All Contributions from Survey of London
14 Cable Street and 2 Ensign Street
2 Ensign Street (with 14 Cable Street) | Survey of London
Plain Georgian shophouses at 4–10 and 14 Ensign Street were cleared in phases between 1911 and 1954, No. 10 having been the Black Horse …
122 Whitechapel High Street
122 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This sliver of a building between Old Castle Street and Tyne Street is all that remains of a two-stage development of 1880-2 that includ…
Toynbee Theatre
Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street | Survey of London
In December 1935 a grant of £10,000 was announced that enabled J. J. Mallon, Warden of <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/3…
Angel Alley
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Angel Alley, named after the Angel Inn at 85 Whitechapel High Street and reached via a simple doorway through No. 84, exists now only as…
St Mary's Station
Ibis Budget Hotel (formerly Brunning House) | Survey of London
St Mary’s Station was built in 1883–4 on the site of Meggs’ Almshouses for the Metropolitan and District Railway’s exte…
Davis Feather Mill (c.1856-c.1960)
Central House, London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
A prominent local business, the Davis Feather Mill occupied a site behind Gardiner’s Corner from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth…
The Waste: a history of Whitechapel Road's market
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
All day long and all the year round there is a constant Fair going on in Whitechapel Road. It is held upon the broad pavement, which…
The new Royal London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
A 1992 report on health services in the capital by the pathologist and administrator Sir Bernard Tomlinson recommended the closure of St…
Former Mercantile Marine Office, 18 Ensign Street
18 Ensign Street | Survey of London
The Mercantile Marine Act of 1850 introduced regulations to improve conditions and discipline in the merchant navy, formalising some of …
Altab Ali Park
Altab Ali Park, including the site of the parish church of St Mary Matfelon | Survey of London
On 4 May 1978 Altab Ali, a 25-year old clothing machinist of Bangladeshi origin, was murdered in Adler Street, Whitechapel, beside the p…
Former Royal Oak public house (with Wilcox’s New Music Hall and the Vine Court Synagogue)
Former Royal Oak public house | Survey of London
A public house on the east side of Vine Court’s entrance may have been the Morocco Slaves in the early eighteenth century. It became the…
The Ladies Swimming Bath and Recreation Hall, c.1893 to 1938
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
For several years women and schoolgirls were only given access to the swimming baths on Wednesdays, so that they might ‘acquir…
Redeveloping the public lavatories on Whitechapel Road
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Harun Quadi settled in the East End in the early 1980, having originated in Comilla, Bangladesh. He describes how he acquired and develo…
How the Wash Houses were used
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
East End historian and guide David Charnick recounts some of the history of the former Whitechapel Baths and Wash House on Old Castle St…
English Martyrs’ Roman Catholic Primary School, St Mark Street
English Martyrs RC Primary School, St Mark Street | Survey of London
Tower Hill Roman Catholic School on Chamber Street was found to be overcrowded in the 1950s when the Inner London Education Authority (I…
4A and 6 White Church Lane
4A and 6 White Church Lane | Survey of London
No. 6 is of the 1850s, refronted in 1898–9, of painted brick with a painted shutter of 2012 by 2Rise, whose tag has also been prominent …
The Crown and Seven Stars, 1975
The Artful Dodger (formerly the Crown and Seven Stars) | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection showing the Artful Dodger when it was still the Crown and Seven Star…
St Paul's Dock Street
St Paul's Church | Survey of London
Once the Sailors’ Home on Well Street had opened in 1835, Capt. Robert Elliot was on the lookout for an opportunity to establish a ‘Sail…
Dock Street's widening in 1845–6
St Paul's Church | Survey of London
The widening of Dock Street in 1845–6 was a governmental ‘metropolitan improvement’ closely connected to the formation of Commercial Str…
10-12 Whitechapel Road
10 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This pair of houses may be datable to about 1770 when a larger frontage was said to be 'lately built'. The front wall was rebuilt or at …
Old Castle Street to Goulston Street: History to 1775
130 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PS | Survey of London
Old Castle Street today is the merging of two interconnected alleys known from the seventeenth century – Old Castle Street, which ran so…
George Yard Buildings and St George's House
Sunley House | Survey of London
George Yard Buildings (later called Balliol House and later still Charles Booth House), which was demolished for the building of Sunley …
Earlier history of the site of the Relay Building
The Relay Building, 1 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The Seven Stars, 111-112 Whitechapel High Street, demolished A longstanding establishment on the High Street was the Se…
Yoakley's Buildings (demolished)
East London Mail Centre and E1 Delivery Office | Survey of London
Yoakley’s Buildings were ten one-room plan almshouses for elderly female Friends (Quakers). They were built around a court in 1800–1 on …
St George's German Lutheran Church schools
St George's German and English School | Survey of London
St George’s Church had supported ‘German and English Schools’ from 1765, but there was no school building until 1805. Pastor Dr Christia…
War Damage and Rebuilding, c.1939 to 1990
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
A rocket bomb that fell on 10 November 1944 spelled the definitive end for the washing department. Whitechapel Baths remained …
The Freedom Press and Bookshop, 84B Whitechapel High Street
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Despite its address, this curious survival of both evangelical and radical Whitechapel is located in Angel Alley. It is a four-storey st…
Whitechapel Fire Station
Whitechapel Fire Station | Survey of London
Built in 1929–32, Whitechapel Fire Station is a rarity as an inter-war London County Council fire station still serving its original pur…
Whitechapel station, 1975
Whitechapel Station | Survey of London
A colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archive collection: h…
5-9 White Church Lane
5-9 White Church Lane | Survey of London
This large four-storey red-brick clothing factory of 1919-21 was built by and for B. Levine, a shopfitter of Greenfield Street, with A. …
131 Whitechapel Road
131 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
An earlier timber cottage on this site partially blocked an alleyway that was here by the 1650s. It was called King David's Alley or Dav…
75 Whitechapel High Street and site of Bull Court
75 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Although much repaired and extended, this substantial four-storey building is one of the few on the High Street that may retain eighteen…
Drinking Fountain, White Church Lane
Drinking Fountain | Survey of London
This drinking fountain was erected in 1860 on the Whitechapel Road railing near the east end of the seventeenth-century Church of St Mar…
24-26 Ensign Street
Liberty House, 24-26 Ensign Street | Survey of London
24–26 Ensign Street. Thomas Smither had a carpenter’s yard on Well Street in the 1830s, and John and William Smither, carmen, and North …
Whitechapel Charities’ Commercial School (demolished)
City Reach, 19 Leman Street | Survey of London
The formation of the Charity Commissioners in 1853 led to the amalgamation of Whitechapel’s parish charities and the building of the end…
The site's early history
Dryden Building, 37 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This site was the south end of a mulberry garden from the seventeenth century (see under the Church of St Boniface). Use as a pleasure g…
Whitechapel Gallery: pre-history and early history up to 1914
Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Although it opened in 1901, the Whitechapel Gallery can date its effective foundation to 1881 when Samuel Barnett began an annual pictur…
Browne & Eagle Warehouse at 22-26 Leman Street, 1869-1956
Maersk House | Survey of London
On this site a five-storey warehouse was built in 1869 by Holland and Hannen for Browne & Eagle, local wool merchants. Conveniently …
The Church of St Mary Matfelon
Altab Ali Park, including the site of the parish church of St Mary Matfelon | Survey of London
Medieval churches The first church on the site that is now Altab Ali Park was built in the mid thirteenth century (by 1…
Early history of the site of 36-98 Whitechapel Road
London Muslim Centre | Survey of London
Long frontages of waste ground on the south side of Whitechapel Road were the subjects of 500-year manorial leases from Henry, Lord Went…
The Women’s Library and London Metropolitan University, c.1995 onwards
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
The conversion was not immediate. In 1995 Wright and Wright Architects won a design competition to remodel the site for London…
4 White Church Lane
Tip Top Casual Wear, 4 White Church Lane | Survey of London
1852–3, stock brick, unaltered to rear, built as a sale room by and for Isaac Bird, auctioneer. Painted-shutter from 2012 by Hunto. [^1]…
Amalgamation and Building Beagle House, 1956-1974
Maersk House | Survey of London
In a deal that was met with some surprise and industry interest, Browne & Eagle amalgamated with tea merchants Colonial Wharves in 1…
Harun Quadi takes on the Bengal Cuisine
12 Brick Lane | Survey of London
Harun Quadi settled in the East End in the early 1980, having originated in Comilla, Bangladesh. In the 1990s he took over the Bengal Cu…
130 Whitechapel High Street
130 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PS | Survey of London
This former NatWest Bank branch is a 1955–6 rebuilding to the designs of Frederick George Frizzell (1902-76), architect, by R. R. S. Dea…
Early history of the site of 100-146 Whitechapel Road
Former Royal Oak public house | Survey of London
Long frontages of waste ground on the south side of Whitechapel Road were the subjects of 500-year manorial leases from Henry, Lord Went…
The former Eastern Dispensary in 1967
The Dispensary | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide form the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7879982528…
19A Leman Street (former Eastern Dispensary)
The Dispensary | Survey of London
The Eastern Dispensary was one of the oldest institutions of its kind in London. Founded in 1782 to provide free healthcare to poor loca…
East London Mail Centre and E1 Delivery Office
East London Mail Centre and E1 Delivery Office | Survey of London
The large concrete building which dominates the corner of Whitechapel Road and Cavell Street represents the last expression of postal ac…
No. 38 Commercial Street
38 Commercial Street | Survey of London
No. 38 Commercial Street is the sole survivor of a group of six warehouses built in 1862-3, some by the extended Moses-Levy family (who …
105–107 Fieldgate Street
105–107 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
This warehouse and dwelling of 1903 was built on a lease to William John Fage, a New Road metal dealer. E. W. Coldwell was the architect…
126–127 Whitechapel High Street
126 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This canted-corner building was erected in 1905-6 by W.J. Coleman & Co. to the designs of Martin Luther Saunders, architect (1858–1…
Meggs' Almshouses
Ibis Budget Hotel (formerly Brunning House) | Survey of London
In 1658 William Megges III, who had inherited the Hart’s Horne, Whitechapel’s largest house, and who remained unmarried and without dire…
Cambridge Heath Road and Mile End Road, 1969
Crossrail Works, Cambridge Heath Road | Survey of London
Another digitised colour slide from the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: the area in front of the White Hart pub on the Mile En…
101 Greenfield Road (incorporating 18–24 Fieldgate Street)
101 Greenfield Road | Survey of London
One of the earliest synagogues on Fieldgate Street was the Crawcour Shul, a 'landsmanschaft' of immigrants from Kraków, Galicia, then Au…
128 Whitechapel High Street
128 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PT | Survey of London
The modest shop-houses at 128–129 Whitechapel High Street are survivors from the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth century, albeit heavi…
132 Whitechapel Road
132 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A large eighteenth-century house on this site and Thomas Kincey’s extensive carriage-making premises to the rear were held by John Pinne…
9 Manningtree Street
9 Manningtree Street | Survey of London
Built in 1898-9 with 19 White Church Lane for Jacob King. Arthur C. Payne, architect, H. W. Brown, builder. [^1] [^1]: District …
From the Earl of Effingham Saloon to the Rivoli Cinema via Wonderland
Ibis Budget Hotel (formerly Brunning House) | Survey of London
Thomas Spackman had a large property on the site of 100 Whitechapel Road around 1770. By 1790, when his son-in-law Walter Fillingham was…
From Beagle House to Maersk House, 1974-2016
Maersk House | Survey of London
Capitalising on London’s booming market for speculative office developments, Seifert and Partners had grown from twelve employees in 195…
Childhood memories of the Taja restaurant
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Tanha Quadi remembers growing up with the Taja restaurant at 199A Whitechapel Road that was owned and managed by her parents in the earl…
From Princess Alice to The Culpeper
The Culpeper, 40-42 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The Culpeper, formerly the Princess Alice, is a rebuilding of 1883 of a compact public house built by William Hooper, builder, of Kentis…
42–46 Fieldgate Street
Maedah Grill, 42 Fieldgate Street (with 100 Greenfield Road) | Survey of London
This site takes in what had been 26–46 Fieldgate Street, a humble row much of which originated with the builder John Langley in 1790. Th…
8 and 10 White Church Lane
8 White Church Lane | Survey of London
This pair was built in 1852 by Jabez Single of New Road as houses with shops that were first occupied by Mark Berry, a zinc and tinplate…
129 Whitechapel High Street
129 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PT | Survey of London
These modest shop-houses are survivors from the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth century, albeit heavily altered when combined into one…
Former St George's Brewery, 33 Commercial Road
Former St George's Brewery, 33 Commercial Road | Survey of London
The imposing early-Victorian brick range that stands askew behind Commercial Road east of White Church Lane was built by John A. Furze i…
103 Whitechapel Road
103 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
No. 103 Whitechapel Road is a single-bay, three-storey and attic building with a gambrel roof that may date in large measure to 1848 whe…
28-30 Whitechapel Road
28 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Two eighteenth-century houses on the site of Nos 28–30 had a yard that turned east to extend to what is now Plumber's Row. There was a …
The Great Synagogue seen in 1977
Former Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue | Survey of London
The Great Synagogue surrounded by cleared sites now occupied by the East London Mosque, London Muslim Centre and Maryam Centre, from a d…
2 Whitechapel Road with 40 Adler Street
2 Whitechapel Road with 40 Adler Street | Survey of London
Buck & Hickman, saw and tool makers, had this corner site from 1860–1. Matthew Buck, a Sheffield sawmaker, had come to London by 182…
Jewish burial ground in 1975
Former Jewish burial ground | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from Tower Hamlets Archives: http…
27A Commercial Road
27A Commercial Road | Survey of London
27a Commercial Road was built in 1876–8 by A. P. Wootton as a speculation. The commercial premises first housed Hyam Goldstein’s cap fac…
Late Victorian schools and other developments north of Little Alie Street
Altitude Point | Survey of London
Irish and German settlement in the Little Alie Street area generally gave way to a Jewish population in the late nineteenth century, wit…
Nos 136–146 (including 135 New Road)
136 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A large house on the site of 136–138 Whitechapel Road was built around 1770 (following a 61-year lease of 1763 to Thomas Pearce and John…
Oceanair House, 133–137 Whitechapel High Street
Oceanair House, 133-7 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PT | Survey of London
The corner building with Goulston Street is atypical for Whitechapel, a tentatively snazzy deco-moderne shop and offices, built in 1937-…
Alexandra Wing, 1864–6
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Over time, the hospital was increasingly inundated with patients arriving from the local area and remoter parishes such as West Ham. Sin…
135 and 137 Whitechapel Road
Islamic Relief, 135 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This is a four-storey showroom–workroom block of 1932–4, erected for W. Abbott with W. Silk & Sons Ltd as builders. A. Samuels &…
Earlier buildings at 135-149 Whitechapel Road
Shell Petrol Station, 139-149 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Christopher Clarke (1613–72), a Warden of the Drapers’ Company, acquired property in Whitechapel including what is now 131–145 Whitechap…
29-33 White Church Lane
29-33 White Church Lane | Survey of London
Fishel K. Abrahamson converted a house at No. 29 to be a synagogue in 1895–6. Nos 29–33 Church Lane and 27a Commercial Road wer…
Units Workshops, 1-13 Adler Street
1-13 Adler Street | Survey of London
The County of London Plan of 1943 prescribed distinct zones of activity, recommending the dispersal of industry away from Londo…
The Ducking Pond and adjacent early developments
Kempton Court (2 Durward Street and 7-23 Brady Street) | Survey of London
Part of a natural watercourse known as the Black Ditch that flowed through Stepney from Shoreditch to Limehouse formed the irregular nor…
The Whitechapel 'fatberg'
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The Whitechapel ‘fatberg’, a congealed mass of solid sewage, among the largest ever found at about 250m long and 130 tonnes was removed …
The early history of the Dock Street and Ensign Street area
Wombat's City Hostel, 7 Dock Street | Survey of London
The lands immediately west of Well Close were gardens in the outer precinct of the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces from the fourteent…
Rag Fair and Rosemary Lane to 1840
23-29 Royal Mint Street, Royal Mint Estate | Survey of London
Rag Fair, held in Rosemary Lane and thriving by 1700, was by far London’s largest used clothing market in the eighteenth century. It con…
Grocers’ Company’s Wing and further expansion, 1873–6
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
The hospital expanded eastwards in 1873–6 with the construction of the Grocers’ Company’s Wing, a post mortem department and a nurses’ h…
Whitechapel Gallery since 1914
Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The Gallery in war and peace, 1914-39 The shows were emblematic of an attempt to shift away from the over-arching pedag…
Hog Lane and Rosemary Lane: Royal Mint Street's early history to 1700
23-29 Royal Mint Street, Royal Mint Estate | Survey of London
On the site east of Tower Hill that later became that of the Royal Mint, Edward III founded the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces in 13…
Well Street's theatres (demolished)
Wombat's City Hostel, 7 Dock Street | Survey of London
In the late Georgian period large theatres enhanced and dominated the west side of Well Street. Theirs is an ill-starred history. The <s…
Whitechapel station in 1975
Whitechapel Station | Survey of London
A newly digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7938…
Halal restaurant in 1966
2–6 St Mark Street | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7938432530…
Whitechapel High Street frontage between Goulston Street and Middlesex Street
hoarding on site of 141-143 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The site at the High Street’s western extremity is a scene of long-standing dereliction, notable for the overgrown remains of the origin…
Ahmed House, 48 Fieldgate Street
Ahmed House, 48 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Getzel Rossen, a chandler, had this shophouse up to 1905 when Max Rosin established a kosher bakery on the premises. His successor, Wool…
108 Whitechapel Road
108 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Thomas and James Jennings, plumbers, were probably responsible for erecting this building in place of its set-back eighteenth-century pr…
Impressions of Whitechapel
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
On the 16th March 2018 the Survey of London collaborated with design consultants make:good and the Whitechapel Gallery in holding a work…
Blind Beggar in 1973
The Blind Beggar public house | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide form the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7129312876…
7-8 Manningtree Street
7-8 Manningtree Street | Survey of London
2011-13, office and residential block, replacing a clothing factory of 1930-2. Kyson, architects, for Breanstar Ltd, brick facade with M…
The Buxton (formerly the Archers) public house, 42 Osborn Street
The Buxton (formerly the Archers) public house, 42 Osborn Street | Survey of London
The Archers public house was at the Old Montague Street corner by 1821, and may well date back to the 1780s when Osborn Street was forme…
A History of the Bell Foundry
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which closed in June 2017, was a remarkable survival. Its business cards claimed it as ‘Britain’s oldest m…
Chicksand Street to Old Montague Street - early history
14-36 Frostic Walk | Survey of London
The rectangle of Whitechapel parish that projects north of Old Montague Street as far as Chicksand Street was part of the Halifax or Osb…
2-6 Old Montague Street
2-6 Old Montague Street | Survey of London
Two-storey buildings on this site were replaced in 1904–5 in their present form – three storeys with plain brick fronts, shops under dwe…
Mahera Ruby's childhood memories of how the East London Mosque started
East London Mosque | Survey of London
Mahera Ruby, an academic and community activist, grew up in Whitechapel. Here she recalls the East London Mosque when it was a temporary…
The German Roman Catholic Church of St Boniface, Adler Street
St Boniface German Church, 47 Adler Street | Survey of London
London’s German Catholic Mission acquired Lady Huntingdon’s Sion Chapel in 1861. This congregation had its origins at the Virginia Stree…
Early history of the site of the 1901 Gallery building
Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The Whitechapel Gallery has since 2009 consisted of two buildings, the original gallery, opened in 1901, on the site of 80A, 81 and 82 H…
Harun Quadi's acquisition of 23 Casson Street
23 Casson Street | Survey of London
Harun Quadi settled in the East End in the early 1980s, having originated in Comilla, Bangladesh. "I came in this country in 197…
76 Whitechapel High Street
76 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The present building here dates from 1845, put up by James Little & Sons, builders of America Square, Minories, and Size Yard, White…
40 Dock Street
40 Dock Street | Survey of London
Around 1830 Thomas Hodgson & Son took over a sugarhouse with premises to its north on the west side of Dock Street, just north of th…
Fieldgate Mansions
Fieldgate Mansions | Survey of London
Fieldgate Mansions is a substantial complex of tenement dwellings of 1903–7. In the 1790s Thomas Barnes had created a 10ft-wide …
Wynfrid House
Wynfrid House | Survey of London
This guest house was built in 1968-70 to the east of and as an adjunct to the German Roman Catholic Church of St Boniface. It was concei…
Royal Mint Street
23-29 Royal Mint Street, Royal Mint Estate | Survey of London
Rosemary Lane was renamed Royal Mint Street in 1850. Its north side had been transformed a decade earlier by the viaduct of the London a…
Naylor Building East, 15 Adler Street
Naylor Building East, 15 Adler Street | Survey of London
This block was part of a residential and retail development for Ballymore Properties built to plans prepared by Michael Squire and Partn…
The Pavilion Theatre (demolished)
191-193 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The site of 191-193 Whitechapel Road has been an empty frontage for more than half a century, but it and the land behind occupy a place …
2-6 Old Montague Street
2-6 Old Montague Street | Survey of London
Two-storey buildings on this site were replaced in 1904–5 in their present form – three storeys with plain brick fronts, shops under dwe…
12-20 Osborn Street
12-20 Osborn Street (Arbor City Hotel) | Survey of London
What had previously been the narrow southern end of Brick Lane took its present form and the name Osborn Street (after local landowners)…
George Yard Mission and Ragged School
Nagpal House, site of George Yard Ragged School | Survey of London
The George Yard Mission and Ragged School was one of the earliest sustained endeavours in Whitechapel to address the travails of the poo…
Essex Wharf
Whitechapel Station, Durward Street | Survey of London
The site between the East London Line railway cutting and Swanlea School is called Essex Wharf. This is on account of connections with E…
Nos 3 to 21 Commercial Street
Hotel ibis London City, 5 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The first development on the west side of Commercial Street was the corner block (considered as part of 110 Whitechapel High Street), bu…
Whitechapel Library, Newark Street (formerly the Church of St Augustine with St Philip)
St Philip's Church Library and the Royal London Museum | Survey of London
The red-brick church that lies behind the former Royal London Hospital was built in 1888–92 to the designs of Arthur Cawston. It is on t…
Early history of the site of the former Passmore Edwards Library
Whitechapel Gallery, former Whitechapel Library | Survey of London
Whitechapel Gallery has since 2009 consisted of two buildings – the origina…
Former Whitechapel Free Library, later Passmore Edwards Library
Whitechapel Gallery, former Whitechapel Library | Survey of London
Between 1892 and 2005, what is now the eastern half of Whitechapel Gallery was the Whitechapel Library. The library originated, like the…
Aldgate Triangle
Dryden Building, 37 Commercial Road | Survey of London
Holloway Street became a westwards extension of Coke Street in the 1960s, its margins largely empty. By the 1990s land here was wholly c…
Gunthorpe Street (formerly George Yard)
3 Gunthorpe Street | Survey of London
Until 1912 Gunthorpe Street was known as George Yard, named after the George public house, which appears to have stood on the route’s we…
The Jewish Workhouse in the 1870s
Arcadia Court, formerly 90 to 222 Wentworth Dwellings | Survey of London
Between 1871 and 1876, a pair of houses on the site cleared in the 1880s for Wentworth Dwellings, was briefly used as the Jewish Workhou…
Foundation School enlargement and later history
Davenant Youth Centre (former Davenant School) | Survey of London
Alterations and enlargement of the Davenant School in the 1890s were occasioned by changes to the wider administrative framework for edu…
The Davenant Centre
Davenant Youth Centre (former Davenant School) | Survey of London
A scheme for refurbishment of the two surviving school buildings to be a community centre emerged from the GLC in 1984. In a project spe…
Ibis Budget Hotel and Adagio Aparthotel (formerly Brunning House), 100 Whitechapel Road
Ibis Budget Hotel (formerly Brunning House) | Survey of London
The Rivoli Cinema and St Mary’s Station site with other land extending back to Fieldgate Street was all redeveloped in 1959–63 in a spec…
Former Prudential premises, 271-273 Whitechapel Road
271-273 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Two shophouses here were replaced in 1913–14 by the Prudential Assurance Company. The Prudential’s house architect was Paul Waterhouse, …
The Bar Locks (formerly the Horse and Groom public house), 21 White Church Lane
The Bar Locks (formerly the Horse and Groom) | Survey of London
There was a Horse and Groom pub on this corner site by 1760. A two-storey building that had been run by Henry Levy was replaced in 1902.…
View of Old Montague Street, 1971
Hopetown | Survey of London
This slide, below, from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection, shows the south side of Old Montague Street lin 1971 looking westwards ac…
Jewish Working Girls’ Club (1903–c.1938)
Leman Locke | Survey of London
By 1903 the former Mission School was in use by the Jewish Working Girls’ Club (JWGC), a sister group to the Butler Street (now Brune St…
Abdul Shukar Khalisdar's childhood memories on Scott Street
Greater Whitechapel | Survey of London
Abdul Shukar Khalisdar, local businessman and community activist, was a child when he came from Bangladesh with his family to a flat on …
Hult International Business School and Tower, 33 Commercial Road
Hult International Business School (with Hult Tower), 33 Commercial Road | Survey of London
From 1900-1 John Walker & Sons Ltd of Kilmarnock (Johnnie Walker) held the former St George's Brewery building (see adjacent site) a…
83 Whitechapel High Street
83 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
A utilitarian rebuilding of 1957, originally with steel Crittall windows and a step-back to the fifth floor at the rear. In 2007 the upp…
Hopetown, 60 Old Montague Street
Hopetown | Survey of London
The Salvation Army’s women’s hostel on the south side of Chicksand Street known as Hopetown moved to Old Montague Street to make way for…
The Model Establishment, c.1847 to 1871
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
Following Edwin Chadwick’s sanitary reports of 1842, a ‘Committee for Baths for the Labouring Classes’ was formed in October 1…
Phoenix Hall (demolished), 1971
London Enterprise Academy (formerly Aneurin Bevan House), 81-91 Commercial Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7629665489…
Old Montague Street's early history
Hopetown | Survey of London
Taking its name from the family that acquired the land hereabouts in 1643, Montague Street was in existence from about that time. In the…
137 Leman Street
137 Leman Street | Survey of London
This double-fronted three-storey and attic house appears to have been built around 1825, seemingly a speculation by John Restall, a carp…
S. Schneiders & Son's factory
Whitechapel Sports Centre, Durward Street | Survey of London
Sadok Schneiders, a Jewish immigrant from Amsterdam, was making caps in Whitechapel from the mid 1840s. Moves to Stepney and Bow indicat…
85 Whitechapel High Street
Former Ye Olde Angel pub, 85 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This narrow shophouse, currently a perfume shop, was built in 1900 to the designs of Bird & Walters, almost exclusively pub architec…
Dog's bravery award, 1858
Central Tower, Aldgate Place | Survey of London
In 1858, a dog named Bill, employed by the London Fire Brigade, was the subject of an award for his bravery at the premises of Mr Upson,…
early buildings at 16–24 Leman Street
Maersk House | Survey of London
The Baker and Basket public house on the site of 16 Leman Street was in existence by 1816 when William Day was the victualler. In 1852, …
14 Whitechapel Road, including the George public house and the early history of adjoining buildings
Haji Nanna Biryani, 14 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A timber-framed building on this site by the early eighteenth century was the George Inn, which, with livery stables to the rear, was in…
The Crown and Seven Stars
The Artful Dodger (formerly the Crown and Seven Stars) | Survey of London
There was a public house of the name Crown and Seven Stars at the corner of Blue Anchor Yard and Rosemary Lane (the name of Royal Mint S…
North side of Whitechapel Road at the junction with Davenant Street, 1971
Shell Petrol Station, 139-149 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection was taken in 1971 outside where the East London Mosque now stands…
42 Adler Street
Qbic London City, 42 Adler Street | Survey of London
The George Inn's livery stables extended back to the line of Mulberry Street from the eighteenth century up to 1913. Buck & Hickman,…
82-86 Old Montague Street with 12-18 Greatorex Street
Don Gratton House, Alma Home, Greatorex Street Young People's Centre and Institute of Psychotrauma | Survey of London
There was a house on the site of 16 Greatorex Street by the early 1770s when John Harrison set up a ropewalk behind. Around 1845 Ind, Co…
Parish burial ground, almshouses and workhouse
Open space, Moss Close | Survey of London
Richard Gardiner was Whitechapel’s Rector in 1614 when parish churchwardens oversaw the acquisition of a rectangular plot of about an ac…
19 White Church Lane
19 White Church Lane | Survey of London
Around 1879 Simon Cohen (otherwise Simcha Beker or Simha Becker), a pastry cook across the road at 32 White Church Lane, adapted a house…
3 White Church Lane
3 White Church Lane | Survey of London
This two-storey brick corner building of c.1960 was bomb-damage replacement. It was much embellished in 2012 through Global Street Art. …
Shaheed Minar
Shaheed Minar | Survey of London
In 1999 the south-west corner of Altab Ali Park gained a Shaheed Minar (Martyrs’ Monument), a semi-circular concrete plinth with five wh…
Additions and alterations in the twentieth century
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
The rebuilding and expansion of the hospital under Plumbe’s supervision created a large medical complex that functioned on modern and ef…
former St Mary's clergy house, c. 1977
Sushino En (formerly St Mary's House) | Survey of London
The former clergy house, seen when in use as a post office c. 1977, from a digitised colour slide in the Tower Hamlets Archives collecti…
Gwynne House, Turner Street
Gwynne House | Survey of London
Gwynne House stands at the north-west corner of the Turner Street and Newark Street crossing in bold contrast to its contemporary neo-Ge…
Post-war rebuilding schemes and extensions
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
In 1940 a bicentenary campaign was launched for a programme of repair and reconstruction. The earlier building works overseen by Plumbe …
Travelodge London City
Travelodge London City | Survey of London
This ‘flagship’ hotel of the Travelodge Group opened in 2018 on, essentially, the site of the sixteenth-century Boar’s Head playhouse an…
32-38 Osborn Street
32-38 Osborn Street | Survey of London
A nine-storey sugarhouse was built on the site of 30–34 Osborn Street around 1799 for Josiah Lucas and Henry Martin (d. 1817). It was so…
City Reach, 19 Leman Street
City Reach, 19 Leman Street | Survey of London
This building was erected in 2004–5 to designs by Osel Architecture Ltd for Stronglink Ltd. The seven-storey block of offices and apartm…
St George’s House, 4 Gunthorpe Street
4 Gunthorpe Street | Survey of London
This block of flats of 1886 on Gunthorpe Street’s west side was built as Sir George’s Residence for Respectable Girls, part of wider red…
Anne Thorne talks about designing the Jagonari Centre
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
I was working at Matrix, a feminist design cooperative which I helped found with some other women, and we were approached by various wom…
Leman Locke, 15–17 Leman Street
Leman Locke | Survey of London
In 2009 Pinehill Capital SA Ltd proposed a twenty-three storey tower designed by Formation Architecture for this site north of Buckle St…
St Mary Street School
Davenant Youth Centre (former Davenant School) | Survey of London
The Whitechapel Society for the Education of the Poor was formed in September 1812 as an early branch of the National Society (see above…
3 Osborn Street
3 Osborn Street | Survey of London
No. 3 Osborn Street is a substantial four-storey-over-basement building of about 1830 that began as the Russell Coffee House. Its site w…
Grand Palais Theatre, 1960s
127-139 Commercial Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7691848047…
233 Whitechapel Road and 1 Court Street
233 Whitechapel Road with 1 Court Street | Survey of London
This was the Star and Garter public house which can be traced back to the early nineteenth century (see Stephen Harris's contribution) a…
The Bell public house
The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street | Survey of London
The Bell is a longstanding pub, known by 1709, and probably extant much earlier, as it stood on the south corner of Black Bell Alley, kn…
The Royal London Hospital Medical College
Garrod Building | Survey of London
The Royal London Hospital has been associated with teaching since the early 1740s, when physicians and surgeons were permitted to take f…
The Davenant School rebuilt
Davenant Youth Centre (former Davenant School) | Survey of London
Rebuilding of the original schools of the 1680s by the Charity School Trustees followed hard on the heels of the opening of the National…
21 and 23 Whitechapel Road
21 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This was the site of the Green Dragon Inn, next to the Nag's Head Inn, like which it was both a coaching establishment and of early and …
223–225 Whitechapel Road with 2–6 Fulbourne Street
223-225 Whitechapel Road with 2-6 Fulbourne Street | Survey of London
Aaron, Lewis and Matthew Worms, linen-drapers, haberdashers and mercers, had much of this site from the 1820s to the 1850s and other dra…
2–20 Spelman Street, 24–28 Chicksand Street, 11–29 Casson Street and 25–27 Monthorpe Road
17 Casson Street | Survey of London
This block, once divided north–south by Little Halifax (Tailforth) Street, was redeveloped in 1900–03 as a distinctively homogenous comp…
81 New Road, c. late 1970s
81 New Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide of the former Duke of Gloucester public house from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="http…
German Mission Day School, 17 Leman Street (1861–1897)
Leman Locke | Survey of London
Built in 1861–3, the German Mission Day School replaced an eighteenth-century tenement and family-run bakery. The purpose-built school w…
Photograph of bollards marking site of Royal Brunswick Theatre, 1964
Wombat's City Hostel, 7 Dock Street | Survey of London
These iron bollards, which survive, are marked RBT for Royal Brunswick Theatre, which stood, briefly (1828), on the west side of Ensign …
Residents' campaign to save Treves House and Lister House, 2017
Treves House, Vallance Road | Survey of London
Three long-term residents of Treves House and Lister House from varied backgrounds are fighting plans being considered by Tower Hamlets …
299 Whitechapel Road (formerly the Lord Nelson public house)
299 Whitechapel Road (formerly the Lord Nelson public house) | Survey of London
The predecessor of the present building at 299 Whitechapel Road was a pub and victualling house with a skittle ground to the rear. This …
1-13 Vallance Road
3 Vallance Road | Survey of London
Land near here along what is now Old Montague Street was occupied by a Robert Baker in 1707. He was perhaps a relative of John Baker, a …
273A Whitechapel Road
273A Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
An earlier four-storey shophouse here was probably part of redevelopment of around 1805 by Thomas Barnes. It was occupied by Thomas Fenw…
Former Outpatients Annexe, Stepney Way
Outpatients Annexe | Survey of London
The former Outpatients Annexe of the Royal London Hospital stands at the north-east corner of the junction between New Road and Stepney …
Albany Court
Albany Court, 18-25 Plumbers Row | Survey of London
In keeping with post-war redevelopment plans that zoned this district for industry a three-storey workshops block was erected on this si…
The former Working Lads' Institute, 279-281 Whitechapel Road
Former Working Lads' Institute | Survey of London
This impressively tall gabled building was erected in 1884–5 and extended at the back in 1886–7 as a Working Lads’ Institute, to promote…
Enterprise House, 21 Buckle Street
Enterprise House | Survey of London
On the south side of Buckle Street, a bombsite at Nos 21–23 was developed with a warehouse of 1964–5 that was Paradise House (for B. Par…
Davenant Street Development (now part of Chicksand Estate)
194-212 Old Montague Street | Survey of London
The south side of the east end of Old Montague Street, former Rowland land that had largely come to the parish, was first built up in th…
Whitechapel High Street's south side up to the Second World War
The White Chapel Building (former Sedgwick Centre) | Survey of London
Courts and alleys Whitechapel High Street’s southern frontage was probably more or less built up in the sixteenth centu…
Osborn House, 9-13 Osborn Street
9-13 Osborn Street | Survey of London
Osborn House is a two-storey and basement workshop–showroom building on the site of three shophouses of 1848–9 destroye…
Facade retention
Central House, London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
In February 2016, a development company, Frasers, purchased Central House from LMU for £50 million, a price the University noted was ‘si…
235 Whitechapel Road (formerly the Lord Napier public house)
Zam Zam Gift Shop (formerly the Lord Napier public house), 235 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
By the 1780s and into the 1840s a shop on this corner was occupied by Joseph Bond and then William Bond, wireworkers and bird-cage maker…
Mount Terrace
34 Mount Terrace | Survey of London
The terrace which extends east from New Road to the northern tip of Turner Street owes its name to Whitechapel Mount, an artificial hill…
The Alexandra Wing, 1864–6 (demolished)
The Royal London Dental Hospital | Survey of London
Over time, the hospital was increasingly inundated with patients arriving from the local area and remoter parishes such as West Ham. Sin…
London College of Furniture, 1971
London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
A view of the London College of Furniture building, later part of London Metropolitan University, from a digitised colour slide in the c…
Whitechapel Station
Whitechapel Station | Survey of London
Substantially rebuilt in 2013–18 for Crossrail (the Elizabeth Line), Whitechapel Station has an intricate and accretive history, several…
65A Whitechapel High Street
65A Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
No. 65a Whitechapel High Street has its origins as a building of c1897. Prominent from the west, it was well finished with lavish use of…
17-18 Vine Court
Warehouse to rear of 108A-110 Whitechapel Road (17-18 Vine Court) | Survey of London
The building at 17–18 Vine Court was erected in 1969–70 for Alfred Cox Ltd, for parking under workrooms for making surgical and orthopae…
16-18 Whitechapel Road
16-18 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A warehouse of 1852 here became a cigar factory in the 1890s. The site was redeveloped in 1938–9 to house a five-storey factory for Buck…
Gardiner's Corner reconstruction
The White Chapel Building (former Sedgwick Centre) | Survey of London
Traffic was an abiding headache on Whitechapel High Street. It had been for centuries and the confluence of the Leman Street–Commercial …
The White Chapel Building (former Sedgwick Centre)
The White Chapel Building (former Sedgwick Centre) | Survey of London
After the formation of the Gardiner’s Corner gyratory system and the building of Central House in the mid 1960s there was a hiatus befor…
Albion Brewery building during the dustmen's strike of 1979
Albion Yard (formerly Albion Brewery) | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from Tower Hamlets Archives collection <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/806129440405291…
29-31A Commercial Road
31 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This site was created by the westwards extension of Commercial Road in 1869-70. It was acquired by Henry Bear, a tobacco manufacturer. H…
The Mulberry Gardens
St Boniface German Church, 47 Adler Street | Survey of London
An approximately four-acre quadrilateral of ground lying west of present-day Plumbers Row and extending south from the Pierrepoint/Bayne…
Whitechapel Distillery
Whitechapel Sports Centre, Durward Street | Survey of London
What is now part of the Whitechapel Sports Centre site and land to its east and north housed a major distillery in the eighteenth and ni…
View west on Grace's Alley, 1964
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
A view of 2 Grace's Alley, now part of Wilton's Music Hall, when in use as a rag merchant, a digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamle…
61 Royal Mint Street (formerly the City of Carlisle public house).
61 Royal Mint Street (formerly the City of Carlisle public house) | Survey of London
A public house on this site was called the Carlisle by 1750 and the City of Carlisle by 1783. Around 1850 it was renamed the Blue Peter,…
Miss Muff's Molly House
Magenta House | Survey of London
In 1728 Black Lion Yard was the site of the house of one Jonathan Muff, which he ran as a Molly house, a resort for gay men and transves…
Wentworths and Woodlands
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
Although much has been made of the genteel character of suburbs further east, sixteenth and seventeenth century Whitechapel was not with…
Mark Button on jellied eels, Barneys Seafood and changes around Chamber Street
Railway Viaduct Spur | Survey of London
Mark Button, managing director of Barneys Seafood, talked about the business on the sho…
The north side of Fieldgate Street around 1900
Former Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue | Survey of London
From about 1896 there were synagogues on Fieldgate Street’s north side, behind Nos 33–35, adjoining and seemingly adapting part of Harri…
Constructing ‘Megses Glorie’
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
Regarding the Whitechapel area in 1598, John Stow described a steep upward curve of building just outside London’s city walls to the eas…
William Megges the younger and William Megges III
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
William Megges the younger (c.1557 – 1621) took possession of the Harte’s Horne on his mother’s death in the first decade of the sevente…
4-6 Davenant Street
The Denim Factory, 4-6 Davenant Street | Survey of London
In the early nineteenth century this site was an open yard, for coaches and with stables, south of which there was a brewery (the White …
Former Outpatients Department, Stepney Way
Outpatients Department | Survey of London
The north-west corner of the junction between Turner Street and Stepney Way is dominated by the former Outpatients Department of the Roy…
Aldgate Place
Aldgate Place | Survey of London
The Wimpey offer to the Greater London Council in 1978 when it lined up acquisition of the Gardiner's Corner properties included a leisu…
27 Whitechapel Road
27 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This building of 1926–7 was erected to designs by Higgins & Thomerson, architects, and first occupied in part by Isaac Woolf Silbers…
108A Whitechapel Road
108A Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Twin large warehouses of 1878 here were cleared around 1890 for the Metropolitan and District Railway Company, to provide a supplementar…
88–94 Wentworth Street (Universal House)
Universal House | Survey of London
Universal House is an office building, its west part a reconstruction of war-damaged remains of Wildermuth House, a model lodging house …
199 Whitechapel Road
199 Whitechapel Road (former Black Bull public house) | Survey of London
This was the Black Bull public house from the early nineteenth century. Once taller, it was taken down a storey and refronted in a black…
7-8 Davenant Street
7-8 Davenant Street | Survey of London
This unprepossessing and much-altered building had its origins as a sugarhouse and was thus until its demolition in late 2020 the sole s…
Developments from 1784
St Boniface German Church, 47 Adler Street | Survey of London
Under Holloway’s ownership streets were laid out from 1784 with more than 150 small two- and three-storey houses, up by the 1790s on lea…
82 Wentworth Street (Dellow Centre)
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The brown-brick building running from Wentworth Street south down the east side of Gunthorpe Street is the Dellow Centre, opened in 1994…
Old Montague Street, 1966
1 King's Arms Court | Survey of London
This view westwards along Old Montague Street from No 42, on the left, the site of the Chevrah Shass synagogue, is from a slide taken in…
7-11 Greatorex Street, the former Great Garden Street Synagogue with Morris Lederman House (now a Business Development Centre)
Business Development Centre, formerly Great Garden Street Synagogue and Morris Lederman House | Survey of London
Greatorex Street is named after the Rev. Daniel Greatorex, the vicar of St Paul’s Dock Street in the late nineteenth century. Until 1936…
241–243 Whitechapel Road
241 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This stock-brick asymmetrical pair of around 1835, possibly built for Henry and Joseph Gibbs, was leased for quotidian shopkeeping. Its …
8-10 Greatorex Street
Greatorex Business Centre, 8-10 Greatorex Street | Survey of London
Paul Turquand built a sugarhouse on this large and deep site in 1757. The premises expanded and were taken by George Lear & Co. (lat…
Abdul Shukar Khalisdar describes how he started this business centre in 2012
Greatorex Business Centre, 8-10 Greatorex Street | Survey of London
Local businessman Abdul Shukar Khalisdar worked in a clothing factory in this building as a youth, here he recounts how, in later life, …
St Paul’s German Reformed Church
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
Founded in 1697, St Paul’s Reformed Church was London’s third oldest German evangelical congregation. In 1771 the church removed from it…
The Goulston Estate, 1678-1776
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
Son of William Megges III’s younger sister Alice, Sir William Goulston (c.1641-1688, knighted 1680) became a London merchant and active …
The site of 275-277 Whitechapel Road before the railway
Whitechapel Station | Survey of London
Thomas Barnes, ‘bricklayer and builder’, and John Lay, a bricklayer of Newcastle Street, Whitechapel, acquired two shophouses on the sit…
12-20 Old Montague Street and Green Dragon Yard
Green Dragon Yard | Survey of London
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 …
Green Dragon Yard - early history
Green Dragon Yard | Survey of London
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 Whi…
How we use the London Enterprise Academy, by the students of Years 7 and 9
London Enterprise Academy (formerly Aneurin Bevan House), 81-91 Commercial Road | Survey of London
The most important rooms to us are the canteen and the sports hall. Aaqil likes the canteen because you can eat there and socialise, tho…
Peter Martineau's Sugarhouse
20-27 Wentworth Dwellings | Survey of London
The sugar refining industry in England began in the 1540s when Cornelius Bussine, a citizen of Antwerp with knowledge of the ‘secret’ ar…
The Good Samaritan Public House, 85–87 Turner Street
The Good Samaritan Public House | Survey of London
The Good Samaritan Public House probably owes its name to the London Hospital, which incorporated a representation of the City of London…
The Baynes/Forman estate and the early history of the west end of Fieldgate Street
The Curve, 14 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Until the middle of the eighteenth century, Whitechapel’s ‘field gate’ marked an edge of the built-up district at the west end of a foot…
From Black Lion House to Magenta House, 45-85 Whitechapel Road and Greatorex Street
Black Lion House | Survey of London
The Whitechapel Road frontage that was formerly numbered Nos 31–95 (as far east as Greatorex Street) is unified by a story of post-war r…
former school (demolished), corner of Buckle Street and Leman Street, 1967
Leman Locke | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7815021405…
241–243 Whitechapel Road
243 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This stock-brick asymmetrical pair of around 1835, possibly built for Henry and Joseph Gibbs, was leased for quotidian shopkeeping. Its …
First development of the London Hospital estate west of New Road
Fieldgate Mansions | Survey of London
Until the middle of the eighteenth century, Whitechapel’s ‘field gate’ marked an edge of the built-up district at the west end of a foot…
Chicksand Street’s schools and Hopetown
14-36 Frostic Walk | Survey of London
The westernmost section of what had been Francis George March Desanges’s silk-dying works on the north side of Chicksand Street was adap…
Mark Button of Barneys Seafood remembers Tubby Isaacs and Petticoat Lane market
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
Mark Button, managing director of Barneys Seafood, recalls the s…
2-6 Old Montague Street
2-6 Old Montague Street | Survey of London
Two-storey buildings on this site were replaced in 1904–5 in their present form – three storeys with plain brick fronts, shops under dwe…
King's Arms Court
2 King's Arms Court | Survey of London
King’s Arms Court has two four- to five-storey largely white-faced blocks on its west side, an affordable housing project of 2007–9 on a…
Former nursery to rear of 12-20 Osborn Street
Car park at 8-10 Old Montague Street, with building behind the Nag's Head, 17-19 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Within a year or so of the opening of the clothing factory at 12-20 Osborn Street in 1961 a day nursery for the children of the factory’…
The Nag's Head, 17-19 Whitechapel Road
The Nag's Head, 17-19 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The Nag’s Head Inn has early origins, how early remains unclear, but it was certainly on its present site by 1703, possibly long since; …
Rashid Ahmed's description of working in the Royal London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Rashid Ahmed is a Rehab Support Worker on the Community Stroke Team at the Royal London Hospital, here he describes how the team work in…
11-15 Casson Street
11-15 Casson Street | Survey of London
The building at 11–15 Casson Street is of 1987–8, three three-storey neo-Georgian brick single-family houses for the Bangladeshi-led Spi…
55 Royal Mint Street and 84 John Fisher Street (Tower Mint Apartments)
Tower Mint Apartments | Survey of London
These four and five-storey blocks of 2009–10 were built as a shop, office and flats for Regnum Ltd, through Moss Architecture and Design…
245–249 Whitechapel Road
245-249 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Premises here known as Waterloo House were rebuilt in 1903. Walter Gladding was the builder at Nos 245–247 for McKay and Ryland, linen-d…
Shopping-mall schemes
57-71 Durward Street | Survey of London
From 1972 to 1988 there were plans for a large shopping mall to the north of Whitechapel Road and Whitechapel Station. These were initia…
St Paul’s Whitechapel Church of England Primary School
St Paul's School | Survey of London
In 1858 the Rev. William Weldon Champneys, Rector of Whitechapel, proposed attaching schools to St Paul, Dock Street, which had opened i…
Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue
Former Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue | Survey of London
The Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue was founded and built in 1897–9 on a ninety-year lease of land previously occupied by a house and w…
Rashid Ahmed's thoughts on new housing in the area
Meranti House | Survey of London
Rashid Ahmed is a Rehab Support Worker at the Royal London Hospital, here he shares his thoughts on the new housing being built in Goodm…
101 Whitechapel Road
101 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Until recently this shophouse of c.1815 had only two storeys. In 1933 Adolf Cohen took the premises, long occupied by bootmaker…
Shopping-mall schemes
Whitechapel Sports Centre, Durward Street | Survey of London
From 1972 to 1988 there were plans for a large shopping mall to the north of Whitechapel Road and Whitechapel Station. These were initia…
No. 1 Victoria Home and 23-41 Commercial Street
Ladbroke Court, 4 Resolution Plaza | Survey of London
The Commercial Street site between the Baptist chapel an…
Bilal Haq talks about the changes on Petticoat Lane since the 1980s
6 to 14 Wentworth Street and 61 to 72 Wentworth Dwellings | Survey of London
Bilal Haq has worked in the clothing trade on Wentworth Street since the 1980s. Here he talks about how he has experienced how the stree…
Pemel's (or Draper's) Almshouses and early history
Albion Yard (formerly Albion Brewery) | Survey of London
The Albion Yard site was traversed from north to south by the Black Ditch, a watercourse that flowed from Shoreditch through Stepney. It…
The Albion Brewery, 331-335 Whitechapel Road
Albion Yard (formerly Albion Brewery) | Survey of London
From back-land beginnings in 1807 the Albion Brewery grew within a century to occupy a large frontage and to cover a site extending back…
Whitechapel reference library, 1971
Whitechapel Gallery, former Whitechapel Library | Survey of London
A view of the reference library in 1975, from a digitised colour slide in the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: <a href=…
20-22 Whitechapel Road
20-22 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
There were coach-makers on this site and a yard behind through the eighteenth century up to the 1860s. John McCall, a Houndsditch provis…
Shopping-mall schemes
Swanlea Secondary School | Survey of London
From 1972 to 1988 there were plans for a large shopping mall to the north of Whitechapel Road and Whitechapel Station. These were initia…
King's Arms Court (early history)
2 King's Arms Court | Survey of London
In the early eighteenth century, the King’s Arms public house was at the site of Nos 55–57, where King’s Arms Court (originally Coles Al…
King's Arms Court
1 King's Arms Court | Survey of London
King’s Arms Court has two four- to five-storey largely white-faced blocks on its west side, an affordable housing project of 2007–9 on a…
King's Arms Court (early history)
1 King's Arms Court | Survey of London
In the early eighteenth century, the King’s Arms public house was at the site of Nos 55–57, where King’s Arms Court (originally Coles Al…
Shopping-mall schemes
Kempton Court (2 Durward Street and 7-23 Brady Street) | Survey of London
From 1972 to 1988 there were plans for a large shopping mall to the north of Whitechapel Road and Whitechapel Station. These were initia…
Swanlea School
Swanlea Secondary School | Survey of London
After the failure of the shopping-mall schemes in 1988 the fly-tipped land north of Durward Street and west of the railway and Essex Wha…
Concert-room beginnings
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
Around 1818 Allrich Eden, an immigrant Hanoverian sugar-worker who by 1808 was a Cable Street victualler, became the tenant of the Princ…
The Mahogany Bar Mission and rag-warehouse use
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
The freehold of 1–3 Graces Alley and Wilton's Music Hall was sold in 1887 to John Watson, a Methodist preacher and builder based in Tott…
17 White Church Lane
17 White Church Lane | Survey of London
The upper storeys were built around 1840 for Charles Marshall, a veterinary surgeon and farrier. There is first-floor blind arcading in …
Juber Hussain remembers the market off Vallance Road
3-71 Wodeham Gardens | Survey of London
Juber Hussain grew up in Spitalfields in the 1980s. Here he remembers a street market that took root on the site of demolished warehouse…
Banglatown archway across Brick Lane
16 Brick Lane | Survey of London
In 1997 an ornamental metal archway was put up across Brick Lane with its eastern upright in Whitechapel on the north side of Hopetown S…
Resolution Plaza new building and open space
3 Resolution Plaza | Survey of London
Wrapping around the base of Denning Point, the building with the address 3 Resolution Plaza is part of the<a href="https://surveyoflondo…
5 and 7 Osborn Street
7 Osborn Street | Survey of London
Nos 5 and 7 Osborn Street are two survivors from a row of five shophouses that once ran to No. 13, erected in 1848-9 for Richard Carrol …
The Royal London Dental Hospital (formerly known as the Alexandra Wing), 1978–82
The Royal London Dental Hospital | Survey of London
The Royal London Dental Hospital stands at the west end of the former main hospital building, with a glass-fronted canopied entrance on …
255 Whitechapel Road
255 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The site of 255–259 Whitechapel Road was developed or redeveloped around 1675 when a 499-year manorial lease was granted. Humble early s…
Corner of Cambridge Heath Road, 1970
Crossrail Works, Cambridge Heath Road | Survey of London
Another digitised colour slide from the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: the houses at the corner were subsequently removed for…
4-6 Greatorex Street
Clifton Trade Centre, 4-6 Greatorex Street | Survey of London
There were two houses here from the early 1770s. A warehouse with a hipped roof was added to the rear in 1849–50 for Henry Nathan, a lin…
Redevelopment of Denning Point and the New Holland Estate
Denning Point | Survey of London
In 2006 the London Borough of Tower Hamlets transferred Denning Point and the New Holland Estate to EastEnd Homes, set up in 2005 as par…
Albion Brewery, 1970s
Albion Yard (formerly Albion Brewery) | Survey of London
An undated digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/8…
Shops at 2-50 Wentworth Street
2 Wentworth Street, London E1 7TF | Survey of London
The shophouses at 2–4 Wentworth Street form part of James Hartnoll's development of 1885–6 that continues at 52–72 Middlesex Street. Th…
Morrison Buildings, 35A Commercial Road
Morrison Buildings North, 35a Commercial Road | Survey of London
This block of dwellings was built in 1873–4 for the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, which often took plots generated by street im…
Central House (1964-2018)
Central House, London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
In the early 1960s, the London County Council (LCC) imposed a new traffic management plan on the area around Gardiner’s Corner. Commerci…
Former Resident Doctors’ Hostel (Ambrose King Centre), Pasteur Street (1925–7)
Ambrose King Centre and Grahame Hayton Unit | Survey of London
The former resident doctors’ hostel is the earliest surviving example of a purpose-built staff accommodation block at the hospital. Loca…
197 Whitechapel Road
197 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A single-storey shop is all that remains in the place of a three-storey building that housed apothecaries and surgeons in the early nine…
5 and 7 Osborn Street
5 Osborn Street | Survey of London
Nos 5 and 7 Osborn Street are two survivors from a row of five shophouses that once ran to No. 13, erected in 1848-9 for Richard Carrol …
E1 Studios (formerly Neil House), 3-15 Whitechapel Road
E1 Studios (formerly Neil House), 3-15 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This seven-storey speculative block was built in 1967–8 to be warehousing and showrooms over shops, to designs by Carl Fisher & Asso…
4-8 Whitechapel Road
4-8 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Charles Webster had this site as part of the George Livery Stables from the mid nineteenth-century with a handsome stone-faced front bui…
memories happy and tragic of Hughes Mansions
Hughes Mansions | Survey of London
From Joe Swinburne, b. 1923: Hughes Mansions were completed in 1929 and comprised three blocks of flats that were well appointed…
William Rowland's market garden and other early history
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
William Rowland was a market gardener in Whitechapel by 1637 when, age 35, he married Frances Roberts of the parish. In 1639 Rowland too…
58 to 60 Middlesex Street
58-60 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EZ | Survey of London
Nos 58-60, on the site of two of James Hartnoll’s shop-houses, is a single building of 1989-90 built as a shop with offices and storage …
11-15 White Church Lane
11 White Church Lane | Survey of London
Three shops and houses of 1915–17, Joseph & Smithem, architects, built by M. Zetlin for Mrs Lederman of Colchester Street on a build…
16 to 20 Middlesex Street
16 to 20 Middlesex Street | Survey of London
The first rebuilding of the the war-damaged site of the 1880s warehouses, six of which survive further up Middlesex Street at <a href="h…
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This four-storey stock-brick faced building of 1984–7 was designed by and for women as part of the wider Davenant Centre project that th…
191 Whitechapel Road (demolished)
191-193 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
In 1840 the shophouse on this site was taken by Henry William Wainwright, a brushmaker. By 1861 his son of the same name, age 22, had in…
Describing the George Yard Ragged School
Nagpal House, site of George Yard Ragged School | Survey of London
East End historian and guide David Charnick recounts some of the history of the former George Yard Ragged School "This [site] us…
151 Whitechapel Road
151 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
An imposing row of thirteen shophouses (later Nos 151–175) was built on the site of Whitechapel workhouse in 1860–2. This four-storey sp…
38 to 48 Middlesex Street
38 Middlesex Street | Survey of London
These six tall, muscular former warehouse buildings are the survivors of a range of seventeen that ran like a cliff down Middlesex Stree…
New Community Centre
The Community Centre | Survey of London
The two-storey glazed curtain-wall triangular building was built in 2013-14 as part of the regeneration of the New Holland Estate. It wa…
London Metropolitan University
Central House, London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
Via a series of mergers, the vestiges of the Sir John Cass School of Art were subsumed into London Metropolitan University (LMU) in 2002…
Describing the Residence for Respectable Girls
4 Gunthorpe Street | Survey of London
East End historian and guide David Charnick recounts some of the history of the former Sir George's Residence for Respectable Girls …
Booth House, Salvation Army Lifehouse, 153-175 Whitechapel Road
Booth House | Survey of London
From 1614 this was the site of a parish burial ground and almshouses (described elsewhere). The workhouse was replaced in 1860–2 by an i…
3 and 5 Dock Street
3 Dock Street | Survey of London
The pair of shophouses at 3 and 5 Dock Street went up in the 1860s for George Edward Rose of the Black Horse public house, then adjoini…
201 Whitechapel Road
201 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
William Stanborough (or Stanbrow, d.1694/5), a local citizen mason, took a 500-year manorial lease of a piece of waste ground here in 16…
102 Whitechapel Road
102 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Here at the north-west corner of what had been the Turner estate, a small house set back behind a shop was rebuilt in 1852 by and for Wi…
287-291 Whitechapel Road
287 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Development on this frontage (Nos 287–293) and manorial waste back to Ducking Pond Row can be traced to the 1620s when an establishment …
A decade of change around Chamber Street
De Mazenod House, 62 Chamber Street | Survey of London
Oliver Barry in conversation with Sarah Milne on 23 March 2018: "I've been aware of Whitechapel for quite a number of years as a…
North side of Wellclose Square, 1967
George Leybourne House | Survey of London
This digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection shows the side of the building that preceded George Leybourne Hou…
257 Whitechapel Road
257 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The site of 255–259 Whitechapel Road was developed or redeveloped around 1675 when a 499-year manorial lease was granted. There are stil…
203–209 Whitechapel Road
203 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This was once a uniform four-house terrace of 1865–8. Earlier buildings here, possibly originating in a 500-year lease of 1672, had hous…
Victoria Home, Salvation Army Lifehouse, 177 Whitechapel Road
Victoria Court (Salvation Army Lifehouse), 177 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The frontage at 177 Whitechapel Road was open until the 1890s. A yard to the rear (behind the sites of Nos 163–175), once part of the pa…
S. Schneiders & Son, Cavell Street, 1970s
100-136 Cavell Street | Survey of London
This undated slide, from the Tower Hamlets Archives Collection, is looking north past what was then the premises of S. Schneiders & …
Gloucester Terrace, 11–95 New Road
41 New Road | Survey of London
Development of the west side of New Road ensued from a decision in 1787 by the London Hospital’s Governors to develop their eight acres …
New Road's formation
41 New Road | Survey of London
New Road was formed in 1754–6 in close connection with the London Hospital’s move to the south side of Whitechapel Road in 1752–7. Sligh…
259 Whitechapel Road
259 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The site of 255–259 Whitechapel Road was developed or redeveloped around 1675 when a 499-year manorial lease was granted. There are stil…
North side of Whitechapel Road at the junction with Greatorex Street, 1971
107 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A colour slide from the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/7506974798390…
52 to 72 Middlesex Street
52 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EZ | Survey of London
Nos 52 to 54 and 62 to 72 Middlesex Street were built as four-storey shop-houses in 1885-6 by James Hartnoll, better known as a builder …
Former LCC school, c. 1960s
6 Durward Street | Survey of London
The south (Winthrop Street) front of the former LCC Board from a digitised colour slide in the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <…
The former Buck's Row School, 6 Durward Street
6 Durward Street | Survey of London
George Torr, proprietor of a manure works to the north, gave the west end of the Buck’s Row–Winthrop Street wedge that he acquired in 18…
Goulston Square, Goulston Street and New Goulston Street in the century to 1880
former London Metropolitan University law and business school | Survey of London
In 1796 E. P. Medows obtained a Private Act of Parliament to permit him to offer leases of up to ninety-nine years, not limited to twent…
Staff Accommodation
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
In the eighteenth century, nurses were confined for their rest to tiny rooms in lobbies adjacent to the wards. This arrangement was cust…
The first Davenant School
Davenant Youth Centre (former Davenant School) | Survey of London
An undemonstrative road-side building of 1818 and a showy but concealed rear addition of 1895 are all that is left standing in Whitechap…
105-113 Whitechapel Road
105 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
105–113 Whitechapel Road are three-storey and garret two-bay shophouses that have origins of about 1816–18, probably as a development by…
Juber Hussain remembers living in Davenant House in the 1990s
Greater Whitechapel | Survey of London
Juber Hussain spent some of his childhood living in Davenant House in the 1990s, he remembers some of his family's daily struggles, …
261–267 Whitechapel Road and Woods Buildings
261 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The two pairs of shophouses of 1767–72 here are the oldest surviving buildings on the north side of Whitechapel Road east of Vallance Ro…
293-297 Whitechapel Road
293 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This trio of four-storey properties was, despite its heterogeneity, possibly all built around 1840, perhaps in part at least by John Nay…
New Road's formation and early land use
New Road Hotel (formerly Service House), 101-107 New Road | Survey of London
New Road was formed in 1754–6 in close connection with the London Hospital’s move to the south side of Whitechapel Road in 1752–7. Sligh…
New Road Hotel (formerly Service House), 101–107 New Road
New Road Hotel (formerly Service House), 101-107 New Road | Survey of London
This was the site of John Kincey’s double-fronted house of 1775, on a setback building line that was followed at Nos 109 and 111. His ca…
187 Whitechapel Road
187 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
William Rowland was a market gardener in Whitechapel by 1637 when, age 35, he married Frances Roberts of the parish. In 1639 Rowland too…
115-121 Whitechapel Road
115 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Francis Newham, a grocer, took occupation of the building on the site of No. 121 in the 1750s. He replaced Cross Key Alley to the rear w…
Aldgate Police Section House, 21A Commercial Street
Kensington Apartments, 11 Commercial Street | Survey of London
Aldgate Police section house was erected on the site of the Commercial Street Baptist Chapel in 1910-11 to the designs of the Metropolit…
123 and 125 Whitechapel Road
123-125 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This is the earliest building in this stretch of Whitechapel Road with early eighteenth-century origins. No. 123, three bays wide, front…
93 New Road
93 New Road | Survey of London
Of 1923–4, red brick and four storeys, so taller than most of the 1790s houses to its south, this shophouse was put up by George Barker …
Vine Court
Vine Court | Survey of London
Vine Court was formed around 1700 on land then or soon after held by Thomas Turner, a house carpenter, and was originally known as Walnu…
303-317 Whitechapel Road
303 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Earlier buildings on this site were varied and repeatedly rebuilt. In 1670 John East, a citizen blacksmith, took a 500-year manorial lea…
189 Whitechapel Road
189 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
An earlier house on this site was probably rebuilt as a roomy shop around 1827–8 for Hugh McDevitt and George Moffett, linen drapers. Th…
The Whitechapel Mission, 212 Whitechapel Road
Whitechapel Mission | Survey of London
The island site at the easternmost end of Whitechapel parish on the south side of Whitechapel Road, otherwise bounded by Cavell Street (…
87 Whitechapel High Street
87 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Another utilitarian war-damage replacement, built in the late 1950s, very similar to No. 84, three storeys with red brick facing and tri…
Notes on the Mission site
Whitechapel Mission | Survey of London
Constructed 1969-71 to designs by Lee Reading & Associates, 212 Whitechapel Road has long been associated with the <a href="https://…
95 New Road
95 New Road | Survey of London
No. 95 New Road was built in 1883–4 following condemnation of the northernmost of Thomas Barnes's Gloucester Terrace houses of the 1790s…
Whitechapel Market, 1975
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A view of the market from a digitised colour slide in the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHAr…
The creation of Commercial Street, 1836 to 1860
2c to 4a Commercial Street | Survey of London
The section of Commercial Street that lies within Whitechapel, between Whitechapel High Street and Wentworth Street, was the first secti…
19-25 Osborn Street
19 to 23 Osborn Street | Survey of London
This frontage was cleared and in 1949 put to use as Osborn Garages, motor-car repairs, with petrol tanks and pumps in a forecourt and a …
221 Whitechapel Road with 1 Fulbourne Street
221 Whitechapel Road with 1 Fulbourne Street | Survey of London
A 498-year lease of this corner property was granted in 1675. A century later it had come into the possession of Luke Flood, a painter, …
86 Whitechapel High Street
86 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Within this unassuming, indeed dull, little building that might have been knocked up any time in the past thirty years, lurks a much ear…
121 New Road
121 New Road | Survey of London
No. 121 New Road extends to a large range behind 109–119 and 128–130 Whitechapel Road (where there had been a clothing warehouse), is a …
15 Osborn Street
15 Osborn Street | Survey of London
No. 15 Osborn Street (previously 15A) is a tiny single-storey café, built in 1951–2, with a long rear range, now derelict. The architect…
The Green Man and the Sons of Lodz chevra, 40 Newcastle Street
Calcutta House annexe, Old Castle Street | Survey of London
From its creation in the early 1730s, Newcastle Street (later Tyne Street) was developed with small three-storey houses, one of which, p…
Herbert House and Jacobson House
Herbert House | Survey of London
Herbert House and Jacobson House are blocks of flats built in 1935–6 by the London County Council on the site of its Old Castle Street S…
211–217 Whitechapel Road
211 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This 60ft frontage, probably already then built up, was the subject of a manorial lease of 99 years in 1670 to Sarah Wadeson, a local wi…
17 Osborn Street
17 Osborn Street | Survey of London
No. 17 Osborn Street is a single-storey building of 1949, erected by Ian G. Mactear, surveyor, for Woolf & Partners, monumental maso…
193A-195 Whitechapel Road
193B Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
In the early nineteenth century there were seven small shophouses east of the site of the Pavilion Theatre’s entrance passage up to the …
From Graces Alley to Cable Street
Sapphire Court, 1 Ensign Street | Survey of London
The alley from the north-west corner of Marine Square was first called Boat Alley in 1683. Felix Calverd, a brewer, tax farmer and Fire …
Former Lord Rodney's Head public house, 285 Whitechapel Road
Former Lord Rodney's Head public house, 285 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
By 1806 there was a pub at this address known as the Rodney’s Head. Admiral Lord Rodney had gained fame in 1782 and died in 1792. There …
109 New Road
109 New Road | Survey of London
No. 109 New Road has its origins as a three-storey and attic house of the 1790s, set back and narrow with its irregular…
111 New Road
111 New Road | Survey of London
No. 111 New Road is a three-storey and attic house of the 1790s that was attached northwards to a warehouse occupied by Andrew Richards,…
Colonial House (1942–c.1957)
Leman Locke | Survey of London
‘There is excellent provision both by official and voluntary funds for seamen on shore, but though hostels with fine premises exist …
3–9 Fulbourne Street
3 Fulbourne Street | Survey of London
There were houses on this site and further along Greyhound Lane from the 1670s, with more building taking place in the 1720s. This group…
69–71 Whitechapel High Street and 9 Whitechurch Passage
69 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
A group of three three-storey eightenth-century brick shophouses stood at 69–71 Whitechapel High Street, replacing earlier timber buildi…
Charles Dickens at the Whitechapel penny gaff, 1851
91 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Charles Dickens records a visit to the 'penny gaff' in 'the wider part' of Whitechapel High Street, almost certainly this site: …
Noorul Islam's life in Whitechapel
41 New Road | Survey of London
Noorul Islam came to Whitechapel in 1974 and spent his working life in the textile industry in and around the area. He has lived on New …
Vallance Gardens (former Quakers' Burial Ground)
Vallance Gardens, Vallance Road | Survey of London
By 1670 Edmund White, a London merchant, held a large property in the vicinity of what was soon to become Baker’s Row (Vallance Road) an…
4 Cable Street
4 Cable Street | Survey of London
4 Cable Street was refronted plainly and otherwise partially rebuilt in 1898 for E. K. Bridger by J. T. Curtis & Sons. Its first occ…
The regeneration of Toynbee Hall and its estate, 2013-19
Toynbee Hall | Survey of London
By the early 21st century Toynbee Hall was once again questioning the financial viability of its activities, in the context of a histori…
2–34 Brick Lane
S Karir and Sons Ltd, 2 Brick Lane | Survey of London
The southern stretch of Brick Lane in the parish of Whitechapel was solidly built up with small houses in the middle decades of the seve…
Former Whitechapel electricity-generating station
27 Osborn Street | Survey of London
The site of the Coope sugarhouses and Ind Coope & Co. Ltd’s beer stores and offices, has been in use for electricity generation or d…
Henrietta Barnett on Whitechapel High Street
Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Recalling her arrival in Whitechapel in 1873, Henrietta Barnett remembered ‘Whitechapel High Street, where some forty keepers of small s…
Abdul Shukar Khalisdar started his first office on 124 Whitechapel Road
124 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Local businessman and community activist, Abdul Shukar Khalisdar started his first business in rented rooms above the shop in this build…
Kempton Court
Kempton Court (2 Durward Street and 7-23 Brady Street) | Survey of London
Kempton Court (2 Durward Street and 7–23 Brady Street) was an early project by Sean Mulryan’s Ballymore Properties Ltd, previously Kempt…
115 New Road (including the former New Road Synagogue).
115 New Road and the former New Road Synagogue | Survey of London
A warehouse on this site and that of No. 113 by 1817 was replaced by plain three-storey shophouses, probably put up in 1851 for Duler an…
Pettitcoat Lane in full song, 1960
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
BBC Archive footage of market traders in Middlesex Street portion of Petticoat Lane in 1960 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive…
Early development
57-71 Durward Street | Survey of London
In 1796–7 Thomas Barnes, Whitechapel’s leading builder, took a large plot of land north of Ducking Pond Row between the Liptraps' Whitec…
Graces Alley
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
The alley from the north-west corner of Marine Square was first called Boat Alley in 1683. Felix Calverd, a brewer, tax farmer and Fire …
90 Whitechapel High Street and the site of Inkhorn Court
90 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
A model of cut-price fin-de-siècle jauntiness, with scrolled broken pediment and dainty oriel, No. 90 is best remembered as Blooms resta…
Kearley & Tonge
3-71 Wodeham Gardens | Survey of London
Kearley & Tonge was a tea-importing firm founded in 1876 by Hudson Ewbanke Kearley with headquarters at Mitre Square near Aldgate. T…
117–119 New Road
117–119 New Road | Survey of London
Built in 1894 and once extending to No. 123 as four units, this was an early project by Nathaniel and Raphael (Ralph) Davis, the younges…
Re-opening and Extension, c.1871 to 1889
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
The density and poverty of the area surrounding Whitechapel Baths was frequently noted in late nineteenth-century reports. Two…
First visit to the baths
The Wash Houses, London Metropolitan University, former Whitechapel Baths | Survey of London
Yoel Sheridan grew up in Goodman's Fields in the 1930s and 40s and has written about the experiences of his family at this time in a boo…
Whitechapel Sports Centre
Whitechapel Sports Centre, Durward Street | Survey of London
Following the failure of shopping-mall schemes, plans for developing the five-acre area north of the east end of Durward Street were adv…
Sapphire Court
Sapphire Court, 1 Ensign Street | Survey of London
The site to the west and north of Wilton’s Music Hall, empty since the 1960s, was sold off by the London Residuary Body in the late 1980…
88 Whitechapel High Street
88 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This substantial four-storey building, three windows wide, appears to be as largely rebuilt and extended in 1838, apparently by James Go…
91 Whitechapel High Street
91 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This slip of a building, barely 11ft wide, was a rebuilding in 1862 by Mears, builders of Whitechapel Road, to the designs of William Sc…
Memories of the oldest parishioner
Roman Catholic Church of the English Martyrs | Survey of London
The oldest parishioner of English Martyr's Church was interviewed about his life in Whitechapel by Sarah Milne in early 2018. "…
131 New Road
131 New Road | Survey of London
Nos 129–131 New Road originated as a one-room deep house of the 1790s, probably built for Thomas Amey and once 1 New Road. The house was…
Return to Newnham Street
English Martyrs RC Primary School, St Mark Street | Survey of London
Yoel Sheridan grew up in Goodman's Fields in the 1930s and 40s and has written about the experiences of his family at this time in a boo…
Procession Sunday and the East End Exodus
Roman Catholic Church of the English Martyrs | Survey of London
Interview with the oldest parishoner (OP) continued, including information from his daughter 'F'. F: “When we used to h…
John Wilton and the music hall: 1850 to 1881
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
John Wilton, a butcher’s son and former solicitor’s clerk from Bath, took over the pub in 1850 and in 1853 employed Thomas Ennor, a loca…
11A-11C Dock Street
11A-11C Dock Street | Survey of London
The site that is now 11A–11C Dock Street was laid out with stabling and sheds around an open yard in 1863–4 and first occupied by Thomas…
133 New Road
133 New Road | Survey of London
No. 133 New Road appears to have been built in 1825–7, possibly for John Jones, seemingly a dairyman, going up at the same time as 138–1…
Early history of the Idea Store site
Whitechapel Idea Store | Survey of London
A row of shophouses on sites that became 319–329 Whitechapel Road probably had seventeenth-century origins. John Hayward, a floorcloth a…
Whitechapel Idea Store, 321 Whitechapel Road
Whitechapel Idea Store | Survey of London
The sites that had been 319–329 Whitechapel Road were cleared in connection with the Albion Yard and Sainsbury’s developments in 1994. O…
Whitechapel Coal Depot and Great Eastern Square
Whitechapel Sports Centre, Durward Street | Survey of London
The first direct contact of the northern parts of the parish of Whitechapel with railways came when the Great Eastern Railway Company bu…
Baptist Chapel
Kensington Apartments, 11 Commercial Street | Survey of London
Between 1854 and c.1910 an imposing Baptist Chapel stood on the site of the lower section of Kensington Apartments. It had some claim to…
9 Davenant Street
9 Davenant Street | Survey of London
The east end of the former ropewalk that had otherwise been taken by Ind, Coope & Co. was developed by Daniel Luke Moss, a Fieldgate…
29-33 Osborn Street
29-33 Osborn Street | Survey of London
The building at the corner of Osborn Street and Wentworth Street replaced three eighteenth-century shophouses, erected by the Coopes and…
Working in Whitechapel's restaurants
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Rehana Islam Shumi came to the UK in 1998, and for the past 20 years she has been working as a chef in restaurants in East London. One o…
Sainsbury's supermarket, 1 Cambridge Heath Road
Sainsbury's, 1 Cambridge Heath Road | Survey of London
This supermarket was a comparatively modest realization of part of much grander but failed shopping-mall schemes of the 1970s and 80s. T…
The Blind Beggar public house, 337 Whitechapel Road
The Blind Beggar public house | Survey of London
The name of this pub is a reference to the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, in which parish it stands. A Tudor ballad about Henry de Montf…
94 Whitechapel High Street and Spread Eagle Yard
94 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This is another workmanlike office building, designed in 1955-7 but not built till 1960-1 to the designs of Fitzroy Robinson and Hubert …
Spelman House
Spelman House | Survey of London
Spelman House was built in 1939 for the London County Council on land that had been acquired but not used for extension of Chicksand Str…
100–136 Cavell Street
100-136 Cavell Street | Survey of London
In the eighteenth century this site was part of a bowling green on the south side of the hamlet of Mile End Green. The road that is now …
Rescue from demolition and revival schemes: 1960s to 1980s
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
The London County Council’s Graces Alley Compulsory Purchase Order of 1963 included the former Wilton's Music Hall in its schedule for c…
Jagonari Centre timeline
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This timeline has been taken from the ‘Jagonari Story’ book. This was put together in 2012 to celebrate 25 years of the centre’s work; t…
Onedin Point, 20-22 Ensign Street
Onedin Point, 20-22 Ensign Street | Survey of London
Mid nineteenth-century buildings that had been Dwelley & Boswell’s two-storey brick wheelwrights’ workshops and smithy at 20 Ensign …
Coope's Yard
27 Osborn Street | Survey of London
In the 1670s the tenter field north of Swan Yard, bounded west and north by Angel Alley and Wentworth Street, and possibly in the tenure…
1 to 4 Grace's Alley in 1972
2 Graces Alley (part of Wilton's Music Hall) | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide of Wilton's and the neighbouring houses in 1972, from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="h…
The former Grave Maurice public house, 269 Whitechapel Road
Former Grave Maurice public house, 269 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A pub called the Grave Maurice was present on this site by the 1720s on a lease dating from 1670. The name, probably commemorating Princ…
95-6 Whitechapel High Street
95-6 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This was a postwar repair of 1954-5 by Trehearne and Norman, Preston and Partners, architects, for Barclays Bank of a substantial Edward…
Swan Yard
19 to 23 Osborn Street | Survey of London
The earliest known occupation of the site that is now 15–25 Osborn Street was as a brewery attached to a High Street inn, the Swan with …
Restoration: 1997 to 2015
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
The use of Wilton’s for (unheated) live performances was revived in 1997, when a production of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land by …
Sloane Apartments
Sloane Apartments, 54 Old Castle Street | Survey of London
Sloane Apartments, part of the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/1454/detail/#redevelopment-of-denning-point-and-the-new-h…
Petticoat Lane's early history
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
Petticoat Lane ‘is not what it used to be’.[^1] This lament has echoed through recent decades, as demography and shopping habits continu…
57–60 Royal Mint Street
57-60 Royal Mint Street | Survey of London
Early eighteenth-century houses here survived up to about 1985. The site was redeveloped in 2001–2 as a block of eight flats, built for …
110 Whitechapel Road
110 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A diminutive survival, this single-bay one-room deep three-storey and gambrel garret shophouse was built in 1846 for Maria Hixon of Croy…
112-116 Whitechapel Road
112-116 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Varied houses and workshops on this site were replaced by this large five-bay four-storey warehouse block in 1898–1900. Possibly designe…
128-130 Whitechapel Road
128-130 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Turner’s Square on the site of 122–130 Whitechapel Road was redeveloped with larger houses around 1820 and obliterated by no-doubt talle…
8A Vine Court
8A Vine Court | Survey of London
At Vine Court’s east end, No. 8A is a picturesque phased mid nineteenth-century three-storey and three-bay brick rebuilding of an early …
Former London Hospital Tavern (the Urban Bar), 176 Whitechapel Road
Former London Hospital Tavern | Survey of London
A public house called the London Hospital was built here in 1753 while work on constructing the hospital’s central block was underway. I…
101 Whitechapel High Street and site of 97-101 High Street
101 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This 1961 shop and office building, built by Wates Ltd to the designs of S.A. Burden, architect, for Midland Bank Ltd, is another war-cl…
Cromlech House and United Standard House
Travelodge London City | Survey of London
The site of the Travelodge London City was cleared after the Second World War of the bomb-damaged portion of Brunswick Buildings, Goulst…
St Jude's Church
East One Building, 20-22 Commercial Street | Survey of London
From 1847 to 1925 there stood on this site St Jude’s Church, a chapel of ease to St Mary Whitechapel, its creation a response to the gro…
15-19 Dock Street
15 Dock Street | Survey of London
James Golding, a licensed or bonded carman on Christian Street, acquired a large (128ft) freehold frontage here in 1860 and as James Gol…
History of Providence Row
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
This history of Providence Row, which provides shelter and services to the homeless, is from an information brochure by Providence Row w…
John Harrison House (1962–4)
John Harrison House | Survey of London
This ten-storey Y-plan block was built to designs by Bennett & Son, architects, and Oscar Faber & Partners, consulting engineers…
10-20 Dock Street
10-14 Dock Street | Survey of London
The west side of Dock Street has little architectural quality. Recent blocks of flats and a data centre bookend an interwar Truman’s pub…
Old Home (1875–6)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Plans for the Grocers’ Company’s Wing gave rise to a scheme for the hospital’s first purpose-built nurses’ home, intended to provide dor…
The development of Marine Square
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
By 1682 Well Close was largely overlooked by buildings from across the roads that are now Cable Street, Ensign Street and the Highway. T…
Tewkesbury Buildings
101 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
From the seventeenth century until the Second World War a long narrow courtyard was located off the northside of the High Street, with a…
6 Cable Street
6 Cable Street | Survey of London
6 Cable Street was built in 1898 for Matthew Lee, an oilman of Aldgate High Street and Exmouth Street, by W. Taylor of Percy Road. It wa…
Wellclose Square's notable occupants
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
As Nicholas Barbon and his colleagues had intended, ship’s captains were prominent among the first occupants of ‘Marine Square’. Among t…
Wellclose Square's industry, institutions and changing character
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
Alongside residential respectability there was industry, cheek by jowl. Sugar refining had a significant presence in Wellclose Square fr…
Old Castle Street synagogue (demolished)
The Community Centre | Survey of London
From 1872 a minor synagogue stood on the backlands of No. 113 (later No. 42) Old Castle Street, at its north-east end (on the site of th…
Boar's Head Playhouse
United Standard House | Survey of London
A late-Elizabethan playhouse, the Boar’s Head, stood just east of the south end of Petticoat Lane. On that account the early history of …
8 Cable Street
8 Cable Street | Survey of London
8 Cable Street, probably built in the 1890s for Bridger, was then occupied by Nathan Van Flymen, a cigarmaker, followed by other tobacco…
104-106 Whitechapel Road
104-106 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
There were three-storey nineteenth-century buildings here, that at No. 104 of the mid 1830s and first occupied by Jeremiah Holloway, a c…
97-99 Whitechapel Road
Islamic Bank of Britain, 97-99 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This was the site of the Dolphin public house by the early nineteenth century. The premises were rebuilt in 1927–8 for the Commercial Ga…
The clearance of Wellclose Square
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
By 1950 the London County Council’s plans for the Stepney and Poplar Reconstruction Area involved ‘slum clearance’ all around Wellclose …
Hutchison House Club and Camperdown House
Camperdown House, 6 Braham Street | Survey of London
Yoel Sheridan grew up in Goodman's Fields in the 1930s and 40s and has written about the experiences of his family at this time in a boo…
Whitechapel High Street - its early history
Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Evidence for development before 1500 that can be pinned directly to Whitechapel High Street is scant, but as its hinterlands were largel…
78 Wentworth Street
78 Wentworth Street | Survey of London
This three-storey shophouse, only one-room deep, is an isolated survival. It was built in 1888–9 by Thomas Brevetor, a speculative build…
William Forster's house of c.1750 and subsequent developments at 25 Whitechapel Road
25 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
In a section of Whitechapel Road that had many inns, taverns and beer-houses in the early eighteenth century, the Angel and Still was on…
101–103 Fieldgate Street
101 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
This pair of shophouses of 1906 was built by Samuel Lissner to plans by J. F. Parker, and leased to Abraham Solomon Cohen, chandler, and…
London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street
London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
This building has a remarkable chequered, yet consistent, history. It was erected in 1866–7 as a mission house and infants’ school for t…
Ladbroke Court and Ladbroke House
Ladbroke Court, 4 Resolution Plaza | Survey of London
Ladbroke Court, part of the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/1454/detail/#redevelopment-of-denning-point-and-the-new-holl…
47 Royal Mint Street (formerly the Crown and Seven Stars public house, now the Artful Dodger)
The Artful Dodger (formerly the Crown and Seven Stars) | Survey of London
By 1730 there was a public house called the Half Moon and Seven Stars on Rosemary Lane in Whitechapel, perhaps on this site,the Rosemary…
66 Royal Mint Street
66 Royal Mint Street | Survey of London
This substantial four-storey and basement corner block went up in 1890 replacing several small shophouses. It was built as a factory for…
George Leybourne House
George Leybourne House | Survey of London
George Leybourne House is named after the music-hall performer better known as ‘Champagne Charlie’ in a nod to Wilton’s Music Hall next …
Denning Point and the New Holland Estate
Denning Point | Survey of London
Between the Ibis Hotel and Wentworth Street west from Commercial Street to Old Castle Street is now entirely occupied by a mixed develop…
Relay House and the Ibis Hotel
The Relay Building, 1 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The site of the Relay Building and the Ibis Hotel was assembled in the 1980s, part freehold, and part leasehold from London Underground,…
Whitechapel Peabody Estate
Block F | Survey of London
The housing to either side of Rosemary Lane in the early nineteenth century was bad even by the low standards of that time. In 1838 Thom…
117–135 Leman Street and 11–13 Hooper Street
117-119 Leman Street | Survey of London
This group went up in 1845–6 on what had been part of the large Rohde sugar refinery site as a corner-wrapping terrace of fourteen three…
178 Whitechapel Road
178 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Like the London Hospital Tavern, this shophouse was built in the late 1870s following the construction of the East London Railway. The s…
T. Venables & Sons Ltd buildings, 102 to 105 Whitechapel High Street
102 to 105 Whitechapel High Street and 2 Commercial Street | Survey of London
This corner building was erected in 1909 as part of T. Venables & Sons Ltd, general drapers and furnishers. Apart from <a href="http…
Danish–Norwegian Church
St Paul's School | Survey of London
In 1692 King Christian V of Denmark and Norway and his envoy, Hans Heinrich von Ahlefeldt, grew concerned to counter schismatic tendenci…
91–99 Fieldgate Street
91-99 Fieldgate Street, including Feather Mews | Survey of London
The London County Council took a lease of this cleared site in 1911 for a temporary school. A modest iron structure went up, set back fr…
The site of 102 to 105 Whitechapel High Street before 1700
102 to 105 Whitechapel High Street and 2 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The history of the site between Tewkesbury Buildings and Commercial Street (formerly Catherine Wheel Alley/Essex Street) is known from t…
Wellclose Square’s perimeter and Church House (former Nursery and Mission Room)
St Paul's School Mission Room and Infant Nursery (later used as Church House) | Survey of London
There appears to have been no enclosure of the outer perimeter of Wellclose Square’s garden before about 1720 when a dwarf wall with woo…
Brown Bear Public House, 139 Leman Street
The Brown Bear, 139 Leman Street | Survey of London
This establishment moved from Hooper’s Square where it had been by the 1740s when there was an associated brewhouse, later swallowed up …
Tyne Street (formerly New Castle Street)
Bradbury Court, 24 Old Castle Street | Survey of London
With the dishonourable exception of the entrance to ‘Houblon Apartments’, the 'poor door' to the 'affordable' housing in Relay House, Ty…
Café Spice Namasté (former Whitechapel County Court), 16 Prescot Street
16 Prescot Street | Survey of London
Three houses stood on this site until the late 1850s. Following Thomas Quarrill’s rebuilding of a row of twelve houses in 1746–9, No. 16…
30 Osborn Street
30 Osborn Street | Survey of London
A nine-storey sugarhouse was built on the site of 30–34 Osborn Street around 1799 for Josiah Lucas and Henry Martin (d. 1817). It was so…
84 Whitechapel High Street
84 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Another austere red-brick-faced war-damage replacement, built in 1957 as a near-pair with No 83, though retaining its original windows, …
141 Leman Street
The Empress, 141 Leman Street | Survey of London
On the south side of Mill Yard Passage, 141 Leman Street is a much-altered eighteenth-century house, two bays wide and two rooms deep wi…
Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall | Survey of London
The Boys' Refuge provided a literal foundation for the building of Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement, which opened in 1884. …
College Buildings, Wadham House and College East
College East | Survey of London
For a hundred years between the 1880s and 1980s, College Buildings, a block of 'industrial dwellings', stood on this site and that of <a…
The sites of 102-105 High Street from 1700 till the advent of Venables
102 to 105 Whitechapel High Street and 2 Commercial Street | Survey of London
While No. 102 had been rebuilt around 1702 and, hemmed in by the foundry site, occupied in the eighteenth century as in the seventeenth,…
The White Hart, 89 Whitechapel High Street
White Hart, 89 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The White Hart is the only long-standing pub left on the north side of the High Street. It claims on its front signage to have been foun…
Naylor Building West, 14-24 White Church Lane and 1 Assam Street
Naylor Building West, 1 Assam Street (and 14-24 White Church Lane) | Survey of London
There was a sugarhouse on Church Lane’s east side opposite Colchester Street (later Manningtree Street) by 1769, when it pertained to Ja…
The Brown Bear, c. 1970
The Brown Bear, 139 Leman Street | Survey of London
From an undated colour slide in the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/8…
The Boys’ Refuge and Industrial School
Toynbee Hall | Survey of London
Before the opening of Toynbee Hall in 1884, there stood on its site a Boys’ Refuge and Industrial School, built in 1852-3 on the recentl…
Red Lion Farm and playhouse
85 Stepney Way | Survey of London
From the sixteenth century a manor on Whitechapel's parish boundary south of Whitechapel Road at the settlement called Mile End Green wa…
Kensington Apartments and Bradbury House
Kensington Apartments, 11 Commercial Street | Survey of London
Kensington Apartments on the corner of Commercial Street and Pomell Way was built as part of the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map…
6 and 6a Commercial Street, Commercial Place and Sugar Loaf Court
6 and 6a Commercial Street | Survey of London
Nos 6 and 6a Commercial Street incorporate an entry to the car park on the site of Commercial Place (formerly Sugar Loaf Court) and <a h…
Kirstein's Mansions, 34-40 White Church Lane
Kirstein's Mansions | Survey of London
A house and shop at 34 Church Lane were the premises of Henry Bear, a tobacco manufacturer, from the 1840s to the 1880s. He evidently ac…
Calcutta House Annexe of London Metropolitan University and Brooke Bond welfare centre
Calcutta House annexe, Old Castle Street | Survey of London
The Calcutta House Annexe has been part of London Metropolitan University since it came into being through the merger of Guildhall Unive…
Attlee House
Attlee House | Survey of London
On 18 November 1971 the Queen opened a new building as part of the Toynbee Hall estate. Attlee House was an L-shaped building with an ea…
The houses of Wellclose Square
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
A number of Wellclose Square’s late seventeenth-century houses survived into the 1960s. There had been rebuildings and refrontings, but …
Research Laboratories, 56–78 Ashfield Street
Royal London Hospital Research Laboratories | Survey of London
This three-storey block on the south side of Ashfield Street opened in 1957. It was designed on reduced lines by N. H. Oatley in 1952, y…
Former Berner Street Combined Special School with Cookery and Laundry Centres, Henriques Street
Former Berner Street Combined Special School with Cookery and Laundry Centres | Survey of London
Tom Ridge has written a pamphlet about this listed building, titled: 'Special architectural and historic interest of surviving s…
Petticoat Lane Market
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
The origins of Petticoat Lane’s street market are obscure, and its antiquity has been much exaggerated. John Strype, Stow’s successor as…
Nos 28 to 42 Old Castle Street and New Evershed House
New Evershed House and 28 to 42 Old Castle Street | Survey of London
Nos 28 to 42 Old Castle Street, part of the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/1454/detail/#redevelopment-of-denning-point-…
Demolished buildings on the east side of Ensign Street, 1964
Shapla Primary School | Survey of London
A view west to Grace's Alley in 1964, showing demolished buildings on the site of Shapla Primary school and the former Brunswick Maritim…
10 Cable Street (formerly the Horns and Horseshoe public house)
10 Cable Street | Survey of London
The Horse (later Horns) and Horseshoe had been on this site for some time before 1807 when its tenant was Allrich Eden, a German immigra…
The Sir Sidney Smith public house, 22 Dock Street
Sir Sidney Smith public house, 22 Dock Street | Survey of London
The Sir Sidney Smith public house was present on this site as such by 1816, named after the naval hero of the American and French wars, …
The Sailors' Home to 1862
Wombat's City Hostel, 7 Dock Street | Survey of London
The Sailors’ Home, also known at first as the Brunswick Maritime Establishment, was built on the site of the Royal Brunswick Theatre in …
The Destitute Sailors' Asylum (demolished)
Onedin Point, 20-22 Ensign Street | Survey of London
The Destitute Sailors’ Asylum first opened in 1828 in a converted warehouse on Dock Street, the Asylum was established by the Rev. Georg…
Walden Street nurses’ homes (1969–76)
Dawson House | Survey of London
As part of a scheme to redevelop the hospital and its estate, Bennett & Son produced plans to clear the site bounded by Ashfield Str…
The Sailors' Home from 1862, with hostel conversions (1976–8 and 2012–14)
Wombat's City Hostel, 7 Dock Street | Survey of London
In late 1862 a building committee took the Sailors' Home's extension plan forward and Edward Ledger Bracebridge, a Poplar-based architec…
11 Dock Street (formerly St Paul's chaplain's house)
11 Dock Street | Survey of London
This house was built in 1847 on a plot to the north of St Paul’s Dock Street for its chaplain. The 45ft frontage was sold by the Commiss…
12 Cable Street
Jack the Ripper Museum, 12 Cable Street | Survey of London
This shophouse was built in 1899, with C. H. Shoppee, architect, and H. Burman & Sons, builders, acting for the Rev. Frederick Edwar…
Early History, 1740–1778
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Foundation The Royal London Hospital traces its beginnings to September 1740, when seven men met at a tavern …
The site of 275-277 Whitechapel Road before the railway
Whitechapel Station | Survey of London
Thomas Barnes, ‘bricklayer and builder’, and John Lay, a bricklayer of Newcastle Street, Whitechapel, acquired two shophouses on the sit…
8 Ensign Street
8 Ensign Street | Survey of London
An early shophouse at 12 Ensign Street survived into the late 1970s in the shadow of the Sailors’ Home. Jack Georgiou, ice cream maker a…
Whitechapel Road and the market, 1975
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide form the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/749…
Shapla Primary School
Shapla Primary School | Survey of London
In 1983 local pressure caused the GLC to move a planned and already substantially designed school from a previously intended site south …
3 and 5 Dock Street
5 Dock Street | Survey of London
The pair of shophouses at 3 and 5 Dock Street went up in the 1860s for George Edward Rose of the Black Horse public house, then adjoini…
Florin Court, 8 Dock Street
Florin Court, 8 Dock Street | Survey of London
Behind what might be called a neo-warehouse elevation, the eleven flats that form Florin Court (8 Dock Street) were built in 1996–7 with…
From manure works to tenement dwellings
Swanlea Secondary School | Survey of London
Much of the previously undeveloped site that now houses Swanlea School had fallen to use by the Whitechapel Distillery by the 1840s. Thi…
West wing and east wing extensions, 1830–42
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Plans for the first substantial enlargement to the hospital arose in 1830 in response to rising patient numbers, a by-product of rapid p…
Chandlery House, 40 Gower's Walk, including 107 Back Church Lane
Chandlery House, 40 Gower's Walk | Survey of London
Chandlery House is a former wine warehouse that was built in 1894–5 for Charles Kinloch & Co. Ltd and converted to flats in 1998–9. …
24 Osborn Street
24 Osborn Street | Survey of London
Osborn Street's east side had a new frontage formed by road widening in the 1780s. It was only slowly built up. A courthouse flanked by …
The Goulston Street Improvement
Arcadia Court, formerly 90 to 222 Wentworth Dwellings | Survey of London
The topography of the area between Middlesex Street and Old Castle Street changed radically in the 1880s as a consequence of concerted s…
Polyteck House, 143 Leman Street
Polyteck House | Survey of London
The eighteenth-century house on this site was demolished in 1913. An iron cooper’s shed had been built to its south alongside the railwa…
The School Board for London
Canon Barnett Primary School | Survey of London
East End historian and guide David Charnick gives some background to the School Board for London which built what is now Canon Barnett S…
Canon Barnett Primary School
Canon Barnett Primary School | Survey of London
The School Board for London built this primary school as Commercial Street School in 1900–1. Designs in the latest and most evolved of t…
Prescot Street - an historical introduction
Leonardo Royal Hotel Tower Bridge, 45 Prescot Street | Survey of London
Prescot Street was laid out across what had been garden grounds around 1680 as part of Sir William Leman’s development of his Goodman’s …
Bollards on Alie Street, 1984
St George’s German Lutheran Church | Survey of London
This photograph by Jean Thomas, bollard enthusiast, was taken in 1984 and is now in Tower Hamlets Archives. It is looking east along Ali…
Distilling happiness and drowning fears
Chandlery House, 40 Gower's Walk | Survey of London
In 1961, for their centenary, the novelist A. P. Herbert wrote a poem celebrating the centenary of the wine merchants Charles Kinloch &a;…
London Metropolitan University's Buildings
part of Calcutta House, London Metropolitan Univeristy | Survey of London
All the buildings between Goulston Street and Old Castle Street south of Arcadia Court and Herbert House, as well as one building on the…
Early buildings on Prescot Street's south side east of Magdalen Passage
9 Prescot Street | Survey of London
The eastern stretch of Prescot Street’s south side was solidly built up by 1693 with eighteen houses (later Nos 1–18), all but a few of …
Princess of Prussia public house, 15 Prescot Street
Princess Of Prussia, 15 Prescot Street | Survey of London
Thomas Emerson (d. 1746), who had been involved in the running of Joseph Bagnall’s large sugar business after it was sold in 1722, had a…
Princess Alexandra House, Philpot Street
School of Nursing and Midwifery | Survey of London
Princess Alexandra House was built in 1965–7 as the Princess Alexandra School of Nursing, to designs by T. P. Bennett & Son, with Fa…
the manorial Court House
2–10 Court Street | Survey of London
An early building on Ducking Pond Row at the north-east corner of Court Street was a debtors’ prison for the Lord of the manor of Stepne…
Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd in Whitechapel
Whitechapel Technology Centre (East London Works) | Survey of London
The shop that was at what became 67 Whitechapel Road, formerly No. 34 and five west of Black Lion Yard, has an important place in busine…
Bradbury Court, site of Evershed House
Bradbury Court, 24 Old Castle Street | Survey of London
Bradbury Court is a five-storey block of affordable-rent flats, built as part of the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/145…
40 Osborn Street
40 Osborn Street | Survey of London
This was the site of Orlando Jones & Co.’s patent rice-starch factory in the 1840s. The property was rebuilt in 1903–4 as a house, s…
Royal College of Psychiatrists, 21 Prescot Street (on the site of the London Infirmary and the Magdalen Hospital)
Royal College of Psychiatrists, 21 Prescot Street | Survey of London
An office block that spans from Magdalen Passage to 23 Prescot Street occupies a site with a remarkable history, that of a mansion of th…
23 Prescot Street (formerly part of Magdalen Row)
23 Prescot Street | Survey of London
The Magdalen Hospital’s premises were advertised in July 1772 with a fifty-year building lease. This sale evidently failed as several ho…
Early White Church Lane
3 White Church Lane | Survey of London
White Church Lane's origins are as the north end of Church Lane, the only early north–south route through the parish of Whitechapel, in …
83–89 Fieldgate Street
Tayyabs (former Queen's Head public house), 83 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Now unified as a well-known restaurant of Pakistani origins, this group comprises several distinct buildings. The former Queen’s Head pu…
Former Clergy House (St Mary's House), 2 White Church Lane
Sushino En (formerly St Mary's House) | Survey of London
This site near the north-west corner of what was the parish churchyard was part occupied by the parish watch house and a fire-engine hou…
41 Royal Mint Street
41 Royal Mint Street | Survey of London
This four-storey internally metal-framed warehouse was built in 1883–4 by Samuel Blow, a builder based at 3 Royal Mint Street, near Towe…
Royal Mint Gardens
Pier in middle of Leman Street | Survey of London
The north side of Royal Mint Street was clear in the 1970s save for car parking and the survival next to Mansell Street of a hydraulic a…
The Lambeth Street area in the eighteenth century
Meranti House | Survey of London
The eighteenth century saw gradual industrialisation of the Lambeth Street area. The west side of Rupert Street was from an early date e…
East London Mosque
East London Mosque | Survey of London
Establishment of the mosque In 1905 a number of prominent Indian Muslims in London ‘conducted the ‘Id (Eid) prayers in …
Sweets and stockings at 92-3 Whitechapel High Street
92-3 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
contributed by Barry Gelkoff This whole property is now a Costcutter shop, but prior to that <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org…
36 Commercial Road
36 Commercial Road | Survey of London
A three-storey and attic shophouse of the early 1870s was replaced at No. 36 in 2015–16 for Nelcraft Ltd (Israel Gross) by Reddington Co…
Premier Inn, 24 Prescot Street
Premier Inn, 24 Prescot Street | Survey of London
A building of 1985–7, in use as a hotel, occupies the site of four early houses. That of 1778–81 at No. 24 (previously 9 Magdalen Row) w…
38–40 Commercial Road
38-40 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This substantial steel-framed building of 1937–8, refaced in 1996, replaced a London Salvage Corps station of 1874. The Corps emerged, l…
Nos 32–34 (Riga Mews, formerly Riga Yard)
32-34 Commercial Road, with entrance to Riga Mews | Survey of London
Riga Mews is a development of flats from 2004 occupying a former timber yard from which the street-side buildings of 1873 were restored …
29 Whitechapel Road
29 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
No. 29 Whitechapel Road was built with a workshop to the rear in 1891 after a recently erected predecessor was destroyed by fire. It was…
42 Commercial Road
42 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This unadorned three-storey building was among the first to be built on Commercial Road’s extension. It began as a farrier’s shop, with …
No. 44 (The Castle public house)
The Castle, 44 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This prominent site at the acute corner with Goodman’s Stile commands an easterly view down Commercial Road. It was the first plot to be…
The Prince of Orange
Maryam Centre, East London Mosque, Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
from Mark Dunn: The Prince of Orange was a public house, in existence from at least 1797 to 1863 when its site was incorporated …
No. 60 (iQ Aldgate)
Pure Aldgate, 60 Commercial Road | Survey of London
The site at the corner of Commercial Road and Back Church Lane formed part of Benjamin Masters’ and later Samuel Gower’s landholding in …
36 Whitechapel Road and 1 Fieldgate Street, 1960s
Mosque Tower, 1 Fieldgate Street and 36 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and the buildings (left) that stood at 36 Whitechapel Road and 1 Fieldgate Str…
52–58 Commercial Road
52 to 58 Commercial Road | Survey of London
A vast pile of flats of 2005–9 occupies what had previously been two large sites, long ago in single ownership. Following the death of S…
Nos 46–50 (the Gunmakers’ Company’s proof-house and former hall)
The Proof House, 48-50 Commercial Road | Survey of London
The irregular group of buildings that faces Commercial Road between Goodman’s Stile and Gower’s Walk predates the extension of the road …
London Muslim Centre (38–46 Whitechapel Road and 11 Fieldgate Street)
London Muslim Centre | Survey of London
The East London Mosque raised £600,000 to buy the land west of the mosque from Tower Hamlets Council in 1999 and the purchase was comple…
Public lavatory and cattle trough at the south end of Leman Street, 1967
Pier in middle of Leman Street | Survey of London
This colour slide is from the collection of the Tower Hamlets Archives, and shows the 1920s entrance to the public lavatories built agai…
Mosque Tower and Mosque Terrace (36 Whitechapel Road and 1–5 Fieldgate Street)
Mosque Tower, 1 Fieldgate Street and 36 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The large corner site between Whitechapel Road and Fieldgate Street’s west end, cleared and used since 1967 as a car park, passed to Tow…
Mahera Ruby on how the Maryam Centre serves women
Maryam Centre, East London Mosque, Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Mahera Ruby, an academic and community activist, grew up in Whitechapel. Here she reflects on what the Maryam Centre provides for the wo…
Maryam Centre, 45 Fieldgate Street
Maryam Centre, East London Mosque, Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Following the opening of the London Muslim Centre in 2004, further enlargement of the East London Mosque's premises ensued to the south,…
Yvonne Carter Building, 58 Turner Street and 25–43 Ashfield Street
Yvonne Carter Building | Survey of London
In a change of architectural approach on the London Hospital's estate, apparently prompted by the Greater London Council, this neo-Georg…
Floyer House, Philpot Street
Floyer House | Survey of London
Floyer House is a students’ hostel of 1933–4, constructed to designs by Edward Maufe by L. W. Whitehead for the London Hospital Medical …
Wingate Building, 26 Ashfield Street
Wingate Building, 26 Ashfield Street | Survey of London
This three-storey purpose-built block of 1978–81 is occupied by the Wingate Institute of Neurogastroenterology, formerly known as the Ga…
Pathology and Pharmacy Building, 80 Newark Street
Pathology and Pharmacy Building | Survey of London
The Pathology and Pharmacy Building is a large five-storey steel-framed structure constructed in 2003–5 to designs by Capita Percy Thoma…
Abernethy Building, 2 Newark Street
Abernethy Building | Survey of London
The Abernethy Building on Newark Street’s south side returning to New Road is a four-storey block of 1995–7, built to designs by specia…
40–42 Newark Street
40 Newark Street | Survey of London
The surviving three-storey houses on the south side of Newark Street (Nos 26–34 and 40–42), opposite St Philip’s Church, were originally…
Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre, 42 New Road
Queen Mary Innovation Centre | Survey of London
The bioenterprises innovation centre was built in 2007–9 to designs by architects NBBJ to provide laboratory spaces for commercial enter…
Blizard Building, 4 Newark Street
Blizard Building | Survey of London
The Blizard Building occupies a large site bounded by Newark Street (north), Turner Street (east), and Walden Street (south), abutting w…
Elan Court (former St Philip’s National School), 36 Newark Street
Elan Court, 36 Newark Street | Survey of London
St Philip’s National School was founded to serve the district of St Philip’s Church, providing accommodation for 250 boys, 160 girls and…
John Garnett House (former St Philip’s Vicarage), 38 Newark Street
John Garnett House, 38 Newark Street | Survey of London
The former St Philip’s Vicarage was built in 1864–5 to designs by A. W. Blomfield. A parsonage for St Philip’s Church was intended by 18…
37–43 Ashfield Street
37 Ashfield Street | Survey of London
Nos 37–43 Ashfield Street are four two-storey houses of around 1828–31. In two-bay fronts there are first-floor relieving arches and rai…
35–47 Nelson Street
35 Nelson Street | Survey of London
Nelson Street originally ran only from New Road to Turner Street. Beyond, a kink marks the boundary with the Hawkins estate and the stre…
8–20 New Road
8 New Road | Survey of London
In 1807 the London Hospital’s governors resolved to open their estate east of New Road to building development, the west side of New Roa…
English Martyrs’ Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church of the English Martyrs | Survey of London
The Roman Catholic Church of the English Martyrs was built in 1873–6 on the site of three houses of the 1680s of a three-storey form typ…
92-3 Whitechapel High Street
92-3 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
This pair of narrow shop-houses has been a single building since 2002, the shop portion since 1990 at the latest. Both were built in 186…
26–34 and 40–42 Newark Street
28 Newark Street | Survey of London
The portion of Newark Street lying on the London Hospital’s estate is divided into three blocks from New Road eastwards to Cavell Street…
My Home in Whitechapel
Roman Catholic Church of the English Martyrs | Survey of London
This is an extract of an account published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1903 by the Dowager Duchess of Newcastle. The Duchess moved to Wh…
43–69 Philpot Street
43 Philpot Street | Survey of London
The surviving houses at 43–69 Philpot Street were constructed around 1838–44 as Philpot Terrace and Taymouth Terrace, names abolished wh…
Turner Street
33 Turner Street | Survey of London
Turner Street was named in honour of Charles Hampden Turner, the chairman of the House Committee of the London Hospital during its finan…
Varden Street
23 Varden Street | Survey of London
Varden Street was known as Norfolk Street till 1874. Vacant lots were advertised to builders in 1807, but only the stretch between New R…
Zoar Chapel, 27 Varden Street
Zoar Chapel | Survey of London
A house of the late 1820s at 27 Varden Street was replaced by this chapel in 1921–2. It was built for a Baptist congregation which had …
Philpot Street
Philpot Street open space | Survey of London
Extending from Newark Street south to Commercial Road Philpot Street presents a contrast between nineteenth-century terraced houses on i…
2–16 Walden Street
2 Walden Street | Survey of London
Walden Street was known as Suffolk Street till 1875. Its south side retains a terrace of eight houses from the first ph…
18–26 Walden Street
18 Walden Street | Survey of London
Early nineteenth-century houses at 18–26 Walden Street were cleared after bomb damage in the Second World War. The site was acquired for…
33–51 Walden Street
33 Walden Street | Survey of London
On the north side of Walden Street, Nos 33–51 are isolated by the nurses’ residential quarter of 1969–76. Thomas and John Goodman were g…
White's Row
Underground railway services building, Durward Street | Survey of London
Edmund White, a Puritan merchant adventurer and founder of the Massachusetts Bay Company, held the freehold of twenty-four acres in the …
48 Gower's Walk
48 Gower's Walk | Survey of London
No. 48 is the sole building on this stretch of Gower’s Walk to survive from before the 1990s. It is plain, of four storeys, and in stock…
30 Prescot Street
30 Prescot Street | Survey of London
The house adjoining English Martyrs to the west appears to have origins in the 1730s as a replacement of a house of the 1680s the lease …
Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1971
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Another slide from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: h…
The Bell Foundry and 36 Whitechapel Road, 1960s
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide (from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection) of the frontage of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, with No 36 Whitec…
Before Commercial Street: Essex Street and Catherine Wheel Alley up to the 1830s
2c to 4a Commercial Street | Survey of London
Commercial Street roughly follows the line of Catherine Wheel Alley which ran between Whitechapel High Street and Wentworth Street. Cath…
Venables department store
2c to 4a Commercial Street | Survey of London
This imposing four-storey range in stock brick was built in 1862 for the drapers Thomas Venables & Sons, based at <a href="https://s…
1 Dock Street and 2 Cable Street
1 Dock Street | Survey of London
This three-storey group, six bays in all, with a recessed quadrant corner, cornice intact, was built in 1853–4 by Joseph Clever of Hagge…
31–33 Prescot Street (with 99 Mansell Street)
31–33 Prescot Street | Survey of London
There were five houses of around 1685 to the west of the site of No. 30, the two to the west knocked together by 1693 for John Topham at…
George Yard Council Depot
3 Gunthorpe Street | Survey of London
In 1885 the Whitechapel District Board of Works acquired the City Saw Mills site on the west side of Angel Alley with a Wentworth Street…
4–14 Fieldgate Street
The Curve, 14 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
The Prince of Hesse public house on Fieldgate Street's Plumber’s Row corner was rebuilt in 1891–2 with blocks of dwellings with upper-st…
Leonardo Royal Hotel Tower Bridge, 45 Prescot Street and earlier houses on its site
Leonardo Royal Hotel Tower Bridge, 45 Prescot Street | Survey of London
A large hotel of 2008–10 occupies the site of seventeen houses (45–61 Prescot Street). With origins in the late 1680s and much altered t…
Virtual tour of 33 New Road
33 New Road | Survey of London
In 2016 No 33 New Road was renovated by the fashion entrepreneur James Brown as a showcase for interiors products and opened as a short-…
House of a Thousand Destinies
63 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Extract from Stefan Zweig's reflections on the Jews' Temporary Shelter in 1935: "Every morning the newspaper shrieks at us of wa…
61 Mansell Street
61 Mansell Street | Survey of London
The four-bay, four-storey plain brick-fronted office building of the early 1960s on this site somewhat echoes the fenestration of its ei…
Mint House, 77 Leman Street
Mint House, 77 Mansell Street | Survey of London
The south end of this side of Mansell Street from around the middle of this site almost to the Prescot Street corner appears to have bee…
9 Alie Street (Robert Dolan House)
Robert Dolan House, 9 Alie Street | Survey of London
Between the former Goodman’s Fields Theatre and Half Moon Passage eight houses at least partially built by William Kirkham in the 1730s …
63 Mansell Street (former Jews' Temporary Shelter, including 23 West Tenter Street)
63 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Four widely spaced bays in width, the early house on the site of No. 63 appears to have been slightly narrower than its late seventeenth…
83–85 Mansell Street (Tugu Building, formerly Insignia House)
Tugu Building (formerly Insignia House), 83–85 Mansell Street | Survey of London
This is a rare example of a City-overspill speculative office block that has been roundly applauded by the architectural press. Built in…
Aliffe House and 49–55 Mansell Street
55 Mansell Street | Survey of London
In the 1680s, the site now occupied by Aliffe House was divided into four plots addressing Mansell Street, two with large double-fronted…
Notes and photos
55 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Found here: https://wheretheinternetlives.wordpress.com/201…
27 Commercial Road
27 Commercial Road | Survey of London
This four-storey corner warehouse was built in 1872–3 for Edmund Richard Goodrich, an oilman whose premises had been taken for the westw…
Londinium Tower, 87 Mansell Street
Londinium Tower, 87 Mansell Street | Survey of London
This site, which covers what were formerly ten and previously eleven small plots at 87–95 Mansell Street and 38–42 Prescot Street, lay i…
Mansell Court, 69 Mansell Street
Mansell Court, 69 Mansell Street | Survey of London
There were five houses (Nos 65–73) on the site of this office block. At No. 65 there was a broad five-bay three-storey late seventeenth-…
Goodman's Fields - early history
Piazza Walk, Goodman's Fields | Survey of London
The area known as Goodman’s Fields since the sixteenth century extends west to east from Mansell Street to close to Gower’s Walk, and fr…
57 and 59 Mansell Street (including 29 and 31 West Tenter Street)
57 Mansell Street | Survey of London
It is often assumed that 57 Mansell Street was built as a pair with No. 59. Pointing out that ‘the real wealth of Georgian England deriv…
Leman Street Police Station
Leman Street Police Station, 74 Leman Street | Survey of London
Few buildings in Whitechapel hold such a strong place in public imagination as does Leman Street Police Station in its late nineteenth-c…
Bank of America House, 1 Alie Street
Bank of America House, 1 Alie Street | Survey of London
Until 1987, when this drab office block was erected on this ‘City Fringe’ site, the west end of the north side of Alie Street retained t…
66 Prescot Street and its predecessors
66 Prescot Street | Survey of London
Among the early residents of the houses towards the east end of Prescot Street’s north side was (Sir) Clifford William Phillips (d. 1754…
White Swan public house, 21 Alie Street
The White Swan | Survey of London
The White Swan has operated on this site from at least 1825 when Claus Helmcken (1781–1839) became the licensee. An earlier public house…
Whitechapel hay market
Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
From at least the 1660s until 1928, an enduring and divisive feature of Whitechapel High Street that spread to streets adjoining was the…
Standon House, 21 Mansell Street
Standon House, 21 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Standon House was erected in 1982–4 by the Sedgwick Group as a kind of annexe to its larger development to the north on the Whitechapel …
39–47 Alie Street and Brownson's Court
Frazer House | Survey of London
Behind five two-storey two-room plan eighteenth-century houses along Alie Street's north side immediately west of Leman Street was Brown…
17–19 Alie Street
17-19 Alie Street | Survey of London
This symmetrical pair of houses spans Half Moon Passage. Its origins probably lie with the speculative development of the larger frontag…
Alie Street Synagogue, 1971
Central House | Survey of London
A view of Alie Street Synagogue and adjoining buildings, now demolished, from a colour slide in Tower Local History Library and Archives…
From Buckle Street to Camperdown Street and sugar refining to a data centre
Camperdown House, 6 Braham Street | Survey of London
Alie Street’s northern hinterland back to what is now Braham Street, all densely built up from the first years of the eighteenth century…
Central House, site of 23–37 Alie Street (including 25 Camperdown Street)
Central House | Survey of London
Until the early 1980s, when they were cleared for the site’s present building, 23–29 Alie Street were shophouses, workshops and a former…
One Braham
Maersk House | Survey of London
Maersk House was demolished in 2017–18, its circumstances having altered. Beside pedestrianized Braham Street (known as Braham Park from…
Lattice House, 20 Alie Street (including 14–18 North Tenter Street)
Lattice House | Survey of London
Built in 2010–12, Lattice House unites the sites of two substantial early eighteenth-century Alie Street mansions and to the rear wraps …
North side of North Tenter Street, 1973
8 North Tenter Street | Survey of London
A slide of 5 and 8 St Mark Street, 8-10 Tenter Street and the building that preceded Symons House adjoining, in 1973, from a digitised c…
24–26 Alie Street (including 8–10 North Tenter Street)
24 Alie Street | Survey of London
Presenting as a matching pair, Nos 24 and 26 do appear to have origins as an early eighteenth-century mirrored twosome, of three storeys…
Royal College of Pathologists, 6 Alie Street
Royal College of Pathologists, 6 Alie Street | Survey of London
Three single-fronted early eighteenth-century houses on this site were occupied in 1733, from west to east, by Mary Ormond, a widow, Eli…
Cambric Apartments, 2 North Tenter Street
Cambric Apartments, 2 North Tenter Street | Survey of London
This modest four-storey block of seven flats, with an attractive somewhat Soanian three-bay red-brick façade, went up in 2012–14 to desi…
30–36 Alie Street (including 6A North Tenter Street)
30 Alie Street | Survey of London
This row of four houses dates from the early period of development in Goodman’s Fields. It was likely built under Samuel Hawkins along w…
Symons House, 22 Alie Street, including 12 North Tenter Street
Symons House, 22 Alie Street | Survey of London
This plain four-bay building appears to have been constructed around 1800 as a four-storey warehouse-showroom with a back building to th…
38–44 Alie Street
38 Alie Street | Survey of London
This group of four small houses was very likely a product of Samuel Hawkins’ speculations in the 1720s along with 30–36 Alie Street to t…
62 Chamber Street (De Mazenod House)
De Mazenod House, 62 Chamber Street | Survey of London
All but the west end of the site of Tower Hill Roman Catholic School and its playground was redeveloped by the Oblates in 1985–7 as the …
74 Whitechapel High Street
74 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The premises on the northwest corner of the High Street and Osborn Street are a rebuilding of 1828-9, by William Monk, horse slaughterer…
Chamber Street - introduction and general history to 1970
Electricity Station | Survey of London
Chamber Street is easily overlooked. In so far as it is noticed, it is perhaps best known as a vehicular rat-run. With a railway bridge …
Wool + Tailor Building, 10–12 Alie Street, including 20–22 North Tenter Street
Wool + Tailor Building, 10–12 Alie Street | Survey of London
In the eighteenth century this was the site of the westernmost of three large broad-fronted mansions with ample gardens backing onto the…
Aldgate Tower
Aldgate Tower | Survey of London
The Greater London Council’s sale package for Gardiner’s Corner in 1978 required the refurbishment of 23–26 Whitechapel High Street, whi…
early development at 2–14 Leman Street
Aldgate Tower | Survey of London
The first late seventeenth-century building on the Red Lion Street site that became 2–4 Leman Street adjoined the south side of the Red …
Pennine House, 26–30 Leman Street
Pennine House, 28 Leman Street | Survey of London
A shophouse on the site of 26 Leman Street was connected to a sugarhouse on the south side of Camperdown Street until 1880, when it was …
Frazer House, 32–38 Leman Street
Frazer House | Survey of London
In the eighteenth century, the site of 32–38 Leman Street was occupied by four three- storey and attic shophouses. Nos 36–38 were rebuil…
Black Horse public house, 40–42 Leman Street
The Black Horse, 40 Leman Street | Survey of London
An inn named the Black Horse was established on this corner site soon after the formation of Leman Street in the 1680s. It had coach-hou…
Tower Hill Roman Catholic School (demolished)
De Mazenod House, 62 Chamber Street | Survey of London
This school, built in 1870–2, stood on the north side of Chamber Street immediately east of the Haydon Square railway spur viaduct for m…
52–58 Leman Street and 20–30 East Tenter Street
52–58 Leman Street | Survey of London
The red-brick tenements at 52–58 Leman Street and 20–30 East Tenter Street were constructed in 1901–2 to designs by the builder-develope…
Capitol House, 60–62 Leman Street
Capitol House | Survey of London
This late twentieth-century neo-Georgian office block replaced a pair of three-storey early nineteenth-century houses that succeeded an …
64 Leman Street
64 Leman Street | Survey of London
A three-storey mansion on this site, probably built around 1690, with basements, attics and a warehouse, was occupied from the 1730s by …
66 Leman Street
66 Leman Street | Survey of London
This substantial house was built in 1766, likely by John Phillimore, the silk merchant, moving from No. 64. It replaced a house that in …
Albions Mills, 18 East Tenter Street
Albion Mills | Survey of London
The five-bay, four-storey, brick-faced warehouse at 18 East Tenter Street was built in 1905, replacing earlier factories on this site th…
68 Leman Street
68 Leman Street | Survey of London
This three-storey and attic building has undergone extensive remodelling, but in its scale and form it may be the last surviving represe…
Maddock tomb
Altab Ali Park, including the site of the parish church of St Mary Matfelon | Survey of London
This chest tomb for the Maddock family (timber merchants on Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street) is a stout early nineteenth century mo…
Demolished buildings at 74–84 Leman Street
Leman Street Police Station, 74 Leman Street | Survey of London
A pair of large eighteenth-century three-storey houses that became 74 and 78 Leman Street had been linked prior to their conversion to u…
65–66 and 71–73 Chamber Street
65–66 Chamber Street | Survey of London
East of the entrance to Yeomans’ Yard, which survives as a service entrance for the office block at 21 Prescot Street, the site of 66–69…
Leman Street's east side, early buildings between Alie Street and Hooper Street
Piazza Walk, Goodman's Fields | Survey of London
The east side of Leman Street south of Alie Street and north of Hooper Street is fronted by the Goodman’s Fields housing development and…
The Oliver Conquest, formerly the Garrick Tavern and Theatre, 70 Leman Street
The Oliver Conquest, 70 Leman Street | Survey of London
This was the main part of the site of the house of Samuel Hawkins senior (d. 1771), the builder responsible for much development in Good…
Mill Yard Chapel
Polyteck House | Survey of London
Mill Yard, which survives as a dogleg alley linking Cable Street and Leman Street under railway viaducts, was present by the mid sevente…
Gower’s Walk area: development to the 1880s
Flats 1–58, 120 Gower's Walk | Survey of London
Until around 1720 the land between the backs of houses on the east side of Lambeth Street (developed from the 1680s), and Back Church La…
Back Church Lane area: development to the 1880s
11–29 Back Church Lane | Survey of London
On Back Church Lane building began at the south end, spreading from Rosemary Lane. By 1656, William Trinder, a tallow chandler, had prop…
Early demolished buildings at 86–104 Leman Street
100 Leman Street (Minet House) | Survey of London
A large three-storey double-fronted house at No. 86, possibly rebuilt in 1769, survived until 1910 when it was acquired by the Co-operat…
Goodman’s Fields East: early development
55–112 Times Square | Survey of London
Sir William Leman launched the development of Goodman’s Fields as a whole around 1678 and had laid out a large quadrangle of roads by 16…
Docklands Light Railway
Pier in middle of Leman Street | Survey of London
When the Docklands Light Railway opened in 1987, it reused much of the London and Blackwall Railway line between Westferry Road to the e…
East London mosque in its temporary building, 1977
East London Mosque | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide from the Tower Hamlets archive collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArchives/status/75899437366…
56–58 Fieldgate Street
56–58 Fieldgate Street | Survey of London
Alexander Limburg, a fishmonger, was the lessee and first occupant of this shophouse of 1902–3. T. G. Charlton was the architect, M. Cal…
The London Hospital Dental Institute and Students’ Union, Stepney Way
Dental Hospital and Institute of Dentistry | Survey of London
The area bounded by Stepney Way, Turner Street, Newark Street and New Road is dominated by the former London Hospital Dental Institute a…
6–13 Chamber Street (Travelodge, formerly DSI House and Argyll House)
Travelodge, 6–13 Chamber Street | Survey of London
A row of eight small early houses was demolished and replaced in the early 1970s by this plain four-storey brick range, divided with its…
43–47 and 49–58 Gower's Walk, with 1–3 Mitali Passage
43 Gower's Walk | Survey of London
These are eighteen two- and three-storey houses that were built in 1994–5 by the Mitali Housing Association, founded in 1985 to assist …
Gower's Walk Free School
55–112 Times Square | Survey of London
Gower’s Walk Free School opened in 1808 on the west side of Gower’s Walk, immediately south of Samuel Gower's sailcloth factory. It owed…
14 Chamber Street
14 Chamber Street | Survey of London
This single-storey brick building was erected in 1920–1 for the Lep Transport and Depository Co. Ltd as a garage and receiving depot, or…
Stepney Way - some early history
Dental Hospital and Institute of Dentistry | Survey of London
Stepney Way follows the course of the footpath that linked Whitechapel’s field gate to St Dunstan’s Stepney. It was formerly known as Ox…
109–129 Back Church Lane (on the site of the People's Arcade, later Premierland)
129 Back Church Lane | Survey of London
Nos 109–129 Back Church Lane of 1994–6 are the private development sibling of 43–47 and 49–58 Gower’s Walk. The ten houses at 109–127 Ba…
Hopetown Estate (now part of the Chicksand Estate)
14-36 Frostic Walk | Survey of London
This housing estate, named after the Salvation Army's women's hostel that stood on the south side of Chicksand Street from 1931 to 1980,…
The Loom, 101 Back Church Lane
The Loom, 101 Back Church Lane | Survey of London
The Loom is a converted wool warehouse of 1889–90, bounded south and west by the then newly made Hooper Street and a straightened and wi…
East One
East One Building, 20-22 Commercial Street | Survey of London
Nos 20-24 Commercial Street is a red-brick-faced steel-framed former factory and warehouse building put up in 1927-8 to the designs of T…
NatWest Management Services Centre, Goodman’s Fields (demolished)
Meranti House | Survey of London
The National Westminster Bank (NatWest), the UK’s first ‘super bank’, was formed in 1967 from a merger of the National Provincial Bank a…
Hooper Square
Hooper Square, 31–83 Back Church Lane and 32–52 Hooper Street | Survey of London
South of Hooper Street late twentieth-century redevelopment was delayed long after the National Westminster Bank had built to the north …
Goodman's Fields redevelopment, 2002 to 2020
Piazza Walk, Goodman's Fields | Survey of London
In 2002 the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) submitted an outline scheme for redevelopment of the whole site bounded by Alie Street, Leman S…
Miss Muff's molly house
Black Lion House | Survey of London
In 1728 Black Lion Yard was the site of the house of one Jonathan Muff, which he ran as a Molly house, a resort for gay men and transves…
78 Chamber Street
Electricity Station | Survey of London
The single-storey electricity sub-station of 1953 that is attached to the block at 9 Prescot Street formed part of the Co-operative Whol…
Royal Mint Gardens
Arch 50 Chamber Street | Survey of London
The north side of Royal Mint Street was clear in the 1970s save for car parking and the survival next to Mansell Street of a hydraulic a…
Sons of Lodz synagogue
20-27 Wentworth Dwellings | Survey of London
A small synagogue, possibly a successor to the <a href="https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/358/detail/#the-green-man-and-the-sons-of…
65-68 Whitechapel High Street
65 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
The short uniform terrace at Nos 65–68 dates from 1853, when it was put up by James Brake, a Clerkenwell builder. Henry Crockford, a fis…
Goodman’s Fields Tenter Ground and its first development
English Martyrs RC Primary School, St Mark Street | Survey of London
The tenter ground on Goodman’s Fields was a large open quadrangle, unevenly sided but roughly 200 yards squared or eight acres. It was u…
26–28 Osborn Street
28 Osborn Street | Survey of London
George and Henry Fulcher had a distillery on the site of Nos 26–28 from the 1840s. After war damage No. 26 was rebuilt with a red-brick …
31–35 St Mark Street
35 St Mark Street | Survey of London
Almost nothing of the early Victorian Tenter Ground estate survives, the exception being the former Scarborough Arms public house and tw…
Sunley House
Sunley House | Survey of London
Sunley House, a red brick three- and four-storey block, was opened in 1976 on the site of Charles Booth House and St George’s House (se…
26 Osborn Street
26 Osborn Street | Survey of London
By the 1840s George and Henry Fulcher had a distillery on the site of 26–28 Osborn Street. After war damage No. 26 was rebuilt with a re…
Old Castle Street's early history
Herbert House | Survey of London
Old Castle Street began as two interconnected but distinct places that existed by the sixteenth century – Castle Street, which ran south…
Old Castle Street School
Herbert House | Survey of London
Following the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the new School Board for London acquired the former Tickell brewery site on the west sid…
The Barnetts, Toynbee and Balliol House
Sunley House | Survey of London
East End historian and guide David Charnick on the work of the Barnetts. Well, this site here, currently demolished, was, as you…
44–50 Leman Street
44–50 Leman Street | Survey of London
In front of Black Horse Yard stood a row of four early shophouses. That to the north was held by 1721 and into the 1740s by Thomas Spoon…
1–8 St Mark Street
28 Alie Street (formerly 1 St Mark Street) | Survey of London
The clearance by the agents of Edward Hawkins of three Alie Street houses around 1815 permitted the formation of Alie Place, a short acc…
Animation of the Boar's Head playhouse stage
United Standard House | Survey of London
The Boar's Head playhouse was built in 1599 within the yard of the Boar's Head inn, just to the south of the site of United Standard Hou…
22–34 New Road
24 New Road | Survey of London
The row of shophouses on New Road between Varden Street and Walden Street (Nos 22–34) was formed from about 1812 when the London Hospita…
From St Mark’s Church (demolished) to Central Squarea
Central Square | Survey of London
The Church of St Mark, Whitechapel, preceded much of the Tenter Ground’s housing, and thus had the effect of rooting development. Constr…
24-26 Whitechapel Road
24 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A timber-framed and jettied three-storey pair here, probably dating from around 1570, was gutted by fire on 20 August 1893. For reconstr…
Redevelopment Proposal (1986–8)
Central House, London Metropolitan University | Survey of London
By the mid-1980s, local textile and fashion entrepreneur Roy Sandhu was using a number of properties around Gardiner’s Corner for his bu…
2–4 Alie Street
55 Mansell Street | Survey of London
The west end of the south side of Alie Street has been a flank return to a succession of buildings principally fronting Mansell Street, …
1 North Tenter Street (Zetland House, on the site of the Jews’ Orphan Asylum)
Zetland House | Survey of London
This was the site of the Jews’ Orphan Asylum from 1846 to 1876. This institution, a boarding school for Jewish orphans, had begun in 183…
45 to 85 Whitechapel Road - early history including King's Arms Court and Black Lion Yard
Black Lion House | Survey of London
The original Black Lion House (on the site that was later that of 37 Whitechapel Road) was with adjacent properties hel…
Royal Mint Estate
23-29 Royal Mint Street, Royal Mint Estate | Survey of London
The history of the site now occupied by the Royal Mint Estate involves the later parts of the Metropolitan Board of Works slum-clearance…
Conversion to a Town Hall
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
At the time of writing (2021), the former hospital is in the throes of adaptation and extension to provide a new town hall for Tower Ham…
Whitechapel Police Office (demolished)
Meranti House | Survey of London
A court and police office was built at the north end of Lambeth Street’s west side following the Middlesex Justices Act of 1792, which r…
Buckle Street white-lead yard and neighbouring early industry
32-34 Commercial Road, with entrance to Riga Mews | Survey of London
Among Whitechapel's most notable and noisome industries in the eighteenth century was the Buckle Street white-lead yard…
Early buildings on Colchester Street and Plough Street
Aldgate Place | Survey of London
Around 1681 Thomas Neale acquired garden lands between Alie Street and Whitechapel High Street with a view to draining the ground and la…
34–60 Scarborough Street and 1 South Tenter Street
34–60 Scarborough Street | Survey of London
Part of the block to the east across St Mark Street belonged to the Co-operative Wholesale Society by 1934, and after severe bomb damage…
22 Osborn Street
22 Osborn Street | Survey of London
Osborn Street's east side had a new frontage formed by road widening in the 1780s. It was only slowly built up. A courthouse flanked by …
Little Alie Street - early history of its north side
Altitude Point | Survey of London
The north side of Little Alie Street was almost bookended by places of worship from the 1760s, a Baptist chapel to the east and a German…
72–86 Alie Street
Meranti House | Survey of London
Sir Stephen Evance held a 120ft frontage on the south side of Alie Street between Rupert Street and Lambeth Street from 1686, having acq…
Whitechapel Road and the market in 1975
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
A digitised colour slide of the market in 1975 from the Tower Hamlets Archives collection: <a href="https://twitter.com/LBTHArch…
Memories of working at St George’s German Lutheran Church
St George’s German Lutheran Church | Survey of London
Contribution by Steve Pilcher. I had the pleasure and privilege to work as Deputy Director in the Historic Chapels Trus…
St George's German Lutheran Church
St George’s German Lutheran Church | Survey of London
St George’s German Lutheran Church on the north side of what was Little Alie Street is the oldest surviving German church in Britain. It…
Garrick Court, 31–39 Scarborough Street (with Scarborough Street Synagogue)
Garrick Court | Survey of London
Tucked behind eight early Victorian houses at 31–39 Scarborough Street and 3–7 East Tenter Street was Scarborough Street Synagogue. On a…
Empire House
Empire House | Survey of London
The long row of houses built in the 1790s as Gloucester Terrace was not continuous. From the outset there were industrial premises on th…
The Royal London Hospital
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
The Royal London Hospital is one of the capital’s largest teaching hospitals, serving a diverse population of 2.6 million in east London…
Remodelling and enlargement, 1890 to 1905
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Between 1890 and 1906, every part of the hospital was extended, rebuilt or remodelled under the supervision of the architect Rowland Plu…
Early buildings at the west end of Prescot Street's north side
Londinium Tower, 87 Mansell Street | Survey of London
At Prescot Street’s west end, between Mansell Street and West Tenter Street, a row of five modest shophouses (Nos 37–41) (Nos 37–41, pre…
Chaplain’s house (1886–7)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Built in 1886–7 by Goodman to designs by Plumbe, this large detached house provided comfortable living quarters for the hospital chaplai…
Alexandra Home (1895–6)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
The provision of nurses’ accommodation was extended significantly by the construction of the Alexandra Home in 1895–6 by William Shepher…
71 (Altitude Point) and 81 Alie Street with 9 Buckle Street (Goldpence Apartments) and John Sessions Square
Altitude Point | Survey of London
The former Louis London factory on Alie Street and a warehouse that replaced the Jews’ Infants’ School on Buckle Street were combined fo…
Eva Lückes Home (1903–5)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Built in 1903–5 by F. Gough & Co. of Hendon to designs by Plumbe, Eva Lückes Home was a sprawling five-storey block with a U-shaped …
Edith Cavell Home (1915–18)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Edith Cavell Home was positioned at the north-east corner of the junction of East Mount Street with Stepney Way. At its completion, this…
Kearley & Tonge
57-71 Durward Street | Survey of London
Kearley & Tonge was a tea-importing firm founded in 1876 by Hudson Ewbanke Kearley with headquarters at Mitre Square near Aldgate. T…
Whitechapel West
57-71 Durward Street | Survey of London
Following the failure of shopping-mall schemes, plans for developing the five-acre area north of the east end of Durward Street were adv…
2 Cable Street with 1 Dock Street
2 Cable Street | Survey of London
This three-storey group, six bays in all, with a recessed quadrant corner, cornice intact, was built in 1853–4 by Joseph Clever of Hagge…
Whitechapel High Street’s obelisk
Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
A distinctive feature of Whitechapel High Street for sixty years was a stone obelisk. Purchased by ‘the people of Whitechapel’, that is …
Knutsford House (1956–60)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Plans to enlarge Edith Cavell Home were produced in 1939 by N. H. Oatley, who proposed clearing the adjacent terraced houses for a six-s…
Nurses’ garden
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
The nurses’ garden occupied a large plot to the south of the hospital, bounded by Stepney Way to the north, Newark Street to the south, …
Nurses’ swimming bath (1936–7)
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
A swimming bath was built in 1936–7 on the east side of the nurses’ garden, financed by a donation from E. W. Meyerstein, a retired stoc…
The Plough Street area's pubs
Altitude Point | Survey of London
There were six licensed victuallers operating in and around Plough Street in the 1730s, but only two pubs survived into the nineteenth c…
Louis London & Sons' clothing factory
Altitude Point | Survey of London
Louis London & Sons’ clothing factory replaced four houses on Alie Street immediately east of the German school in 1913. Founded in …
St Paul's German Reformed Church
Old Pump House, 19-20 Hooper Street | Survey of London
Whitechapel’s largely sugar-trade dependent German population had a presence at Hooper Square for most of the nineteenth century through…
Nos 30, 30A and 30B, Commercial Road
30b Commercial Road | Survey of London
The first buildings here were speculative shophouses put up by James Morter in 1876–8 as a plain and rectilinear, four-storey, white-bri…
Well Close
Wellclose Square | Survey of London
On the site east of Tower Hill that much later became that of the Royal Mint, Edward III founded the Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces …
Alan Hughes talks about the history of the Bell Foundry since it has been in his family's hands
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Previously, [before my great grandfather] the company had been owned by the Mears family for four generations. That's very roughly 100 y…
Whitechapel Road's south side east of the parish church: early land ownership and premises
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Behind roadside waste, the south side of Whitechapel Road from immediately east of the parish church as far as Stepney was by 1459 a fif…
2–32 Scarborough Street
2 Scarborough Street | Survey of London
There was some bomb-damage repair of the eleven houses that survived on the south side of Scarborough Street’s west end in 1949–51. Howe…
13-15 Greatorex Street with 80 Old Montague Street, including the former Morris Kasler Hall (kosher luncheon club)
13-15 Greatorex Street with 80 Old Montague Street | Survey of London
This site was acquired by the adjacent Great Garden Street Synagogue in 1934 and a year later Messrs Joseph, architects, prepared plans …
Sufia Alam's recollections of working at the Jagonari Women's Centre
Former Jagonari Women's Centre, 183-185 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
I started at the Wapping Womens’ Centre in 2009…. And I was also a senior manager at the Jagonari Centre in the bigger projects, which w…
The Blue Anchor public house
Bar Indo (formerly the Blue Anchor Public House), 133 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
There has been a pub here since at least the eighteenth century, probably earlier. Until the late 1760s it was known as the David and Ha…
1 Whitechapel Road and 2-8 Osborn Street
1 Whitechapel Road (including 2-8 Osborn Street) | Survey of London
There was a Post Office at Whitechapel Road's east corner with Osborn Street from the 1840s. This came to be known as the ‘Russian’ Post…
Photos and notes on data centres
Camperdown House, 6 Braham Street | Survey of London
See more photos here: https://wheretheinternetlives.wo…
29-33 Whitechapel Road, 1935
29 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
This photograph by an unknown, probably amateur, photographer shows 29, 31 and 33 Whitechapel Road in 1935, the bunting presumably up for t…
10-12 Whitechapel Road, 1935
10 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Detail from a photograph taken of the procession of King George V and Queen Mary along Whitechapel Road for the Silver Jubilee celebrations…
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Whitechapel Fire Station
Whitechapel Fire Station | Survey of London
ground and first floor plans as in 1975 (drawing by Helen Jones)
Ground plan of the Outpatients Department, 1903
Outpatients Department | Survey of London
Ground plan of the Outpatients Department, redrawn by Helen Jones from a plan printed in 'The Lancet', June 1903.
View of Old Montague Street in 1967
Don Gratton House, Alma Home, Greatorex Street Young People's Centre and Institute of Psychotrauma | Survey of London
A still from the 1967 documentary, The London Nobody Knows, showing Spring Walk on the left, with pauline House beyond, and on the right th…
Kirstein's Mansions in 1965
Kirstein's Mansions | Survey of London
Kirstein's Mansions can be seen on the left, beside 29-31a Commercial Road, a photograph in Tower Hamlets Archives from Tower Hamlets Photo…
29-31a Commercial Road in 1965
Fresh, 29 Commercial Road | Survey of London
from Tower Hamlets Archives from Tower Hamlets Photo Archive 1960s and 1970s album on Facebook
Interior view of the foundry workshop
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
The workshop was extended in 1970? through the incorporation of the adjacent site...and so on
St Mary Matfelon, c. 1920
Altab Ali Park, including the site of the parish church of St Mary Matfelon | Survey of London
This photograph, by an unknown amateur photographer, of the north side of the church was taken from, perhaps, 31 Whitechapel Road. The date…
Offices of the Jewish Secular Radicals, 1937/8
Symons House, 22 Alie Street | Survey of London
Photograph reproduced from 'The Streets of East London' by William Fishman
Plans of the ground and first floors of the London Hospital
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Drawing by Helen Jones based on Boulton Mainwaring's designs, as engraved by John Tinney in 1752.
58-70 Old Montague Street and Black Lion Yard, 1922
Hopetown | Survey of London
This photograph of 1922, taken by an unknown amateur photographer, shows the south side of Old Montague Street, from No 58 (at the right, w…
The ruin of St Paul's German church in 1960, shortly before demolition
part of Calcutta House | Survey of London
This view of part of Petticoat Lane market looking north up Goulston Street shows a glimpse at the right of the ruin of St Paul's church i…
New Road synagogue in use as a workshop, 1980
115 New Road and the former New Road Synagogue | Survey of London
After New Road Synagogue closed in 1973, it became a Bengali dress factory, seen here in 1980. It has subsequently been subdivided and conv…
The courtyard of the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The courtyard of the Dellow Centre, where the homeless charity Providence Row is located. Photo by kind permission of Providence Row
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The kitchen of Providence Row
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
Participants in the kitchen of Providence Row
Caius Gabriel Cibber's statue of Charity
St Paul's School | Survey of London
This statue was made for the west front of Wellclose Square's Danish-Norwegian Church in the 1690s. It was retained when the church was dem…
The courtyard of the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The courtyard of the Dellow Centre, where the homeless charity Providence Row is located
Rooftop garden on the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The rooftop is used to grow plants and herbs, many of which are used in the kitchen. Photo by kind permission of Providence Row
The rooftop garden of the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The rooftop garden of the Dellow Centre. Photo by kind permission of Providence Row
The rooftop garden of the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The rooftop garden of the Dellow Centre. Photo by kind permission of Providence Row
The rooftop garden of the Dellow Centre
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
Gardeners on the rooftop of the Dellow Centre. Photo by kind permission of Providence Row
The kitchen of Providence Row
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
The kitchen of Providence Row is run by residents and provides food for homeless users of the centre. Photo by kind permission of Providenc…
New building for Providence Row
The Dellow Centre | Survey of London
A new building for Providence Row built on the opposite side of the courtyard of the Dellow Centre, designed by Featherstone Associates and…
Wycliffe Chapel, later Philpot Street Great Synagogue, c. 1905
John Harrison House | Survey of London
This photograph shows the Wycliffe Chapel, a congregational church built in 1831 on the portion of Philpot Street that was turned into gard…
Map of the London Hospital and its surroundings, c.1919
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Redrawn by Helen Jones from the Ordnance Survey maps of c.1919 and c.1948.
Ground plan of the London Hospital in 1905
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Redrawn by Helen Jones from a plan by Rowland Plumbe & Harvey at the Royal London Hospital Archives.
Tredegar House, Bow Road
Former Royal London Hospital | Survey of London
Located east of the London Hospital at 97-99 Bow Road, Tredegar House was built in 1911 to designs by Rowland Plumbe as a nurses' training …
Late 18th Century English Bracket Clock sold by David Samuel, 43 Mansell Street
John Snow House, 59 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Clock dated c.1780, lists original retailer as David Samuel on backplate. Sold more recently by Warboys Antiques and Clocks: https://worboy…
The Garrick Tavern, undated sketch
The Oliver Conquest, 70 Leman Street | Survey of London
Image reproduced from A. E. Wilson, 'East End Entertainment', 1954
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, ground-floor plan in 2016
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Drawing by Helen Jones based on measured survey and archives
Camperdown House in 1913
Camperdown House, 6 Braham Street | Survey of London
Brochure to mark opening of the house. More info here: http://www.jewsfww.london/a-good-jew-and-a-good-englishman-167.php#
Film still of Jews' Temporary Shelter, 1938
63 Mansell Street | Survey of London
Eight minute film of life at the Shelter: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000726
English Martyrs School, Chamber Street elevation, as built 1872
De Mazenod House, 62 Chamber Street | Survey of London
Drawing by Helen Jones based on drawing by Norton, Trist & Gilbert, 1949, in English Martyrs Church Archives.
Whitechapel Gallery, ground- and first-floor plans, as built in 1898–1901 and as enlarged and altered by 2009
Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Drawn by Helen Jones for the Survey of London based on archive sources
Wilton's Mahogany Bar Concert Room in 1853
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
ground-floor plan and cross-section looking south, also showing 1–4 Graes Alley and 17 Wellclose Square (drawing by Helen Jones)
Proposed principal elevation of Leman Street Police Station, designed by John Butler in 1890
Leman Street Police Station, 74 Leman Street | Survey of London
Drawing by Helen Jones from the Building News, 4 April 1890, p.476
Memories of A Kid for Two Farthings (1955) being filmed in Whitechapel
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
Carol Fisher (74) recalls the filming in Wentworth Street of the film A Kid for Two Farthings (1955): "I vividly remember A Kid for Two Fa…
Changing Tastes
Maedah Grill, 42 Fieldgate Street (with 100 Greenfield Road) | Survey of London
This film was made in 2018 for the Survey of London by Nurull Islam and Rehan Jamil. It documents the changing South Asian restaurant trade…
A Tour of Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Whitechapel Bell Foundry, 32–34 Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Meet Alan Hughes whose family has been casting bells in East London since 1884.
Changing Tastes
12 Brick Lane | Survey of London
This film was made in 2018 for the Survey of London by Nurull Islam and Rehan Jamil. It documents the changing South Asian restaurant trade…
Proofing the guns, 2017
The Proof House, 48-50 Commercial Road | Survey of London
Changing Tastes
London Muslim Centre | Survey of London
This film was made in 2018 for the Survey of London by Nurull Islam and Rehan Jamil. It documents the changing South Asian restaurant trade…
Police section house on the site of Kensington Apartments
Kensington Apartments, 11 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The first few seconds of this unissued silent newsreel footage offers a rare glimpse of the police section house (a lodging house for singl…
Pet Shop Boys in Goulston Street, 1985
Brunswick House | Survey of London
This music video made in 1985 for the Pet Shop Boys' 'West End Girls' includes shots (of the 'East End boys'), from 0.34 on the timer, of G…
Mail Rail to open to the public 2017
East London Mail Centre and E1 Delivery Office | Survey of London
The Post Office Museum, at Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, is about to reopen (July 2017) and visitors will be able to ride a section of the M…
Petticoat Lane in 1959
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
Silent but evocative scenes around the Lane in 1959
110-115 High Street, 1964
The Relay Building, 1 Commercial Street | Survey of London
The first 10 seconds of this silent unissued film stock from 1964 show the new Woolworth store to the left (opened in 1960), the entrance t…
From the Blind Beggar to East London Mosque
Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Road | Survey of London
Martin Fuller takes a walk through Whitechapel Market, 2017
Changing Tastes
2–6 St Mark Street | Survey of London
This film was made in 2018 for the Survey of London by Nurull Islam and Rehan Jamil. It documents the changing South Asian restaurant trade…
Steve Meinke on the firebombing of the Freedom Bookshop, 2013
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
In 2013 the Freedom Bookshop was firebombed and books and archives lost or damaged.This short clip includes an interview with Steve Meinke,…
Barnard Kops read 'Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East'
Whitechapel Gallery, former Whitechapel Library | Survey of London
The poet and playwright Bernard Kops (b. 1926) reads his poem 'Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East', in May 2015
Frankie Goes to Hollywood at Wilton's, 1983
Wilton's Music Hall | Survey of London
The original video of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 1983 single 'Relax', which reached No 1 in January 1984, filmed at Wilton's music hall. T…
The clear-up at the Freedom Bookshop, 2013
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
As soon as the Freedom Bookshop was firebombed on Friday 1 February 2013, people came from all over London to help with the clean-up, and t…
Mary describes the Freedom Bookshop
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
Some thoughts and scenes inside and outside the Freedom Press building
2012: Postcards from East London 7: Angel Alley
84B Whitechapel High Street | Survey of London
As part of the London Olympics High Street 2012 project, young women from the Central Foundation School performed and filmed a series of da…
Toynbee Hall in 1964
Toynbee Hall | Survey of London
silent footage from the Associated Press archive showing the still-bomb-damaged Toynbee Hall and with the old Police section house opposite…
Scenes around Petticoat Lane in the 1960s
Petticoat Lane Market | Survey of London
From a time when the market was still packed out... featuring a Pearly King, a brass band and a monkey. Sadly, no sound.