamlets with
about 3,500 inhabitants. Its main street, later known as the Ratcliffe Highway
(was lined with wharves, warehouses and shipbuilders' yards, and became a
centre for glassmaking. But in 1794 a fire, which spread fiercely from an
ignited barge of saltpetre at the East India Company's warehouses wiped out
half of Butcher Row and necessitated much rebuilding. Soon after this, as the docks were established downstream,
Ratcliffe's character changed dramatically as its population expanded from
about 5,000 in 1801 to 17,000 in 1861 and it became a parish distinct from
Limehouse in 1838 and prosperous wharfingers and tradesmen gave way to seamen
and dockworkers. The building of Commercial Road in 1806-10 divided c19
Ratcliffe in two. The southern part towards the river became teeming slums
around Ratcliffe Highway, made notorious by a series of murders in 1811
Ratcliffe Lane
John
Scurr House; originally one of a pair, part of a small slum clearance scheme. 1936-7 by Adshead & Ramsey for Stepney Borough
Council.
Regent’s Canal Dock
Hydraulic Pump House c.1855 - oldest surviving in the world by
Commercial Road entrance. Demolished. engine
house with steam engine and two boilers, all disused. A small accumulator and a
chimney are shown built into the north wall. This wall has clearly been rebuilt
but does show some features, which might be original. A 2-inch o/d hydraulic
main ending at a flange joint enters the building at the foot of this wall. probably used
as an air raid shelter. During the 1950s the building was used as a workshop.
This building appears on the OS plan of 1870.
Footbridge 1990s spans the canal at the
entrance to the Basin making it possible to walk back to the DLR
Rhodeswell Road.
Dora
House five storey 1939 solitary example of the L.C.C. s pre-war
Maisonettes, six-storey "forbidding L.C.C.
1976.
Railway
bridge built c. 1876 for the London, Tilbury & Southend line,
Salmon Lane
Ancient way to Limehouse and/or an
old route leading towards the centre of Stepney, named after Robert Salmon,
local landowner and Master of Trinity House. It became a shopping street for
the small district of houses built up in the c19.
Mercers
Company housing of c.1845
Cemetery
tiny Nonconformist purchased and vested in the Stepney Meeting House by the will
of mariner Captain Truelove (+1691). Some good Georgian stones and a single
sarcophagus monument. It was attached to a set of almshouses.
Locksley Estate, filling the area between the
Limehouse Cut and the Regent's Canal begun in the 1950s by the
L.C.C. Immediately following their work
at Lansbury housing over 3000. Walter Bor was architect-planner in charge, E.
Humphrey the architect-in-charge. The intention was to create a neighbourhood,
which excluded through-traffic and where amenities and housing were provided in
buildings of mixed sizes.
Salmon Lane Evangelical Church, 1970s. Dark brick, entrance in the three-storey end,
the church with large windows below a zigzagging Roof.
Hall in basement.
St.James Gardens
Managed by vicar of St, James Ratcliffe
Steels Lane
Surviving part of old White Horse Lane
Stepney
Flood Plain gravel on it is imporous clay therefore
gets waterlogged.
Second World War Mickey’s Shelter. 3’ man ran
it. Canteen run by Marks and Spencer. Underground warehouses.
Stepney and Blackwall Railway junction
Closed in 1880. Line to Blackwall junction until the
General Strike then it stopped. Trains from Bow used the spur. Until 1953 three
trains a day. Harrow Lane Junction to Millwall Junction. Blackwall railway line
from Stepney to Bow Junction 1849. East London Residential did not make a
connection until 1854.
Stepney Green.
clock tower dedicated
to Dr Stanley Bean Atkinson, which originally stood in Burdett Road and was
moved here in 1934.
35‑77 61‑62 37 best house in Stepney. 1715‑20 Baptist
College. 1850 chapel ok.
37 The London Jewish Hospital site. Opened in 1919 when it was mainly supported by the Jewish
community, it was the Craft School open to all. The hospital expanded in the
1920s with the addition of a new nurses' home in Beaumont Square in 1939, but
was demolished and replaced by the London Independent Hospital, which opened in
1986.
Dunstan Houses were built by the East End Dwellings Company in 1899, one of the
many schemes initiated by Canon Samuel Barnett. The architects were Henry Davis
and Barrow Emmanuel. The flats were built to provide housing for the honest,
deserving poor.
33 Rudolph Rocker, the German anarchist, lived until his
internment in 1914. Rocker was the editor of the Yiddish newspaper Arbeter
Fraint (workers' friend).
Wickham House. Tower block since demolished
Stepney High Street
Churchyard the most interesting monument is a remarkable
pyramid Panelled in stone and inscribed The Wisdom of Solomon' in English and
Hebrew with an armorial shield below. A mid-c19
print shows that it formerly stood on a square plinth. War Memorial.
Blessing Christ a harrowing relief of a corpse- in no-man's land. By Arthur G. Walker, unveiled 1921. Dozens of half-buried ledger slabs line the
perimeter wall, taken from demolished tomb chests, an indication of the c18
affluence of this parish. 3-acres
opened to the public as a park. Fountain
and seats. Mentioned in Our Mutual Friend.
Managed London
County Council. A shaded seven-acre churchyard and is
the heart of the Mercers Estate Conservation Area. Its close proximity to
Stepping Stones Farm gives a strong rural feel to this part of Stepney
White Horse Road.
The medieval route from Ratcliffe to
St Dunstan's Church and known from the c14-c16 as Cliff Street. It was lined
with houses by the early c17 when its name changed to White Hart Street.
Limehouse District Board of Works Offices, 1862-4 by C.R. Bunch,
Limehouse District Surveyor. Converted for Half Moon Youth Theatre in 1994 by
Wallbank & Morgan.. The roofline was originally made lively by urns set on
plinths. Separately constructed Board Room at the rear, its interior much
damaged.
Hamlet
of Ratcliffe C.E. School founded in 1710.Neo-Tudor of 1853-4, replacing a
schoolhouse erected 1719-20. two canopied niches,
designed to hold charity figures of a boy and girl, now at Stepney Green
Primary.
Vicarage
built in 1882 for St Matthew Commercial Road.
Previously on the site was a house provided by Dean Colet's estate for
the headmaster of St Paul's School.
Colet Arms.
Named after Dean Colet founded St.Paul’s school. Lived there.
Mercer’s Company housing
1854-5 by George Smith, succeeding
almshouses built in 1691 under the gift of Dame Jane Mico. Two storeys in a
pale brick with projecting brick porches under stucco pediment,
York Square
Mercers’ Company houses. The centre of the Mercers' development 1825
George Smith, tiny but complete with its surrounding streets of two-storey
two-bay terraced houses with simple arched doorways. Acquired by the GLC in
1973, and among the first of such terraces to be renovated in 1976.
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