Histories of Whitechapel
Welcome to the Survey of London’s Whitechapel project, where you can share and explore the many histories of Whitechapel’s buildings and places.
On our map you’ll find information about every building in Whitechapel in 2016, including photographs, stories and research, film clips and audio recordings added by historians, local people and others with an interest in the area. It will grow in content gradually until the end of 2018, a collaborative work in progress made up of the Survey’s own research alongside material that you and everyone else contributes.
This is an experiment in the making of the history of a place. Sharing our knowledge and experiences will help us to understand the histories of buildings, streets and neighbourhoods, and through them the lives of the people of Whitechapel. To start exploring, go to the map and click on a building to see content about that site, or you can explore buildings related to a particular historical period or theme.
If you have any information, research, images, or memories of Whitechapel, you can sign up and start contributing them here.
Stories Wanted
There are many buildings in Whitechapel about which we would welcome more information. If you know something, you can make an account or use the form below to tell us.
Latest Submissions
Old BT or Post Office Garage
Garage, Arch 14 Chamber Street | danny | Nov. 13, 2018
I'm pretty sure that as a kid in the mid-1960s, going to school at Tower Hill School further along Chamber Street, that this building was a garage used by Post Office Telephones, the forerunners to today's BT. For a number of years now, it has been a car wash. Records in the London Metropolitan Archives relating to the ...
gunmaking Chamber Street gunmakers
Memories of 1960s Black Lion Yard
Whitechapel Technology Centre (East London Works) | Moby | Nov. 13, 2018
My father had emigrated from Bangladesh to settle in the East End of London in June 1960. He was born, raised and educated in Sylhet Town, Bangladesh (originally part of Assam Province during British India). He specialised in the Bengali language and politics. In 1963 he moved into a room above the jewellery shop of No. 18a Black Lion Yard ...
1960s jewellery Black Lion Yard shops Ariel Leader
Browsing the Map
If you're not sure about how to get started, we've made a short video to give you a quick overview.
Explore Whitechapel
Not sure where to begin? Click on a theme to start uncovering Whitechapel's past. Sites are being tagged if they connect with certain overlapping aspects of Whitechapel's history, according to the thematic categories identified here.
