Great Eastern Railway to Ilford Mile End
Great Eastern Railway line to Ilford
The Great Eastern railway line running from Bethnal Green Station goes north eastwards
Post to the west Globe Town
Post to the east Mile End (quarter post)
Post to the east Bromley by Bow
Aberavon Road
This was originally Frederick Place and was developed from 1824 as a terrace
Eaton Terrace by UBZWG for Kentish Homes built in 1983-5. The doorways are flanked by huge curving pedestals with balls, put there to disguise the rubbish bins
Anthill Road
129 built in 1869 as the Duke of York pub, for the Smith, Garrett, & Co. brewery of Bromley-by-Bow. The pub closed in 2002 but tiled signage has been kept in conversion to housing - the best monument to that brewery that can still be seen today.
Cherrywood Close
Housing built on the site J T Davies Ltd rope works. This was a subsidiary of the wire rope manufacturers, John Stephens of Bristol and Warrington, and made fibre ropes, including from coir for Fishing Vessels, Running Gear, and Trawl Warps. They were taken over by Bridon in 1925
Clinton Road
This once residential road is now inside the park.
Grove Road
The continuation of Burdett Road northwards from Mile End Road, leads to Victoria Park
2 Greedy Cow. This was the Prince of Wales but was set up as the Prince of Prussia before 1881. It was a tied house to the London & Burton Brewery of Stepney and on the pub sign was their insignia of ‘LBB’ as part of the iron work. The name was changed at the outbreak of the Great War by which time it was a Watney’s house. It closed in 2005.
Rail Bridge. This carries the Great Eastern line and the road is lowered underneath it
Plaque on the railway bridge. Mile End was hit by the first V1 flying bomb in 1944, which fell next to the railway bridge. Eight civilians were killed, 30 injured and 200 made homeless. The site was derelict until it was incorporated into the new Mile End Park.
Tram depot. This horse tram depot is shown on maps from the 1890s until after Great War and ran along the south west side of the railway line. It is understood that in the 1920s it was associated with E.A.Lloyds Garage and privately run bus routes.
30 The Railway Tavern. This was a Charrington’s house which was here before 1861. It closed in 2000 and is now housing. What remains are three tiled 'House of Toby' plaques – saying: ‘CHARRINGTONS 1757’ and a 'Toby' image with 'TOBY ALE' and 'THE HOUSE OF TOBY'
51 Mile End Hotel
110 The Victoria. The pub dates from at least the 1870s. It has a clock hanging from a bracket outside
Mile End Bus station
Haverfield Road
This is now a roadway leading into the park.
The Palm Tree. This pub is now within the park but stood originally in Palm Street – which ran in the square to the north. There is a tiled panel above the corner door which says 'TRUMANS' plus a large eagle with 'ESTd 1666'; and the pub name
Mile End Climbing Wall. This opened in the late 1980s and used an old pipe engineering works. Plus the Rock On climbing shop.
Lichfield Road
The Lord Tredegar. Pub, with his portrait on the inn sign. Lord Tredegar, was once Sir Charles Morgan who owned land here.
Mile End Park
Mile End Park is a new park. However it was part of Patrick Abercrombie's 'Greater London Plan' in 1944. There had been some land clearance by the Greater London Council and this continued after it became the responsibility of London Borough of Tower Hamlets. By the end of the 1980s the section from Mile End Road to Victoria Park was landscaped (this square covered only as far the Palm Tree Pub). Following calls by for projects to mark the millennium, Tower Hamlets Environment Trust, under John Aldenton, as part of a partnership made a successful application for Millennium funding. Creation of the park began in 1998 and it opened in phases from 2000. The park stretches alongside the Regents Canal from Limehouse to Victoria Park. Although only a few yards across in some places the layout has been created a series of distinct spaces
Ecology Pavilion. This is an earth sheltered building using a heat storage system developed in the Rocky Mountains Research Centre. It has an insulation umbrella made of polystyrene and polythene to create a dry thermal heat store to collect heat created by the occupants, lights, equipment and the sun.
Lake. There is a high walk around the back of the lake, bounded by tall curved ribs of timber
Wind Turbine. This is a single 6.5 kw wind turbine which is on the island in the ecology lake and powers a sump that circulates water around the lake.
Mile End Arts Pavilion An earth sheltered building like the Ecology Pavilion.
Mile End Road
401 Essex House. This was an 18th mansion, the home of the Morrison family and said to have been built by a Lady Essex.
Guild of Handcraft. In 1891 Charles Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft and the Essex House Press here. He hoped to further the aims of the Arts and Crafts movement by preserving and practising old skills of printing, bookbinding, furniture making and metalwork. It is also where he founded the Survey of London. After eleven years, the guild moved to the country.
St Philips Settlement. This was founded in, 1894, by Lady Margaret Howard helped by a group of women including her sister Lady Mary Howard. It moved to 401 Mile End Road in 1903 where there was accommodation for clubs and meetings. This was a Roman Catholic body – the ladies were the sisters of the Duke of Norfolk. It was thus a convent for the Sisters of Charity until 1929
Barclay's Bank leased the building from 1929 until it was taken over by the cinema chain.
Odeon Theatre was built for Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon Theatres chain. It was designed by the Andrew Mather firm, with Keith P. Roberts. It had the distinctive Odeon style tower and cream faïence tiles. It opened in 1938 with Max Miller. It closed in 1972. It was converted into a Sundown concert centre/dancehall which opened in 1972 with Slade. The venture was a failure and it closed in 1973. In1975 it opened as the Liberty screening Bollywood films and finally closed in 1978. It was demolished in 1984 and an office/residential block built on the site.
401 Onyx House. The building is by Piers Gough in 1986. There is s coved cornice free of the parapet which swoops in a deep inverted line through the brick facade to reveal glass curtain walling. This new building has gone through several names includng Kentish House, and Besso House. The extensive garden to the rear is now the site of flats.
Morgan Street
New Testament Church of God. This was Holy Trinity Church built 1834-9 by Daniel and James Austin, local surveyors. It is on a large site, with its own burial ground. The New Testament church took it over in 1996 after period of redundancy and vandalism. It was designed as a proprietary chapel, funded by a lawyer, E.A. Dickenson, who hoped to make his son the clergyman. The site was given by the landowner Sir C Morgan. By 1836 Dickenson's money had run out and the church was finished by the Metropolis Churches Fund in 1839 and given its own district in 1841. The church suffered bomb damage during the Blitz and was closed in 1984.
Churchyard with a variety of monuments. It was closed in 1853. A number of sea captains are buried there.
Church Hall of Holy Trinity Church built 1901. This is now the New Testament Church of God.
Railway
Coal depot - A viaduct built in 1852 lay alongside the main line to the south associated with the coal depot. This was to facilitate transshipment of coal from railway to canal for distribution. The depot was not finished until the mid-1860s and there were five sidings used for servicing movements within it. The viaduct was bombed in the Second World War – as indeed were other parts of the depot - and rebuilt after it. Parish boundary markers were displayed on the viaduct. When use as a coal yard ceased it was taken over by Tarmac as a depot for the movement of aggregates. Up until the 1950s a number of coal merchants were based on various parts of the depot site
Apple Tree Yard. Some of the arches were used as a business and light industrial complex.
Regents Canal
Coal depot. Sidings from the Mile End coal depot spread south during the early part of the 20th fanning out over the area to the north of Mile End Road. Most of this site is now covered by the of halls of residence for Queen Mary College, University of London
Spencer’s works. Edward Spencer had a saw mills here with a wharf on the canal based at 81 Longfellow Road (now demolished along with, Longfellow-road) before and during the Great War) 1918. Spencer also made Medical Soaps.
Avon Wharf, Longfellow Road. This was the veneering factory of John Wright and Sons from the early 20th – they were there until at least the 1950s. They cut veneers to a wide range of specifications and were specialist in aircraft construction and interior decoration.
Railway bridge – this was an iron bridge on the Eastern Counties Railway built in 1839 when the line to Bishopsgate crossed the canal.
Two boundary stones alongside the towpath almost under the railway bridge. They mark the border between the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets and date from before 1880. The taller stone has the remains of six lines of writing, but is too worn to be readable.
Mile End Lock. Lock with converted lock cottage. The lock, at this point on the canal, has a drop of eight feet when heading south to Limehouse Basin
Pump House at Mile End Lock, There was a system for back-pumping water up the canal to above Mile End Locks from the canal basin at Limehouse via a 3-foot diameter back-pumping pipe installed in 1898. Attached to the lock cottage here was a single-storey boiler house with a steam pump maintaining the water level in the pound above the locks. The pipe runs under the towpath from Commercial Road Bridge to the Mile End pound. The pump house has now been demolished.
Lock keepers cottage. Double fronted 19th building. This is at the east end of the College Campus and had been vacant for some time. The pump house has been demolished and the extension is a series of interlocking forms wrapping around the cottage. This is clad in aluminum rainscreen cladding, which leans out. The ‘North Wing’ projects out over the tow- path, providing the common room with a window overlooking the canal lock. Over the main entrance door is a notice saying Graduate School. The disabled access and cottage are connected via a bridge and staircase formed like a sculptural ‘Tendril’ in the double height foyer. The first floor of the cottage now a single space, with the ceiling opened up to follow the existing roof profile. This space accommodates a seminar room with three original sash windows overlooking the canal. The ground floor is a workroom with two workstations and toilet facilities.
Packing case factory. This was a branch of the packing case manufacturing business of John Wright.
Dust yard. This appears to be part of the Great Eastern coal depot. There was an arrangement for them to take Mile End street sweeping refuse. Possibly for sale on to brick makers. A dust depot on the site in 1915 belonged to the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.
Young’s Wharf. This was a chemical works north of the railway
Commercial Wharf. This wharf was used by a variety of manufacturers. In 1854 H.O.Gray was making Crew’s Disinfecting Fluid there – contained chloride of zinc and was said to prevent cholera. At the same time Mr. Gray was inventing methods of preserving potatoes. In the 1880s Gardner Brothers, lightermen and cowkeepers were there. In the 1960s it was used by a fencing manufacturer.
Westfield Way
This is an internal road in the Queen Mary College campus.
Sources
Ackroyd, Dickens’ London
Blacker, Lunn, Westgate. London Buses
Bow Heritage Trail. Bow Planning.
Brewery History Society. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London,
Day. London’s Underground
East London’s Free Art. Web site
Essex Lopresti. The Regents’ Canal
GLIAS Newsletter
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Nairn. Nairn’s London,
National Archives. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London East
Smythe. Citywildspace,
Thomas, Ben’s Limehouse.
The Great Eastern railway line running from Bethnal Green Station goes north eastwards
Post to the west Globe Town
Post to the east Mile End (quarter post)
Post to the east Bromley by Bow
Aberavon Road
This was originally Frederick Place and was developed from 1824 as a terrace
Eaton Terrace by UBZWG for Kentish Homes built in 1983-5. The doorways are flanked by huge curving pedestals with balls, put there to disguise the rubbish bins
Anthill Road
129 built in 1869 as the Duke of York pub, for the Smith, Garrett, & Co. brewery of Bromley-by-Bow. The pub closed in 2002 but tiled signage has been kept in conversion to housing - the best monument to that brewery that can still be seen today.
Cherrywood Close
Housing built on the site J T Davies Ltd rope works. This was a subsidiary of the wire rope manufacturers, John Stephens of Bristol and Warrington, and made fibre ropes, including from coir for Fishing Vessels, Running Gear, and Trawl Warps. They were taken over by Bridon in 1925
Clinton Road
This once residential road is now inside the park.
Grove Road
The continuation of Burdett Road northwards from Mile End Road, leads to Victoria Park
2 Greedy Cow. This was the Prince of Wales but was set up as the Prince of Prussia before 1881. It was a tied house to the London & Burton Brewery of Stepney and on the pub sign was their insignia of ‘LBB’ as part of the iron work. The name was changed at the outbreak of the Great War by which time it was a Watney’s house. It closed in 2005.
Rail Bridge. This carries the Great Eastern line and the road is lowered underneath it
Plaque on the railway bridge. Mile End was hit by the first V1 flying bomb in 1944, which fell next to the railway bridge. Eight civilians were killed, 30 injured and 200 made homeless. The site was derelict until it was incorporated into the new Mile End Park.
Tram depot. This horse tram depot is shown on maps from the 1890s until after Great War and ran along the south west side of the railway line. It is understood that in the 1920s it was associated with E.A.Lloyds Garage and privately run bus routes.
30 The Railway Tavern. This was a Charrington’s house which was here before 1861. It closed in 2000 and is now housing. What remains are three tiled 'House of Toby' plaques – saying: ‘CHARRINGTONS 1757’ and a 'Toby' image with 'TOBY ALE' and 'THE HOUSE OF TOBY'
51 Mile End Hotel
110 The Victoria. The pub dates from at least the 1870s. It has a clock hanging from a bracket outside
Mile End Bus station
Haverfield Road
This is now a roadway leading into the park.
The Palm Tree. This pub is now within the park but stood originally in Palm Street – which ran in the square to the north. There is a tiled panel above the corner door which says 'TRUMANS' plus a large eagle with 'ESTd 1666'; and the pub name
Mile End Climbing Wall. This opened in the late 1980s and used an old pipe engineering works. Plus the Rock On climbing shop.
Lichfield Road
The Lord Tredegar. Pub, with his portrait on the inn sign. Lord Tredegar, was once Sir Charles Morgan who owned land here.
Mile End Park
Mile End Park is a new park. However it was part of Patrick Abercrombie's 'Greater London Plan' in 1944. There had been some land clearance by the Greater London Council and this continued after it became the responsibility of London Borough of Tower Hamlets. By the end of the 1980s the section from Mile End Road to Victoria Park was landscaped (this square covered only as far the Palm Tree Pub). Following calls by for projects to mark the millennium, Tower Hamlets Environment Trust, under John Aldenton, as part of a partnership made a successful application for Millennium funding. Creation of the park began in 1998 and it opened in phases from 2000. The park stretches alongside the Regents Canal from Limehouse to Victoria Park. Although only a few yards across in some places the layout has been created a series of distinct spaces
Ecology Pavilion. This is an earth sheltered building using a heat storage system developed in the Rocky Mountains Research Centre. It has an insulation umbrella made of polystyrene and polythene to create a dry thermal heat store to collect heat created by the occupants, lights, equipment and the sun.
Lake. There is a high walk around the back of the lake, bounded by tall curved ribs of timber
Wind Turbine. This is a single 6.5 kw wind turbine which is on the island in the ecology lake and powers a sump that circulates water around the lake.
Mile End Arts Pavilion An earth sheltered building like the Ecology Pavilion.
Mile End Road
401 Essex House. This was an 18th mansion, the home of the Morrison family and said to have been built by a Lady Essex.
Guild of Handcraft. In 1891 Charles Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft and the Essex House Press here. He hoped to further the aims of the Arts and Crafts movement by preserving and practising old skills of printing, bookbinding, furniture making and metalwork. It is also where he founded the Survey of London. After eleven years, the guild moved to the country.
St Philips Settlement. This was founded in, 1894, by Lady Margaret Howard helped by a group of women including her sister Lady Mary Howard. It moved to 401 Mile End Road in 1903 where there was accommodation for clubs and meetings. This was a Roman Catholic body – the ladies were the sisters of the Duke of Norfolk. It was thus a convent for the Sisters of Charity until 1929
Barclay's Bank leased the building from 1929 until it was taken over by the cinema chain.
Odeon Theatre was built for Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon Theatres chain. It was designed by the Andrew Mather firm, with Keith P. Roberts. It had the distinctive Odeon style tower and cream faïence tiles. It opened in 1938 with Max Miller. It closed in 1972. It was converted into a Sundown concert centre/dancehall which opened in 1972 with Slade. The venture was a failure and it closed in 1973. In1975 it opened as the Liberty screening Bollywood films and finally closed in 1978. It was demolished in 1984 and an office/residential block built on the site.
401 Onyx House. The building is by Piers Gough in 1986. There is s coved cornice free of the parapet which swoops in a deep inverted line through the brick facade to reveal glass curtain walling. This new building has gone through several names includng Kentish House, and Besso House. The extensive garden to the rear is now the site of flats.
Morgan Street
New Testament Church of God. This was Holy Trinity Church built 1834-9 by Daniel and James Austin, local surveyors. It is on a large site, with its own burial ground. The New Testament church took it over in 1996 after period of redundancy and vandalism. It was designed as a proprietary chapel, funded by a lawyer, E.A. Dickenson, who hoped to make his son the clergyman. The site was given by the landowner Sir C Morgan. By 1836 Dickenson's money had run out and the church was finished by the Metropolis Churches Fund in 1839 and given its own district in 1841. The church suffered bomb damage during the Blitz and was closed in 1984.
Churchyard with a variety of monuments. It was closed in 1853. A number of sea captains are buried there.
Church Hall of Holy Trinity Church built 1901. This is now the New Testament Church of God.
Railway
Coal depot - A viaduct built in 1852 lay alongside the main line to the south associated with the coal depot. This was to facilitate transshipment of coal from railway to canal for distribution. The depot was not finished until the mid-1860s and there were five sidings used for servicing movements within it. The viaduct was bombed in the Second World War – as indeed were other parts of the depot - and rebuilt after it. Parish boundary markers were displayed on the viaduct. When use as a coal yard ceased it was taken over by Tarmac as a depot for the movement of aggregates. Up until the 1950s a number of coal merchants were based on various parts of the depot site
Apple Tree Yard. Some of the arches were used as a business and light industrial complex.
Regents Canal
Coal depot. Sidings from the Mile End coal depot spread south during the early part of the 20th fanning out over the area to the north of Mile End Road. Most of this site is now covered by the of halls of residence for Queen Mary College, University of London
Spencer’s works. Edward Spencer had a saw mills here with a wharf on the canal based at 81 Longfellow Road (now demolished along with, Longfellow-road) before and during the Great War) 1918. Spencer also made Medical Soaps.
Avon Wharf, Longfellow Road. This was the veneering factory of John Wright and Sons from the early 20th – they were there until at least the 1950s. They cut veneers to a wide range of specifications and were specialist in aircraft construction and interior decoration.
Railway bridge – this was an iron bridge on the Eastern Counties Railway built in 1839 when the line to Bishopsgate crossed the canal.
Two boundary stones alongside the towpath almost under the railway bridge. They mark the border between the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets and date from before 1880. The taller stone has the remains of six lines of writing, but is too worn to be readable.
Mile End Lock. Lock with converted lock cottage. The lock, at this point on the canal, has a drop of eight feet when heading south to Limehouse Basin
Pump House at Mile End Lock, There was a system for back-pumping water up the canal to above Mile End Locks from the canal basin at Limehouse via a 3-foot diameter back-pumping pipe installed in 1898. Attached to the lock cottage here was a single-storey boiler house with a steam pump maintaining the water level in the pound above the locks. The pipe runs under the towpath from Commercial Road Bridge to the Mile End pound. The pump house has now been demolished.
Lock keepers cottage. Double fronted 19th building. This is at the east end of the College Campus and had been vacant for some time. The pump house has been demolished and the extension is a series of interlocking forms wrapping around the cottage. This is clad in aluminum rainscreen cladding, which leans out. The ‘North Wing’ projects out over the tow- path, providing the common room with a window overlooking the canal lock. Over the main entrance door is a notice saying Graduate School. The disabled access and cottage are connected via a bridge and staircase formed like a sculptural ‘Tendril’ in the double height foyer. The first floor of the cottage now a single space, with the ceiling opened up to follow the existing roof profile. This space accommodates a seminar room with three original sash windows overlooking the canal. The ground floor is a workroom with two workstations and toilet facilities.
Packing case factory. This was a branch of the packing case manufacturing business of John Wright.
Dust yard. This appears to be part of the Great Eastern coal depot. There was an arrangement for them to take Mile End street sweeping refuse. Possibly for sale on to brick makers. A dust depot on the site in 1915 belonged to the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.
Young’s Wharf. This was a chemical works north of the railway
Commercial Wharf. This wharf was used by a variety of manufacturers. In 1854 H.O.Gray was making Crew’s Disinfecting Fluid there – contained chloride of zinc and was said to prevent cholera. At the same time Mr. Gray was inventing methods of preserving potatoes. In the 1880s Gardner Brothers, lightermen and cowkeepers were there. In the 1960s it was used by a fencing manufacturer.
Westfield Way
This is an internal road in the Queen Mary College campus.
Sources
Ackroyd, Dickens’ London
Blacker, Lunn, Westgate. London Buses
Bow Heritage Trail. Bow Planning.
Brewery History Society. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London,
Day. London’s Underground
East London’s Free Art. Web site
Essex Lopresti. The Regents’ Canal
GLIAS Newsletter
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Nairn. Nairn’s London,
National Archives. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London East
Smythe. Citywildspace,
Thomas, Ben’s Limehouse.
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