Whitechapel
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Adler Street
Suffered badly from a flying bomb and
was entirely rebuilt. Before the war there was a Jewish
reading room, two synagogues and a street of houses off Mulberry Street. reconstruction plans weren for industrial and commercial. . Named in 1913 in honour of Dr Herman Adler, Chief
Rabbi, who was a cousin of Jacob Adler, founder of the Yiddish Theatre.
Adler Hall. The New Yiddish
Theatre Company, founded by Fanny Waxman, used Adler Hall from 1936, for performances. In 1946 they performed The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish.
1-13 opposite the church four-storey flatted workshops by YRM for the LCC, 1963-4. .
St Boniface R.C. German
church.corner of Mulberry Street. built in 1960 on the site of the original
St Boniface's German Catholic church, 1860s which was bombed. German traders in Whitechapel were mainly sugar bakers or
tobacco merchants. Between 1850 and 1890 there were about 27,000
Germans living in London, the majority in here in 'Little Germany'. about a third were
employed in the sugar refineries around Whitechapel. The new church was initiated by Father Felix
Leuschacke, advised by T. Hermanns of Cleve; thearchitects were D. Plaskett
Marshall & Partners.
Manse attached to St..Boniface. brick
Black Horse.
Ceramic mural of Charrington’s Brewery dray
Angel Alley
Mural of radical writers and anarchists by Anya Patel
for the Freeform Arts Trust and the Freedom
Press. Including picture of anarchist Rudolph Rocker – hero of Jewish immigrant
clothing workers.
Left-wing bookshop for the Freedom Press, here is an East End institution.
Assam Street
Around the churchyard, still conveys something of the chaotic character
of pre-war Whitechapel, with domestic terraces overtaken by the rag trade,
interspersed with modest industrial building of between the wars,
Backchurch Lane
Old warehouses still line the east side of this and you follow these
until a truncated stretch of viaduct appears on the left. This is all that
survives of the Commercial Road branch and
it follows the south side of Pinchin Street towards its former connection with
the passenger line at Christian Street Junction. Once a
route to the church at Whitechapel. in the earlier c19 was famous for its vast
sugar bakeries, but from the 1890s came to be dominated by the impressive wool
warehouses, served by the now demolished goods station built 1885-6 for the
elevated London, Tilbury & Southend railway to the docks
L.C.C school. The small block in Back Church Lane was built
as a cookery centre.
Three-storey range for Kinloch & Co., wine
merchants, by Hyman Henry Collins, 1894-5. Converted 1999.
New Loom House, a five-storey former wool
warehouse for Messrs Browne & Eagle, 1889. Fifteen bays, divided into units of three, each with ', its own entrance. Converted to
offices 1998-9; cranes and upper loading doors have been preserved.
74, a long five-storey block: c. 1900, probably by
Holland & Hannen, also for Browne & Eagle. Twenty bays with a blind
storey above. Loading bays in every fifth bay. doorway with the firm's name boldly engraved on the lintel
Brady Street
Site of a ducking
pond, used for the punishment of wives, minor miscreants, while open
fields stretched to the north and south. Home to the Brady Boys Club, which was
opened over 100 years ago for Jewish boys, and later girls. The clubs have now
moved to north London. Whitechapel Green had a pond and ducking stool and Brady
Street was originally Ducking Pond Lane.
Ideas Store
Sainsbury's. The
Brewery's extensive works, were cleared for in 1993-4- By D.Y. Davies
Associates,
37 Jews' Cemetery disused, containing the tomb of Nathan Meyer
Rothschild d.1836, the English
representative of a famous family of financiers. Ashkenazi
cemetery. Also buried is Miriam Levey, who opened the very first soup kitchen
in Whitechapel. The site was originally a brickfield which was leased for
burials in 1761 for 12 guineas a year. Locked doors. Keepers will let you in. A large walled enclosure, founded in 1795 by
the Ashkenazi community. Crowded with mainly later Victorian monuments, some of
considerable lavishness and with several to members of the Rothschild family,
including Nathan Meyer Rothschild 1836. Changes in ground level reflect the
requirements of rabbinical law and layers of burial. There are some beautiful tombs and mausoleums. Although it was closed as a cemetery in 1858,
the gardens are well maintained and it is a well hidden gem of Whitechapel.
Mocatta House. This early provision of improved
housing is a tenement block by Joseph & Smithem for the Four Per Cent
Industrial Dwellings Co., 1905. Built on the site of a Jewish almshouses;
JJs free house. On site of 18th
coaching inn. Wooden beamed house. Was called Yorkshire Grey. Mrs. Bray’s
licensee initials
Buxton Street
St Patrick's School was built in 1848 and first
used as boys' school and chapel. It was opened by Father Quiblier for Irish
Catholics. He invited the Marist Fathers to take over the mission. They taught
the boys and a girls' school was opened in Underwood Road, where they were
taught by Mrs Mary McCarthy. In 1857 a site was acquired in Hunton (Hunt) Court
and the Marist Sisters came over from France to teach the girls. The building
has been refurbished into private flats.
The vicarage and church hall of All Saints"
Church stood next door to the St Patrick's School building. The church was
built in 1839 and demolished in 1951. The site of the church was formerly part
of the workhouse of Mile End New Town. The workhouse was opened in 1783 and
closed after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834. All
Saints" Church was built in the Norman style, by architect Thomas Larkins
Walker, a pupil of Pugin. There was also a school founded by the Quakers here
in 1812
Cambridge Heath
Nothing to do
with Cambridge. Corruption of Saxon name
‘Centbeorht’.Part of heath land on a gravel plateau surrounded by marshes and
considered as a ‘waste’ of Stepney Manor.
Ancient house there in 1275 otherwise market gardening and hayfields.
Windmill there in 1836.
Cambridge Heath Road
Site of Cambridge
Heath. Site of Turnpike. Obelisk there in 1890s, Cambridge Heath to
the north of the road. The dividing line between Whitechapel and Mile
End Road, formerly title of Dog Lane
Bethnal Green
Hospital l900. Old workhouse. Previously site of pond. Bethnal Green Infirmary Giles Gough and
Trollope.
Town
Hall - 1910 flamboyant Edwardian baroque. Neatly neo-classical etc. l936 and York Hall l929
Neo-Georgian lively too.
Newmarket Terrace
road goes to Newmarket says
London County
Council flats back of the brewery frontages to Cambridge Heath Road and Lisbon Street and
are five stones high
Chapman Street
Shadwell Station remains – the disused station
entrance on the north side of the viaduct.
An arched doorway beneath the viaduct served as a further means of
access to the ELR station, and is believed to have also led into the
interchange footway, which linked the ELR with the former London &
Blackwall station up above.
Chicksand Street
Coal depot. Site only. Location of Isaac Glassman's
coal depot. Glassman was the father of Minnie Lansbury and together with
Minnie's husband, Edgar Lansbury, the son of George Lansbury, was involved in
the sale of the Russian Crown Jewels, and seized during the Russian Revolution
in 1916. He helped to hide them in the coal shed, while their sale was being
negotiated. The money from the sale was offered to George Lansbury to help
support his paper the Daily Herald, but he refused to have anything to do with
it. Although questions were asked in Parliament about this affair, it is not
clear exactly what happened to the money, although it is now known that the
jewels found their way to an American museum.
Commercial Road
Built as a link between City and the Docks 1800 across
Stepney Fields. 1802 went on to the East
India Docks. Originally ended at Church
Lane 1870 extended by Thwaites to Leman Street. Built by the Commercial Road Company, from Limehouse Church to Church
Lane. Now Adler Street, as a more direct route from the East and West India
Docks to the City. And the Whitechapel sugar bakeries. It was extended
westwards to Gardiner's Comer in 1870 by the Metropolitan Board of Works. 1880s Irish workers making trousers and waistcoats
30-30a Four
storey warehouse belonging to Citytex. Collapsed 2007
111-125 have tall red-terracotta upper storeys with
mullioned windows and a gable. Built c. 1900 as the Red House Coffee Palace, a
temperance establishment founded by the vicar of St Augustine, Harry Wilson. By
Edward Burges who designed similar establishments during the 1880s in his
native Leicester. It once bore an inscription: 'A good pull-up for Bishops'
Brewery Tap
scythes hanging from the ceiling. Site
of Commercial Brewery closed in 1930s
Cheviot House prominent
tower. By G.G. Winbourne, 1937 for Kornberg and Segal, woollen merchants. Now council offices. Borax block.
Clothing factories, on the corner of Gower's Walk, a tobacco
factory.
Granite tramway from Brunswick Wharf to the City built by
Bidder 1830
Kings Head. Regency building
35a, Morrison Buildings, a five-storey c19 Improved Industrial Dwellings Co. tenement block
built in 1874, with the usual stucco trim and recessed central bays with iron
balconies and stairs. Originally with a pair on the side of the road. With
its iron balconies typical of tenement blocks of the later 19th
model of its day, featured in the Illustrated London News and later used as a
bonded store for whisky. The small building in front, with the classical first
floor, was used as a 'duty paid' warehouse.
St.Mary &
St.Michael RC 1856 high ship.
542 PDSA moved
its head dispensary where they remained right up to the 1950s.
Davenant Street
Davenant schools
early 19th.
Deal Street
Housing Victoria Cottages Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the
Industrious Classes. Built in 1865. Cottages have been renovated and improved. At
the time of their refection, their experimental style was criticised for not
using the land to house more people.
Durward Street
Previously Bucks Row
or Tickle Belly Common or Ducking Pond Row.
T.G.Smith
distillers on site of Schnedier’s clothing factory second largest distiller in
England in 1832. Davey E Liptrap. in the
Boulton and Watt archive in Birmingham scribbled on a piece of paper from
around 1811, are the words 'Liptrap,
Whitechapel' and are
associated with a sketch of a gas making plant. Liptrap bought a 17 inch rotative engine
in 1786 from them. He was a partner with Thomas Smith? of T. & G. Smith one of twelve distillers in England in 1832, and
the second largest of these.
Kearely &
Tonge. Kearely started in at age of
20. Became International Stores. In addition, he was first chair of PLA as
Lord Devenport. 400 branches in 1939.
Coal drop viaduct. In 1866 Great Eastern
Railway opened the Whitechapel coal depot.
This was renamed Spitalfields coal depot. It was on a spur from the East Coast Railway
viaduct west of Bethnal Green. Near Whitechapel, the viaduct crosses the East
London Railway on the skew. Two branches
passed under the viaduct to sidings on the east side serving 'Essex Wharf’ The arches were
divided by a wall parallel to the railway tracks, in the crown of each arch was
a hole.
Essex Wharf. where James Brown (London) Ltd, brickmakers and
Frazzi Fireproof Construction Ltd traded. The offices coud be seen until the
1980s decorated with terra cotta and with the name ‘ESSEX WHARF’ It was also the site of
Iron Co. brick works.
Whitechapel Sports Centre where the contemporary spirit continues. By Pollard Edwards, 1998.
Board School admirably restored by E.R. Robson, now flats. It has a roof playground and may originally
have had one at ground floor under an arcade, now infilled.
East Mint Street
& Mint Terrace?
Civil War
fortifications. Southern side of Whitechapel Road, spire there of London
Hospital. Chancel in 15th.
Fairclough Street
Stable block 2-storey. c1900, later used as a garage for
steam lorries. Behind is a tall block with painted advert for 'POTTER'S CATARRH
PASTILLES'.
Victoria Mills,
incorporating earlier buildings of 1920, extended to the corner with Henriques
Street in 1923. Robust brick elevations, four and seven storeys. All by Wheat
and Luker. Converted to apartments in 1999.
8-10 are sole
survivals here of the earlier c19. Original doors with narrow arched panels
Fieldgate Street
A trackway from Whitechapel to St
Dunstan's on early c18 maps. It is a scrappy mix now. Overlooks the grid of streets laid out on the
hospital estate from the 1790s.
Tower House. dominates
the area since the beginning of the 20th . looming, red brick mass
of what was one of the largest of Lord Rowton's hostels, providing lodgings for
single men. Designed by H.B. Measures, 1902. Since refurbished as flats. Six
storeys with a central gable and turret at each end, the oppressive effect
increased by the ranks of diminutive windows, which lit the individual rooms.
31 Grodzinski bakery after generations of persecution, Harris Grodzinski transplanted
himself with his young wife Judith to England, along with their two
children. the Grodzinskis hired the ovens of a Master
Baker called Galevitz and began baking wedding rolls. Mixing a rich dough of
the best white flour with plenty of oil and sugar, she made the rolls from two
strips of dough, twisted into a little bun, washed with a mixture of egg and
water and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Harris then sold these from a barrow in
Petticoat Lane market, off Commercial Street. The business continued to
flourish, until the Grodzinskis' success eventually compelled them to move to
31 Fieldgate Streer, half a mile away, where a set of coal fired double-deck
ovens were installed. Later the family acquired 33 Fieldgate Street which became the home of the Kanareck family,
the Grodzinskis' cousins, who for almost fifty years supplied the bakery with
flour. The Fieldgate Street shop would open at 4.00am to enable the barrows and
vans to load up and begin their rounds.
shops were opened throughout the Thirties and Forties in Willesden
Green, Golders Green, Hendon, Finchley, Cricklewood, as well as more in Stamford
Hill, all supporting local 'barrer' rounds and many with their own small
bakeries at the back. The bakery in Fieldgate Street was in full flow at the
start of the Second World War, but after several near misses by German bombs,
the decision was made to transfer all baking to the relative safety ot Dunsmure
Road. on the night of 29th December 1940 when, during a particularly heavy
raid, Fieldgate Street received a direct hit and the Grodzinskis' 'spiritual
home was reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble.
Fordham Street
A colourful group of flats with
covered entrances and high, central arch windows mimic the tenements in Romford
Street
Fulbourne Street
Named after Hugh de
Fulbourne, rector of St Mary's Whitechapel 1329- 36. There was a Socialist club
here, which the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party used in May 1907.
Delegates included Lenin, Litvinoff, Gorky, Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky, who was
introduced to another delegate, Stalin.
Goodman’s Field
The area south of Whitechapel High
Street was open ground in the c16, and known as Goodman's Fields. It was partly
divided into garden plots and by the early c17 it was also in use as tenter
grounds. The land was bought by Sir John Leman, Lord Mayor of London, whose
great-nephew, William Leman, first laid out four streets around the tenter
grounds in the 1680s - each given the family name of his relatives, Mansell,
Prescott, Ayliff and Leman. these were 'fair streets of good brick houses' in
1717 but most were replaced by Richard Leman and his builder Edward Hawkins in
the late c18, when the area was still fashionable. the noxious sugar refining
industry changed the nature of the area and this was followed in the 19th
by large warehouses. The area is said to have been the site of a gun battle in
1737 involving highwaymen and constables..
Goodman's Fields. Alie
Street opens to a vast complex of buildings, collectively known as, of 1975-8
by Elsom Kick Roberts Partnership for Natwest. It stands in spacious landscaped grounds on the
site of the massive London, Tilbury & Southend Railway's Goods Depot, 1886,
demolished. Two large blocks, originally for computer services and management,
Goodman’s Yard
Goodman's Yard Goods Depot (GER) Site
of Hydraulic Pumping Station
Theatre - David
Garrick debut.
Farm belonging to
Abbey of St. Clair
Goodman’s Stile
Theatre, original
of ‘throwsties’ shop in Leman Street.
Alternatively, Aycliffe Street opened as a Theatre. More trouble. Garrick’s first performance as
Richard III. Demolished 1746 another building
there burnt down in 1702;
Farm Fitter,
Gowers Walk
LHP Valve Box Cover. For a valve on a 4ft branch that served the
adjacent wool warehouse Later this branch was extended northwards, crossing
Commercial Road to join up with another main on Whitechapel Road, thus the
branch became a main.
Greatorex Street
Known as Great Garden Street.
Great Garden Street Synagogue in Morris Lederman House has been closed since 1995, and was one of
the last Jewish places of worship in the area. The Kosher
Luncheon Club has now closed. The Luncheon Club was a favourite place for
elderly East End Jewish men and women to have a cheap and nourishing midday
meal, and non-Jewish Eastenders also took advantage of the excellent meals
served there.
Henriques Street
Harry Gosling Primary School, L.C.C work of 1910;
the main block is plain, but the charmingly detailed Cookery and Laundry
building, dated 1903, shows T.J. Bailey's flair for smaller buildings: Basil House, 1934-5 by Burnet, Tait &
Lorne. Modernist flats for the adjoining
former settlement.
Bernhard Baron Jewish Settlement, founded by Basil
Henriques and built 1929-30 by Hobden & Porri. Tall, with an imposing
arched entrance. Now private flats
First London
School Board School.
Hooper Street
Commercial Road Goods Depot. London Tilbury and Southern Railway 1886/7. Built as part of the Tilbury dock system with
London Tilbury and Southern Railway Co., became called the Tilbury Warehouse. Although less successful than hoped, lasted
until 1967. The course of the line can still be discerned on the north side of
Hooper Street, although the viaduct itself has long disappeared. On the side of Lutheran Chapel. This warehouse
was initially designed to serve Tilbury Docks, but since tobacco was the chief
commodity in store, the building temporarily become a notional adjunct of the
Royal Docks. Caverns under called Tilbury.
Many Henry Moore drawings of it, old underground warehouses. Demolition
of the main buildings mostly took place in 1975, allowing the National
Westminster Bank to acquire the land for new premises, but the accumulator
tower, being separate from the main complex survived opened 1886-7 to handle
traffic to and from Tilbury Docks. Remains listed.
Hydraulic pumping station. Brickwork and flue and the
tower storey there. Part of the building
with brick viaduct on Duthie Street.
Two-storey red brick hydraulic tower.
Two accumulators. The
wooden signboard was a miraculous survival. Its fading white lettering still
included the heading 'LMS' and also referred to an adjoining warehouse, which
disappeared some years ago. Engine House designed by the railway's Chief
Engineer, L.A. Stride in 1885-6, to power the depot's hydraulic cranes and
hoists. Church-like, with high brick tower, slightly off-centre from the
'nave', the flanks of which are detailed in red and blue brick with stone
dressings over the arch windows. The red brick hydraulic pumping station
supplied power to the LTSR's. Through
the window of the tower can be seen cylinders, rams and crossheads of two
weight-loaded accumulators. Weight-cases, suspended from the crossheads and
containing several tons of sand and gravel have been removed. They ran up as
water was pumped into the system and down as it was used by the machinery. The
pumping engines, by Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell and Co- were, unusually, on
the first floor with four Lancashire boilers underneath.
Kingward Street
Originally King Edward Street
Site of King Edward Ragged School, which was one of the
largest in the area. The 'Church for the Ragged Poor'
Leman Street
Area of a Roman Cemetary and on the actual area of
Goodman’s Fields. Goodman was a farmer who let out fields for grazing, etc.
Adjoined the Abbey of St.Clare. Built up
by William. Leman & the surroundiung streets are named for his relations in
1710. ‘.Occupied by handsome residences of wealthy Jews’ - houses were bought by a Sephardic
community. A main thoroughfare was entirely built up with
brick houses by the 1740s but now is mostly c19 and c20. Now ‘the main
point of reference in an anonymous district’.
17 German Mission Day
School, 1863. Gothic with black
and red brick headers and moulded stucco keystones. Established in 1861,
possibly in the small building to the rear facing Buckle Street, but rebuilt by
Lutheran pastors as part of their Mission to German labourers.
45 commercialism;
52-60, high-fronted red brick tenements of c. 1901,
display the poor character of the district at the end of the c19. Built back-to-back with
the group in East Tenter Street by N. & R. Davis, Jewish builder developers.
53-5, the drapery warehouse of 1929-30 by the
Society's architect from 1916
70, Mr. Pickwick's, was known as the
Garrick Tavern from the early c19, in homage to David Garrick who performed in
the Goodman's Field Theatre, Alie Street, in the 1740s. Rebuilt 1854 by Joseph Lavender, who added
the large Garrick Theatre behind, demolished c. 1889.
99 at the corner with Hooper Street, of 1885-7 by
CWS's architect, J.E Goodey. Six storeys in red brick and Portland stone,
rising from a granite plinth with broad windows the lower floors and paired
arched openings above set with giant arches. Over the entrance a four-storey canted
bay, over the central staircase, has modestly carved emblems of the Society and
the cities of Manchester and London. Stress the vertical is an octagonal,
corner oriel carrying the square clock tower. Goodey erected tea warehouses
immediately behind them. With an open wagon road running between the two blocks
to serve the ground floor. Offices were on the first floor, then three floors
of large shops with concrete vaults carried on iron columns. The Assembly Room,
now subdivided. Still retains part ceiling with ribbed vaulting and decorative
plaster. Lengthy extension of 1910 by F.E.L. Harris. Poorly exaggerated Baroque
style. Wide and high entrance, open-segmental pediment and oriel window, and an
enriched open pediment over its penultimate bays.
100 picks up the dark brown tone, 1978-80 by Brian Shaw
& Co. stone-faced ground floor remodelled 1999-2000, which replaced CWS
buildings by Heythrop of 1897.
Blue Button' restaurant was the goods office of the London Tilbury
& Southend Railway (LTSR).
CWS The magnificent, cliff-like group lining side
of the street is testament to the enlightened architectural patronage of the
Co-operative Wholesale Society, who were established in the Minories in 1874,
moved to a former sugar refinery in 1881 for access to the railway and local markets
and quick expanded. Their buildings should be studied Co-op
building. . Foundation stone of eastern part laid in 1874
by Thomas Hughes. Western bit in 1887
with imposing clock tower. Foundation stone of eastern part laid in 1874 by
Thomas Hughes, Western bit in 1887 with imposing clock tower.
Leman Street Station 1st July 1877. Opened by Great Eastern Railway. Main entrance was south of the viaduct on the
east side of Leman Street near Cable Street junction. Another entrance at
Backchurch Lane. 1916-1919 closed.
1941 closed through a combination of bus/tram
competition and bomb damage. There is a hint of crumbling plaster work and a
under the bridge is a bricked-up doorway which once showed evidence of a lamp
bracket once hung. Traces of the station can also be seen off nearby Mill Yard.
The up platform survived in until the 1980s, when it disappeared under the DLR
tracks.
Mr. Kwick’s was Garrick Tavern
Police Station of 1960 by A Dunand of the Scotland Yard Chief
Architect & Surveyor’s Dept. . On the site of one of the first of Peel's watch houses,
rebuilt in 1890-1.
Rail link into East Smithfield
Sailors Home
Shops low range of earlier c19 flatted shops
Silver eagle Somali cafe
The Brown Bear Public House, c. 1830, is also well preserved, its three N
bays with giant, rendered pilasters.
Lion Lane?
Manningtree
Street
Around the churchyard, still conveys
something of the chaotic character of pre-war Whitechapel, with domestic
terraces overtaken by the rag Trade, interspersed with modest industrial
building of between the wars,
Mile End
‘La Mile ende’ in 1288, ‘Le Milende’ 1307, ‘Mylesende’
1395, ‘the Miles ende’ 1603, that is "the hamlet a mile away', from Middle
English ‘mile’ and ‘ende’. This hamlet on the old London-Colchester road was so
named because it was about 1 mile from Aldgate. It became known as Mile End Old
Town c.1691 when the name Mile End New Town was given to another hamlet further
west, adjoining Spitalfields. The road itself, here Mile End Road - marked thus
on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822 - was earlier referred to as ‘Oldestrete’ in
1383. In medieval times the open land here was much used for recreation and
gatherings; it was here during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 that the men of
Essex met Richard II and successfully demanded the abolition of feudal serfdom.
Crossroads. Mile End Waste was a traditional mustering place for troops in
Tudor times.
Turnpike Whitechapel
stretched as far at Mile End Gate, where a tollgate stood up to 1866. Turnpike
site. Mile End Gate, at the Mile End Turnpike, was removed in 1866 when
increasing traffic made the operation of the toll unworkable. This is where
Whitechapel Road becomes Mile End Road. In the middle of the road stood the
Vine Tavern, demolished in 1904, which dated to the reign of James I.
Assembly passage.
Baron’s pickle
factory, unexploded bomb
Dog Row was name
of bottom bit of Cambridge Heath Road.
Mount Street
Whitechapel Mount. On site of the
Hospital. 329 ft x 182 ft. removed in
1807. Earth from trenches for Civil
War. Alternatively, rubble from the
fire.
Stated to be 329 feet long and 182 feet wide,
and was considerably higher than the adjoining London Hospital. From the summit an extensive view of the former
villages of Limehouse, Shadwell, and Ratcliff could be obtained. Mount Place,
Mount Terrace, and Mount Street built on the
site. 31. East Mount Street and Mount Terrace recall
the Mount, demolished in 1830, which was 300 feet long. It was a massive
artificial hill which was probably originally a Saxon defensive work. During
the Civil War it was greatly enlarged as part of a system of defences for the
capital. By the 18th century, trees grew on the mount and paths ran across
it.
Mulberry Street
German hostel, 1972 by Flasket
Marshall & Partners;
Myrdle Street
Grenfell School. LCC. One of the first of their higher-grade
Central schools. A unique, outstanding design by T.J. Bailey, 1905.
Nelson Street
Built up from 1808, apparently
prompted by the London Dock Company's attempt to purchase the land. Is typical:
terraces of two- bay, two-storey houses with arched fanlights over narrow
doorways raised sharply off the street.
New Road
Laid out c. 1772 by the Commissioners
of the St George's Turnpike to provide a route to Ratcliffe and Wapping. Its
line roughly marks that of the City's civil war defences of 1642.
Mount Terrace built by the Corporation of London, c. 1808,
after they had cleared the Mount, part of the defences.
Newark Street
In the shadow of the former St
Philip's church the character of the c19 has been kept.
Blizard Building. Queen
Mary College Institute of Cell and Molecular Science. Glass walled laboratory building. Bruce Maclean art
St. Augustine
with St.Philip. Royal London Hospital
Museum. Back of London Hospital St.
Philip Stepney built by rich vicar, Vatcher, on site of the 1818 church. Biggest church in the east end.
St. Philip's National
Schools form the centrepiece of
this range a sandy-painted Tudor-Gothic design by Alfred. R. Mason, the
hospital's surveyor, 1842. Central stepped gable over a high Gothic arch window
framed between two high octagonal turrets. End pavilions for schoolmaster and
mistress with straight-edge gables.
Vicarage for St Philip's, 1864 by A. W Blomfield.
Ecclesiastical dourness with tile-hung insets to the pointed arch windows. Once
the home of J.R. Green, historian and incumbent of St Philip's (1865-8).
Parfett Street
created in the 1890s when the
hospital cleared a dense group of courts and alleys and replaced them with
sturdy, three-storey model dwellings - the first of their kind on the estate -
by their surveyors, Newman Conquest. Small windows with colonette mullions and
entrances under segmental and pointed pediments. A larger scheme for rebuilding
along Settles Street and Myrdle Street with identical blocks was unrealized.
The street's end still has three-storey terraces of the 1790s on both sides,
several with their original fanlights and doorcases. Renovated when the model
dwellings were erected and reflecting the estate's preference for individual
houses, seen also in Myrdle Street
Philpot Street
Pedestrianised in the late c20 in an
attempt to draw together the hospital's various residential buildings.
Philpot Terrace houses erected c. 1839 as. They were the
largest houses on the early c19 estate and deliberately built for private
lettings.
Floyer House The interlacing tracery of the windows of the
terraces is echoed in the arched fanlights of the doors and windows. former
Medical College Students' Hostel, by E. Maufe, 1934. Nice brick building with
arched ground-floor loggia and projecting window frames,
School of Nursing & Midwifery City University, 1965-7 by T.E Bennet &
Son
Immediately in front of the entrance, a circular concrete 'pill-box'
lecture theatre.
John Harrison House, staff residences of 1963 by Bennet. Y-plan
tower with canted balconies to the centre of each block and roof terrace.
Model Artisans
Dwellings
Bacchus Walk
Mary Westby
Almshouses 1749
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, recorded in Whitechapel from the c15. Facing
Plumber Row
a workshop range with sturdy jib crane above a broad gated carriageway, leading
into the yard. This has early c19 workshops built around it with further
workshops added in 1981. The oldest business in London. The Georgian front the building
remains almost unchanged. One of the most famous bell foundries in the world,
and probably the longest established, was founded by Robert Mot in Essex Street
in 1570. It moved to its present site in the Whitechapel Road in 1738 in what
was the Artichoke coaching inn. Save for an added Georgian fronts the building
remains almost unchanged. The original
harness room and stables existed until 1969, and there was also a lead water
tank dated 1650. The bell foundry traded under the name of Mears and Stain bank
from 1865 to 1968, when its name was changed to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Ltd. Through the centuries bells for famous churches all over Britain have been
cast here. Between 1570 and 1650 this was the only important London foundry and
after the Great Fire of London, as churches were rebuilt all over the City,
Whitechapel supplied the bells for many fine Wren churches. The original
American Liberty Bell was cast here in 1752. It cracked soon after it was hung
but was recast in Philadelphia, using the same cast and lettering. Big Ben was
cast here in 1858 after the original bell made at Stockton-on-Tees had cracked
during testing at Palace Yard. Now closed and gone.
Prescot Street
Church of the English
Martyrs . RC. reminder of the
needs of the Irish workforce, which served the docks. 1875-6 by Pugin - begun
by Edward Pugin 1875, completed by his
brothers - for the mission of oblates of St Mary Immaculate who came to
Tower Hill in 1865.
Juno Court site
of t presbytery for 1980s offices.
houses, now demolished, the London Infirmary, later the
London Hospital, was established in
1740. On the site, crude offices with a
tall arcaded front self-consciously echoing Victorian warehousing.
Whitechapel County &
Police Court, 1858-9 by Charles
Reeves- Lewis G. Butcher, displays Ruskinian influences at an early date.
Confident, three-storey Venetian palazzo with heavy eaves cornice and tall
chimneys with decorative caps, richly polychromed in red, black, white and blue
brickwork. Six bays with ground floor of large round-arched windows and
asymmetrical entrance. Smaller groups of paired windows within arches and an
upper range of square-headed lights are divided by slender iron columns. The
court-room block is visible at the rear.
Princess of Prussia, a c 1880s public house. Neat and narrow with
a projecting bay, coloured glazed dressings and tablet gable with broken
scrolled pediment.
17-23 38-53 CWS 1887. The CWS group is the corner block originally offices, flats since 1999
by Ekins, extended to his design in the 1950s Amsterdam School-style bronzes by the
Society's own craftsmen, with lozenge insets of emblem. Over the entrance, a
carved relief symbolizing 'Co-operation' by J.C. Blair, brother of one of the
Society's directors. A second, lesser, block for the Cooperative Bank was added in 1936-8 in
matching style.
Princes Square?
Swedish Church
Romford Street
Fieldgate Mansions designed by the hospital surveyors, Rowland
Plumbe & Harvey at the request of the builders, Davis Brothers, 1905-6. Plumbe originally planned individual
three-storey houses but the LCC purchased the land to the south forcing a
revision to higher-density flats.
Rupert Street
Goodman’s Fields
Charles Dames
sugar refinery
Settles Street
Tenements. The
earliest terraces were swept away in the 1890s and replaced by high-fronted
tenements,
Stepney Way
Good Samaritan. Rebuilt in 1937 as part of London Hospital
estate. One of A.E. Sewell’s
excellent pubs for Truman. Neo-Georgian with flashes of Art Deco detail.
Turner Street
Factory and showroom by H. Victor Kerr. At the corner with Nelson
Street, 1932 for gown manufacturer M. Levy. White rendered, with tall
square-cut stair towers on either side, sharp angled corner and slightly
projecting bands of windows with curved ends.
Gwynne House by H. Victor Kerr of
1934,
Vallance Road
72 People's Dispensary for Sick Animals began on 17 November 1917
when Maria Dickin, came to the East End hoping to engage in social work, but
the sight of injured donkeys, cats and dogs roaming the streets appalled her,
and she decided that helping animals was to be her mission. The work began in
the cellar of a pub on the corner of Vallance Road and Fulbourne Street. 72 was the Grasshopper pub, which in 1911 was
run by Mrs Elizabeth Lazenby and in 1919 by Henry Cohen. Within two months the
PDSA had moved its premises to Harford Street, Mile End.
Lister House on the site of the The
Whitechapel Union Workhouse. This was later an infirmary which became in 1924 St Peter's
Hospital, a branch of the Royal London Hospital. During World War One the
matron was Mary Mowatt, remembered for her bravery in reassuring her patients
during the Zeppelin raids. It was destroyed during World War Two. Lister House
has been built on the approximate site of the workhouse
178 demolished. Was the home of the Kray family. The twins
Ronnie and Reggie Kray, and their brother Charlie, lived here with their mother
Violet. They embarked on a life of crime, which was to have a significant
effect on the lives of many Eastenders.
71, Mary Hughes 1860-1941.Plaque
saying 'friend of all in need, lived and worked here 1926-1941'. Mary Hughes
inherited a great deal of money from her father, the author of "Tom
Brown's Schooldays". She used it to great effect. In 1926 she bought this
property and turned it into a haven for the poor. She organised socialist
gatherings and brought in educators. She became a JP and, unlike the majority
of JPs of her time, dispensed justice with mercy and pragmatism, rather than
avenging punishment. In her later years she was an invalid, having being
knocked down and kicked by the police, whilst marching in support of the
unemployed. Plaque erected 1961.
Walden Street
Watney Street
Shadwell Station. 1st October 1840. Between
Limehouse and Tower Gateway and also Bank on the Docklands Light Railway.
Between Wapping and Whitechapel on the East London Line. Originally on the
London and Blackwall Railway and opened as Shadwell. It was on the south of the viaduct on the
corner of Sutton Street and Shadwell Place. In 1872 the East London Railway
Extended from Wapping to Shoreditch 1872 with a connection to Bishopsgate
Junction. A Footway to the London &
Blackwall Railway station. In 1876 it
opened on the East London Railway on 19th April and was called
Shadwell. In 1884 run by the Met & District from St.Mary’s to New Cross.
Line leased to District, Met, London & Brighton, London, Chatham and Dover,
South Eastern and Great Eastern.. In 1890s information outside the station also
given in Yiddish. In 1900 Name changed to Shadwell and St. George 1st
July 1900. Entrance from Chapman Street. 1918 Name changed to Shadwell. The original entrance, rendered redundant when the
present one was brought into use around 1983 remains on the north side of the
viaduct. Traces
of the original stations can still be seen but in 1955 most of the London and
Blackwall station demolished. 1987 DLR on the west end of the London and
Blackwall Station site.
Viaduct, traces
of the original can still be seen
Watney Market Estate, 1968 . The land was sold to
the L.C.C in 1951-3 and 1960, but built up only from 1966-76 by the G.L.C.
Architect's Department using the SF1 prefabricated system. It occupies part of the site of the Mercers' Company's
first development close to Commercial Road, on Little Callis Field, laid out in
1817 with a grid of streets.
The early c19 neighbourhood with its street market
in Watney Street suffered badly in the war, losing its main landmark, Christ
Church, of 1840-1 by John Shaw jun.,
demolished after bomb damage. The post-war plan for a pedestrian shopping
and market street was rejected for a more
complicated scheme, with pedestrians and vehicles segregated.
Winterton House. The western tower was demolished,
and this block was reclad, after being stripped to its steel skeleton
Pompous
landscaped approach and lower doctors' surgery added to the E.
Five parallel
blocks of flats completed by Stepney Borough council
Whitchurch Lane
Around the churchyard, still conveys
something of the chaotic character of pre-war Whitechapel, with domestic
terraces overtaken by the rag Trade, interspersed with modest industrial
building of between the wars,
Altab Ali Park, the former churchyard of St Mary
Matfelon. The original 'white chapel'
began as a c13 chapel of ease to St Dunstan Stepney in 1270. It was rebuilt in
the c14 by the Matfelon family, in the later c17, and again, in c13 style, by
Ernest C.
Lee in 1875-7 when It was rebuilt for the last time. It
had become the parish church of Stepney Whitechapel in around 1646. The church
was destroyed in the Blitz and on 14 July 1945 the spire was struck by
lightning, which split it in two. The ruins were cleared and the churchyard was
laid out as a garden. The outline of the church is traced by stones laid out on
the grass. A few tombstones. A fine tapered sarcophagus to the Maddock family
1770s-1801, armorial panel on the end, a damaged urn on the pyramidal top. The
sides are decorated with Vitruvian scroll and gadrooned band. Very few of the
graves remain, but perhaps the most well-known person to be buried here was
Richard Brandon, the supposed executioner of Charles I. Also interred here was
Sir John Cass, the founder and benefactor of schools and Ralph Davenant, rector
in 1669. There was a plaque in the garden here to Maria Dickin, founder of the
People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in 1917 in Vallance Road, Whitechapel. The
garden was renamed Althab Ali Park in memory of a young Bangladeshi man killed
in a racially motivated attack in Adler Street in May 1978.
Vicarage built
in 1900 and later converted into a post office.
The Martyrs'
Monument (Shaheed Minar), a copy of that erected in Bangladesh to the
memory of five students killed in 1052 Each is represented by a narrow
free-standing steel screen with inclined head set on a semicircular platform
and grouped
in front of a large blood-red circular panel. To designs by Freeform Arts Trust
with Arts Fabrzcations
Gate piers c19 Gothic have an iron overthrow by David
Petersen, 1989, symbolically combining motifs of Bangladeshi and English Perpendicular
architecture.
29-33 with curved windows.
Flats a bomb damaged part of the park was filled
c. 2000 by the large blocks of flats to render and engineering brick by Squire
& Partners.
Whitechapel
'place with a
stone chapel', alluding, to the building material by naming its characteristic colour.
Stone would have been an unusual choice for small churches in earlier
centuries, when there was a plentiful
supply of wood. This chapel was also referred to by its dedication;
‘Mattefelon’ was probably the name of the founder or of a benefactor. ‘St Mary
de Mattefelon’ 1282, ‘New Chapel without Aldgate’ 1295, ‘Whitechapele by
Algate’ 1340, ‘Parish of the Blessed Mary Matfelon White Chapell’ 1452.
The London Hospital was one of
several large private landowners in Stepney up to 1945 but now almost the only
one to retain a substantial part of its estate. The hospital acquired the Red
Lyon Farm in 1755 and 1772 but only began to develop it after 1790, in an
undisciplined fashion. A second burst of activity got under way 1808-30 with
the building leases more controlled by the estate's surveyor. By the end of the
c19 the entire area was composed of houses interspersed with schools and
numerous corner pubs. Some of the older parts characterized by cramped
cottages, courts and alleys were cleared for street widening and the
construction of 'improved' housing. Good management, like that of the Mercers'
company’s estates in Stepney, ensured the survival of much of the c19 stock
into the present. But the hospital's own expansion after 1895 and the
progressive encroachment of clothing factories created a more mixed architectural
character that still obtains today. The estate is divided into two parts by New
Road laid out c. 1772. Whitechapel was part
of the borough of Stepney largely inhabited by Jewish traders and craftsmen
whose forerunners began to settle in-this neighbourhood after the Russian
persecution of 1881.
Whitechapel High Street
Roque's map of 18th-century London, published in 1746,
shows Whitechapel High Street a broad highway leading out of London, with a
cluster of little alleyways and streets near the centre f London, which
gradually get fewer and fewer until at Mile End there are only fields a: market
gardens, with houses lining the road on either side. Joined to Commercial Road
by Gardner’s Corner in 1870. “Welcome
surprise to the stranger – spacious -accommodated with good inns the
Whitechapel boulevard may be said to commence from Houndsditch and the
Minories, but to the boundary at Middlesex Street it is known as Aldgate High
Street when it assumes the name of Whitechapel High Street. Whitechapel High Street is the beginning of
London 'East of Aldgate' and here the contrast between the prosperity of the
City and its eastern neighbour is decidedly marked. Until the later C20
buildings on the High Street, and its continuation Whitechapel Road, remained
predominantly three and four storeyed, with a plentiful supply of inns, mixture
of narrow c18 and c19 frontages, and narrow alleys leading off, typical of an
ancient street pattern. War damage and indifferent later redevelopment have
left only scrappy remains and the gradual creep of the City further threatens
the intimate scale. The junction of the High Street, Commercial Street and
Commercial Road was busy even in the c19 and replaced by a daunting gyratory
system in 1976.
CWS clothing
factory
Gower’s walk
corner, tobacco factory
77 Library. A
mural in tiles depicting Whitechapel Hay Market in the 1780s can be seen at the
entrance to the Library. It is
believed that it came from the Red Lion public house across the road. Plaque to Isaac
Rosenberg, which says ‘poet and painter lived in the East End and studied
here'. He spent many hours reading here and said the books in the library
inspired him to write his poetry. Plaque erected 1987. 1. The library was
founded by John Passmore Edwards in 1892 and designed by Potts, Son and
Hennings. Dr Jacob Bronowski, as a boy
of 12 was taken to the library by another boy, and asked for a book that he
could read easily, and so improve his English
Woolworth’s on
Commercial Road corner, bombed, on the site of Venables and Co., drapery
emporium
Whites Row
Millers Court
Feldman’s Jewish
Post Office. On the corner of Osborne Street.
Ripper murder
Minnie Kelley;
29 Ye Olde Red
Lion
St.George’s
Brewery
17-19 Sedgwick Centre of 1986-8 by Fitzroy Robinson Partnership
continues the overweening scale of the City. Eight storeys of offices,
underground shopping
mall. Sedgewick Centre, found a series of quarry pits filled with bell-making
waste.
130, Natwest Bank, has a restrained Neo-Georgian frontage, with
pediment over all three bays, and a tripartite window above a black
marble-faced ground floor. Surprisingly late for this treatment, rebuilt c 1959 after
bomb damage to the original bank of 1864.
122-5 were demolished c. 1890 to widen the entrance
to Old Castle Street in the wake of the last of the notorious murders of 1888,
shortly after the Metropolitan Board of Works had cleared the overcrowded
alleys.
Offices and hotel corner with Commercial Street, begun in 2004 by John Seifert
Architects.
Summit Sports and
Conference Centre Stranded in its
centre on the side of the High Street is of 1985 by Frederick Gibberd, Coombes
& Partners.
One of the first awkward intrusions on the fringe of the City, for which its
facilities were clearly intended. A whitepanelled exterior, tall, with
silo-like corner towers; its faux-industrial appearance made even more
ludicrous by the giant globe lanterns suspended on arms from the roof.
Lloyds Bank with brick piers and glazed vertical panels.
Only three storeys, in deference to the older group which follows
Fairholt House, c. 1910 by J.Wallis Chapman and Shepherd for Atkinson's clothing store. Arched
mezzanine and two upper storeys on w side rebuilt after war damage.
White Hart. Only one bay wide, but its c19 front anc
window are grandly flanked by giant pilasters. The back with a
sign saying 'established 1721' can be seen
from a passage to Gunthorpe Street. The White Hart pub might be a reference to when Richard II's was
there in 1381 in the Peasant’s Revolt meeting Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and John
Ball. Seventy years later another revolt led by Jack Cade came to Mile End. At
present the pub is known as Murphy's, is late Victorian and contains some
decorated glass. In the 1890s a hairdressers in the basement was run by a
Polish poisoner and there is a mention on the plaque at the back of the pub
about him.
88 Albert's Incorporating the passage entry, was reconstructed for the short-lived Jewish
Daily Post, the first Anglo-Jewish daily newspaper, in 1935 by H.P Sanders:
Deco-style shop front with black marble fascia bearing an elaborate badge of Jewish
symbols set within the Star of David, by Arthur Szyk, the Polish Jewish artist.
Whitechapel Road
From the Church and Brick Lane.
Jewish settlement was round Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Brick Lane. “Working
people employed in tailoring and dress. From the Baltic countries and street
after street and district after district became occupied almost entirely by
Jews and this occasioned bitter complaints from the old inhabitants.
Unrestricted immigration has been curtailed and London has, in fact,
half-closed her doors to foreigners. “ Roman road.
Suicide buried at crossroads. The south side of Whitechapel High Street had
several butchers' shops, where cattle were slaughtered and carcasses sold.
120 Royal Oak, c. 1870, has an elaborate five-bay front;
window surrounds with curved corners and moulded detail; cast-iron balconies to
the second floor, and a pedimented centre.
279-81 flats. Were built as the Working Lads
Institute by George Bairns, 1884-5, extended 1886-8 for lecture hall and
swimming bath. Working Lads Institutes were first proposed in 1876, by J.E. Saunders of the
Corporation of London, to provide distractions for boys over thirteen in
between work and home. The institute at Whitechapel was to have been the first
of several in London with reading room, library, classroom, bank and clothing
club. A single Arts and Crafts stained glass window of the Tree of Life
survived conversion in 1997. Probably by A.O. Hemming & Co. who provided
windows for the Lecture Hall depicting Art, Religion, Industry and the
Seasons. Radical
meetings were held in the hall in the 1890s and speakers included Prince
Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker. In 1896 the institute was bought by Thomas
Jackson, and reopened as the Whitechapel Primitive Methodist Mission, which
included a Home for Friendless and Orphaned Lads
28-30, two bay, each with
c20 shop fronts.
333-335 Albion Brewery. Albion Yard 1808 run by
Black. 1899 first bottled beer. Mann, Crossman & Pauling in 1904. Watney, Mann, Kitto and Brotherhood 1867.
Beam engine. Robert Morton 1872 horizontal engine. The remaining
buildings of the Albion Brewery, closed 1979 and converted to flats in 1993-4
by Peter Brooks Associates. The first brewhouse was established in 1808 by the
landlord of the Blind Beggar public house and acquired by James Mann in 1826.
Rebuilt 1860-8, probably by E.N. Clifton, for Mann, Crossman & Paulin whose
name still graces the arched iron overthrow above the gates. The former Head
Brewer's House (NatWest), a four-storey block in plain yellow brick with
windows in relieving arches. To its rear, a lower range originally for stores
and fermenting rooms, with a rooftop water tank dated 1864. Balancing to the E,
the former Brewery Offices and stores of 1863-4; now Health Centre.
Four-storeys with six bays of recessed windows; c20 upper floor. Ground-floor
hall with plaster ceiling, decorated with bands of entwined hops and barley.
Within the courtyard a later two-storey
porte cochere in Portland stone. Probably contemporary with the expansion of
the brewery, c. 1902-5 by William Bradford &' Sons. At about this date, the
1860s fermenting house at the rear of the courtyard was remodelled and
liberally embellished in show-off Baroque style, dominated by a high pedimented
gable between huge carved volutes, a clock and a splendid carved relief of St
George & the Dragon, its sculptor sadly unknown. Much carved detail of hops
and barley. Occupies the site of a brewery dating from
1808, which was taken over in 1819 by James Mann, while Robert Crossman and
Thomas Paulin joined the business in 1846. Rebuilt in 1855, the Albion brewery
continued for 100 years until it was taken over by Watneys in 1959, closing in
the 1990s. The brewery was the first place in Britain to produce bottled brown
ale.
34 Whitechapel bell Foundry
the foundry continues from
Plumbers Row c18 in reddish-brown brick, of two bays, with a beautiful early
c19 timber shop front that has ingenious sliding vertical shutters and Soaman incised detail.
Inside, painted and grained fittings and access to the cellar of the former
inn.
75 was Black
Lion Yard, a famous East End Jewellers' area. In the 1930s, of the 21 shops, 12
were jewellers. The yard took its name from the Black Lion tavern, which dated
from the mid-17th century. The yard also housed a Welsh dairy, where customers
lined up to buy milk fresh from the cow. Gwynth Francis-Jones wrote of her
uncle, William Jones: 'Welsh people may be justly proud of the cow keepers of
Black Lion Yard... William Jones was there during the Zeppelin raids of World
War One. Joshua Evans had the harder task during World War Two. The dairy
finally closed in 1949, and the jewellers followed 20 years later.
Blind Beggar. Site of General Booth’s first sermon in
1865. The brewery's engineer, Robert Spence, rebuilt the pub in 1894.
Workmanlike Queen Anne with gables, stamped terracotta detail and two wide
four-centred. Recalls the legend of the Blind Beggar of
Bethnal Green, supposedly Simon de Montfort, but more likely a soldier wounded
in the French wars, and his beautiful daughter Bessy. The Salvation Army ladies
sold their War Cry in the pub in 1865, urging people to give up the demon
drink. On 6 March 1966, Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell in the pub, in the
presence of the barmaid. Although her evidence led to the conviction of Ronnie
and Reggie Kray, she still refuses to reveal her identity, for fear of
reprisals from members of the Kray's gang
Booth House, a Salvation Army hostel by Praser Brown
McKenna, 2000-2, re-using the structure of the previous building by H.M.
Lidbetter but replacing the facade with light steel framing panels of unbonded
red brick. William Booth founded his first headquarters in Whitechapel Road in 1866.
Bull Inn Regular coaches ran from here to Chigwell
179-181 Davenant
Centre . Sixty articulated burials
associated the late-18th/mid-19th century
Whitechapel Workhouse burial ground were recorded, mainly in the
south-west corner of the external courtyard. Former Davenant Foundation School,
a late c19 amalgamation of two older charitable schools in Whitechapel. The
five-bay stucco frontage to the road is dated 1818, of two storeys above a
basement with central three bays projecting and 'Whitechapel School' engraved
in the frieze above. Remodelled 1896 by E Pouler Telfer when the large new hall
and classroom block were erected at the rear of the site on the former
workhouse burial ground. Splendid Neo-Jacobean in rich red brick with
terracotta dressings. The hall is raised over a covered playground with piers
faced in blue brick and served by a striking and unusual covered stair with a
stepped, open, arcade.Inside, a barrel-vaulted timber roof on arch-braced
trusses with tie-beams and king posts.
East London Mail Centre and
Post Office very dull 1960s.
Originally linked by underground railway to Paddington via Mount Pleasant and St Martin
le Grand. H.H. Dalrymple-Hay, engineer. Terminus of the
Post Office's largely unknown underground railway. Its automatic driverless
trains carry up to 50,000 bags of mail a day over six miles of track to six
sorting offices. Work began on the tunnel in 1913 and it was opened in 1927
East
London Mosque. 1982-5 by John Gill
Associates. The golden glass-fibre dome and cluster of minarets make a striking
landmark. Asymmetrical street frontage in red brick, with a row of tall Islamic
arches.. Spacious top-lit entrance hall; large prayer hall at an angle,
approached up steps.
Grave Maurice Pub is called after Count Maurice of Nassau Dutch soldier 16th.
1874, three storeys with Gothic
overtones, dates from 1874. Graf (Count) Maurice was
the Prince of Orange a great Dutch hero who drove the Spaniards from the
Netherlands in the late 16th. In gratitude he was offered the crown of his
country, but he refused. The Kray brothers were regulars in this pub
Whitechapel Ideas Store, The third and largest of the c21 successors
to the borough's public libraries.
London
Hospital Tavern, grotesquely and unsympathetically repainted
Lord Rodney's Head was a Victorian music hall from 1854 to 1885 and was known as the
Prince's Hall of Varieties. Lord Rodney won a famous naval victory against the
French in the West Indies in 1782. Charles Coborn, the music hall star,
performed here for 12 shillings a night
Old Blue Anchor, an elaborately stuccoed frontage of c. 1860,
three storeys
with attic above cornice.
Pavilion Theatre until 1940 on Vallance Road corner.
Devoted to Jewish drama. Was a
floor cloth factory but converted to theatre in 1828. Burnt down and rebuilt. Bombed.
Victorian gentlemen came to Whitechapel in search of entertainment and
pleasure. At the end of the 19th century the self-styled murderer Jack the
Ripper dominated the Palaces of variety, music saloons and penny gaffs, fun
fairs and theatres all served to amuse workers during their few hours of
leisure. For many years melodrama was popular, and at the Pavilion Theatre
plays such as the world of the Bleeding Heart, and The Murder of the Mount
played to packed audiences
Rivioli Cinema bombed.
Site of Wonderland, boxing club.
Burnt down. Wonderland offered
drama, boxing, circus performances, pantomimes and human freaks
Royal London Hospital. Remnants of the plain, balanced composition of
the Georgian hospital designed by Boulwn Mainwaring in 1752 are still just
traceable the agglomeration of buildings extends along Whitechapel Road The hospital was
founded in Featherstone Street in 1740 by professional doctors, in contrast to
other London hospitals, before moving to Prescot Street for sailors and wounded watermen.
a year later as the London
Infirmary A new site was required as early as 1744 and open land leased from
the City. The new hospital, for 200 patients, was largely complete by 1757 but
building continued until 1771 The original design was plain, in stock brick, of
three storeys and twenty-three bays with a simple pedimented five- bay
centre. two-storey wings attached to the
main block, each with a a double or
back-to-back ward on each floor, were completed in the 1770s by Edward Hawkins
and extended to their present length by A.R. Mason in the 1830s, partly to
incorporate wards for the increasing number of Jewish patients. Changing
attitudes to hospital design and sanitation encouraged the building of two
pavilion wings in the 1860s and 1870s by Charles Barry Jun. with better
ventilated 'Nightingale' wards.This made it the largest hospital in the country
with 650 beds. Minor additions were made in the 1880s by Rowland Plumbe prior
to his major extension and rebuilding from 1896-1906. from 1966 T.P. Bennett
& Son developed radical plans for the creation of a 1,300-bed hospital
which would have required destruction of most of the main site. As a result the
pre-Plumbe buildings were listed but in spite of this the Alexandra Wing was
destroyed in 1974 and replaced. Subsequent building has been in small units but
in 2004 major redevelopment was planned by Skanska/Inmsfree with HOK
International. Roof-top helicopter pad. The garden has a bronze sculpture of
Queen Alexandra by James Wade, 1908. A relief panel on the plinth shows Edward
VII, Frederick Treves, Sydney Holland and others at a demonstration of the
Finsen light treatment for 'tuberculosis of the skin'. Providing the backdrop
to this, Garden House, a two storey building- storey for the paediatrics dept
ofc. 1996 by T.P. Bennett. The hospital interior has been extensively remodelled
but cheered up since 1996 by artworks commissioned by VitalAns, including
brightly coloured floors in Children's Services by Sarah Hammond, 1998, a glass
ceiling in the Endoscopy Unit by Kate Maestri, 1999 and windows in the
multi-faith chapel by Amanda Townsend. In 1999, a mosque was opened in the Alexandra Wing. The first of its kind,
comprising two small prayer rooms decorated with hand-stencilled Islamic
patterns by Areen Design. Archives. plaque to Edith Cavell, who trained and
worked at the London. Eva Luckes was matron from 1880 to 1919, the year she
died. She transformed the nursing service and raised both standards and morale.
There was a rumoured 'dead body train' which 'conveyed corpses from the
basement of the London Hospital to Whitechapel.'.
School opened in
1854 by Barnado.
St Mary’s Curve,
Joint Met and District 22 chains in length from East London Railway closed
1906, 1913 and again in 1941
St.Mary Whitechapel station. 3rd March
1884. Built by the Metropolitan District Railway and the Metropolitan
Railway. Opened for South Eastern trains
from the East London Line on the 1st October to take trains on the
curve going from Kent and Surrey to Liverpool Street. It was sited on the south side of Whitechapel
Road roughly opposite Davenant Street. In 1923 the name was changed to
‘St.Mary’s Whitechapel Road ‘. In 1938 it was closed because it was near
Whitechapel rail. The platforms are
still on site with a brick wall built to protect wartime shelterers and there
are emergency track access doors. In 1940 it was bombed and the building
destroyed
Statue of Queen Alexandra in the main court. By George Edward Wade. She is in coronation robes
with a crown and sceptre. Inscription about how she introduced the Finson Light
for Lupus. Bronze plaque showing her in a ward. Statue erected in 1908.
Whitechapel Mission begun in 1896 by a Primitive Methodist
minister, Thomas Jackson. The gabled premises of what had been until then a
Working Lads' Institute stand on the north side of Whitechapel Road. He was a
pioneer of boys' clubs and his work was the origin of the Probation Service. he
also founded the Garment Workers Union as part of an anti-'sweating' campaign.
The premises on Whitechapel Road were opened in 1971 by Princess Alexandra, and
include a hostel run by the N.C.H. a bench has been preserved from the cottage
in Sidney Street in which the first services were held. It is on the site of
the Congregational Brunswick Chapel, which Jackson bought in 1906 as his
Mission Hall. He died in 1932. Building byLee Reading Associates, c. 1971. Dark brick. Carefully planned with much
packed into a small site. Ground-floor . shops with double-height top-lit
church above, under a sloping boarded roof. Behind are assembly and meeting
rooms, a residential hostel for thirty boys and, in the crypt, accommodation
for the homeless.
An Act of 1897 allowed them to build a connecting line between District
at Whitechapel and Bow terminus of London Tilbury and Southend Railway. Opened
in 1902 and jointly owned Whitechapel. In 1880 trains ran from
Croydon, Addiscombe Road, via the Whitechapel curve opened in 1884. In 1902 the line was
extended for two miles beneath the Mile End
Road to Bow Road and Campbell Road Junction, from which point it runs alongside the Tilbury and South end Line,
later British Railways (Eastern Region), to
Barking and Upminster. By 1905 the entire under- ground
railway system in London had been converted from steam to electricity The East London Line to south London travels
through the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel built for transport under a major
river. It was constructed by Marc Brunel
Whitechapel Waste market. Here, on Mile End
Waste, William Booth began the work which led to the founding of the Salvation
Army in 1865, and he has two memorials on Whitechapel Road. The busy street market
opposite the London Hospital has as its backdrop a terrace with some much
altered c18 houses. 2. Whitechapel Market was
established here after the construction of this wide road. In the 1850s the
traders were mostly Irish who had come over following the great famine of 1850,
but by the turn of the century the traders were largely Jewish. Today most of
the stallholders are Asian.
Winthorpe Street
Playground London
County Council l887. Opened by Countess
of Latham. £2,700 given
anonymously.
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