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Count Ralph Smorczewski In The East End
Treves House, Whitechapel I doubt if passers-by give a second thought to Treves House or its neighbour Lister House as they hurry up and down Vallance Rd between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green. Yet...
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The Gentle Author’s Wapping Pub Crawl
Four-hundred-year-old stone floor at The Prospect of Whitby Tempted by the irresistible promise of the riverside, I set out for Wapping to visit those pubs which remain in these formerly notorious...
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Singles Night At Novelty Automation
Comic genius and Professor Branestawm de nos jours, Tim Hunkin has patented a punch card match-making system and is launching it next Friday 24th November with a SINGLES NIGHT from 6-9pm at Novelty...
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Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Churches
St George’s, Bloomsbury 1716 – 1731 In 1711, Nicholas Hawksmoor was fifty years old and, although he had already worked with Christopher Wren on St Paul’s Cathedral and for John Vanbrugh on Castle...
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At The Great Yiddish Parade
Did you spot a ragtag procession of musicians, people in costume, children and dogs marching from Aldgate through Whitechapel to Mile End Waste last Sunday? Behind this light-hearted frolic was a...
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Adverts From The Jewish East End
Stefan Dickers, Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute showed me these fascinating advertisements he found in an almanac from 1925 that originally came from Sandys Row Synagogue, evoking a lost East End...
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Furniture Trade Cards Of Old London
I discovered these old furniture trade cards hidden in the secret drawer of a hypothetical cabinet Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute You may like to see my earlier selections The Trade Cards of Old...
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Lucinda Rogers At Ridley Rd Market II
In the second of this series, Contributing Artist Lucinda Rogers & I visit Ridley Rd Market in Dalston to meet some of the traders featured in her current exhibition Lucinda Rogers: On...
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The Map Of East End Independents
Click on this map to enlarge it and explore The East End Trades Guild commissioned this map from cartographer extraordinaire Adam Dant, featuring the independent shops and small businesses of the East...
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The Spitalfields Bowl
One of these streets’ most-esteemed long-term residents summoned me to view an artefact that – until today – few have seen, the fabled Spitalfields Bowl. Engraved by Nicholas Anderson, a pupil of the...
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East End Saree Shops
In these days, when it barely gets lighter than dusk and I walk around bent double in the driving rain, I find myself lifting my gaze occasionally in admiration at the illuminated windows of saree...
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Laurie Elks’ Album Of Bottle Labels
These days Laurie Elks is celebrated in Hackney as the custodian of St Augustine’s Tower, but before he arose to these lofty heights he practised the art of stewardship by amassing this magnificent...
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The Vocabulary Of Beer
I offer this choice selection of the language of drinking lest it may be of use to any of my readers who might be planning to take a draught over the forthcoming festive season. Life in the East – At...
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George Cruikshank’s Festive Season In London
As we brace ourselves for the forthcoming festive season, let us contemplate George Cruikshank‘s illustrations of yuletide in London 1838-53 from his Comic Almanack which remind us how much has changed...
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At The Pathology Museum
You enter a door at the hospital and over it are the words, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’ Then the first thing you come upon as you climb the stairs is a vast stone...
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William West’s Tavern Anecdotes
It is my pleasure to publish this selection of the Origins of Signs by William West (1770-1854) from his Tavern Anecdotes of 1825 to be found in the Bishopsgate Library. “The absurdities which Tavern...
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At Two Temple Place
If you were to take a turning off the Strand, walk down Essex St, then descend Milford Stairs to Milford Lane, emerging within the shadow of the nineteenth century edifice of Two Temple Place, then...
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Dorothy Rendell, Artist
Since the publication of East End Vernacular, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century, several notable artists whose work has never been seen have been brought to my...
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Dorothy Rendell’s East End Portraits
Since the publication of East End Vernacular, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century, several notable artists whose work has never been seen have been brought to my...
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Christmas With Dennis Severs
I often wonder if those who visit the Christmas installation at Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St in spellbound silence today have any idea of what it was like when the creator of this time capsule...
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