Green Dragon Yard was cleared after extensive bomb damage. A single-storey warehouse went up on its west side in 1961 and was raised in 1965. G. A. Lansdown’s printing works to the east (behind 24–26 Old Montague Street) were rebuilt in 1955 and extended in the 1960s. A new factory and offices followed at 12–26 Old Montague Street in 1972 for what had become Continuous Stationery Ltd. Redevelopment of the whole site, 12–20 Old Montague Street and Green Dragon Yard, ensued in 1999–2001 for the Toynbee Housing Association, to provide 62 flats, many arrayed around two internal courtyards, and four live- work units (on the west side of the path through the site) in largely stock- brick faced blocks. On Old Montague Street there is a health centre (originally the Green Dragon Yard Medical Practice, now The Spitalfields Practice), that was designed by Ann Noble Architects.1
Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives , Building Control files 13801–4, 17471: Tower Hamlets planning applications onoine ↩
Roman pottery was found on the Green Dragon Yard site. The name derives from an early inn, the Green Dragon on the site of 21 and 23 Whitechapel Road. This was a post-chaise house for journeys to Essex by the eighteenth century. Along with stables its yard had one-room plan two-storey houses, increasing from five to fifteen in number in the 1780s, all along the west side up to Old Montague Street. Around 1810 the inn was wound up and rebuilt. Green Dragon Court or Yard, now entered from under No. 23 and in divided ownership, gained five more somewhat larger houses at the north end of its east side; there were 26 in total in 1838. Abraham Davis put up another eight further south in 1889–90 when occupancy was poor and Jewish.1
Historic England, Greater London Archaeological Advisory Service, ML074052–6: Land Tax: Richard Horwood's map: London Metropolitan Archives, THCS/202–464: Ordnance Survey maps: District Surveyors Returns: London School of Economics Archive, Booth/B/351, p. 133: Post Office Directories ↩