Click to enlarge Adam Dant’s Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields
Last year, we asked readers with Huguenot ancestors who once lived in this neck of the woods to come along to place their forebears on the Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields at Townhouse in Fournier St and more than three hundred of you did so.
Cartographer extraordinaire Adam Dant drew a huge map as big as a wall and Stanley Rondeau, whose great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Jean Rondeau arrived as an immigrant in 1685, was the very first put a pin in it to mark his ancestor. Now Adam Dant has painstakingly inscribed all the entries on the map and it is almost full.
Before the Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields is printed shortly, it will be displayed again at the Townhouse for the week beginning June 1st – so those who have ancestors on it may come along to check that the facts are correct and offering a last chance for anyone who wishes their Huguenot forebears to be included.
Later in the month, the Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields will be available as as limited edition print and everyone whose ancestors are on it will be invited to a party to meet each other and witness the unveiling of the completed map.
Spitalfields was the most concentrated Huguenot settlement in Britain of the twenty-five thousand French Protestants who fled across the Channel, to save their lives after the Revocation of the Act of Nantes, in 1685 – and who thereby introduced the word refugee into the English language.
Stanley places his ancestor Jean Rondeau on the map
Stanley Rondeau, Spitalfields’ most celebrated Huguenot
Stanley Rondeau congratulates Adam Dant on his Huguenot Map of Spitalfields
Stanley recounts the tale of the Rondeaus of Spitalfields for Adam
Photograph of map © Patricia Niven
Photographs of Stanley Rondeau & Adam Dant © Sarah Ainslie
The Map of Huguenots in Spitalfields is at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, during the week beginning 1st June and the completed map will be unveiled later in the month.
Click here to learn more about the HUGUENOT SUMMER festival
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