Down Memory Lane: Whitechapel

LOCAL HERITAGE WALKS from

TOYNBEE HALL

DOWN MEMORY LANE Whitechapel

1

Bag a bargain or two as you wander through Whitechapel Market, with its bustling parade of fruit and vegetable stalls, hardware stores and accessory shops.

The re-vamped Whitechapel station sits alongside.

2

Founded in 1757 to help ‘the merchant seaman and manufacturing classes’, the Royal London Hospital has developed into a world-renowned teaching hospital and London’s leading trauma and emergency care centre.

3

Vibrant murals – of genomes, proteins and lipids – hint at what goes on inside the Blizard Building; some 500 scientists carry out research here into diabetes, immunology and neuroscience.

4

“The best lodging houses are the Rowton Houses, where the charge is a shilling, for which you get a cubicle to yourself, and the use of excellent bathrooms.”

George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)

BRIC

WHITECHAPEL WALK

NE K LA

D OL

T

HO RP E

T

O L R E AP H EC

6

AD

5

F I E L D G AT E S T

RE

8

ET

TE

AL

7

HI

CI

CH

ST

UR

RE

EL

D

W

ER

CH

ET

P HA

A RO

EET

ST

MM

LA

NE

LE

W

EC

H

IT

UE

EE

TR E S

NT

CO

TOYNBEE HALL

T HI

W

RN

GU

BO

TREE ORTH S

N

OS

WENTW

MO

G TA

R ST

MA

T. N S

COMMERCIAL

ROA

NEW

4

STEPN

ROAD WA L D E N

S T.

ET R STRE

E

ST.

TURNE

MYRDL FO RD HA M

Y E Y WA

N E WA R

3

EET RD STR

2

TREET

STREET

AD

EC

AD M I LWA

IT WH

RO EL P HA

ET K STRE

CURIOSITIES to spot along the way

DOWN MEMORY LANE

1

DID YOU SPOT THEM? Jewish East London map on the Royal London Hospital hoardings; London’s air ambulance perched on the hospital helipad; Queen Alexandra’s statue; Royal London Hospital Museum on Newark Street; art deco curves at Gwynne House; Bruce McLean’s abstracts on the Blizard Building; Tayyab’s on Fieldgate Street; decorative tiles in East London Mosque’s foyer; Erasmus riding backwards above Whitechapel Gallery; the former Jewish Daily Post’s offices above Albert’s menswear; and Gunthorpe Street archway.

5

Topped by a golden dome and 22-metre high minaret, the East London Mosque is one of the UK’s largest mosques. Next door, the London Muslim Centre hosts health, welfare and community cohesion projects.

6

“When will that be, say the bells of Stepney; I do not know, says the great bell of Bow.” From 1570, thousands of church bells were cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry before it closed down, sadly, in 2017.

7

The Shaheed Minar commemorates the Bengali language martyrs; wreaths are placed here at midnight on 20 February each year. It stands in Altab Ali Park, near the site of the 13th century St Mary Matfelon ‘white chapel’.

8

In 1901, Samuel and Henrietta Barnett – founders of Toynbee Hall – also had the vision to establish a free public art gallery in Whitechapel. Over a century later, the Whitechapel Gallery is at the forefront of contemporary art.

WANDERING ABOUT WHITECHAPEL Whitechapel is a neighbourhood that has constantly evolved. As you wander around its back streets, you’ll encounter Georgian cottages and a former Victorian doss house, East London Mosque, Altab Ali Park and Whitechapel Gallery, as well as one of London’s leading hospitals and a life sciences research centre.

Walk East, 2021

WALKEAST