High Street 2012 3) WHITECHAPEL ROAD (west) Osborn St to Greatorex St
Without fanfare Whitechapel High Street morphs into the much longer Whitechapel Road [photo]. The change occurs at the bottom of Brick Lane (except it isn't actually Brick Lane, it's Osborn Street, which turns into Brick Lane a few hundred yards to the north, not that many curry-hunters and deluded local councillors tend to realise this).
First up is the area's one patch of open space - Altab Ali Park. It's named after the young Bangladeshi victim of a racial murder back in 1978, remembered through a wrought iron gateway at the entrance to the park [photo]. In one corner is the Bengali Martyr's Monument [photo], simplistically Japanese in style, though these days more a convenient spot to sit and swig cheap lager. The grass is patchy and covered with pigeons, and the whole place has the feel of somewhere frequented by those with nowhere better to go. But look more carefully and there's the stone outline of a large church laid out in the turf, and a handful of gravestones in the corner. It turns out that this park is the churchyard of medieval St MaryMatfelon, the original "white chapel" after which the local area is named. The church was rebuilt several times over the centuries - taller, grander, spire-ier - until bomb damage during the Blitz obliterated it forever. St Mary's lives on now only in name, and as somewhere for incoherent alcoholics to congregate while their mangy dogs squat in the nave.
Up the road an ugly brown office block has been built on the site of the East End's very own Hatton Garden - Black Lion Yard. This narrow alley once contained as many as 12 different jewellers shops and was the place to go for a nice bit of sparkle. Here brides came to select their wedding ring, here Jewish mothers haggled over the price of a necklace, here geezers bought their diamonds. But no longer. Black Lion House, the aforementioned bland shiny replacement, sells nothing blingier than Elizabeth Duke. It's one of High Street 2012's most modern parades of shops, utterly out of keeping with the rest of the street, kicking off with a Tesco Express, moving on to an Argos, passing through a Nat West and ending up with a Starbucks. Wrong wrong wrong, on so many levels. And it makes you appreciate the rest of the Whitechapel Road a little more, and to realise how easy it would be to lose its rough-hewn independent character.
There's a real independent treasure on the corner of Fieldgate Street - the Whitechapel Bell Foundry[photo]. This venerable business was founded in Elizabethan times, in 1570 no less, and is Britain's oldest surviving manufacturing company. Cunning of shareholders to specialise in a commodity resistant to centuries of change, because Britain will always need bells. And some right clangers have been cast here. Big Ben for one, at 13½ tons the largest bell ever to emerge from the foundry, and America's cracked Liberty Bell for another. An apology: It is possible to visit the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and to tour the workshops, if you book far enough in advance, but I underestimated quite how far in advance so I've not been yet. Rest assured that I should be getting inside soon, and then I'll come back and fill the space below with a proper update. In the meantime you might want to keep an eye on the foundry's tour page, just so that you can be amongst the first to book for 2009.
four local sights » White Chapel fountain: Shifted to the corner of White Church Lane in 1879, healthy cholera-free drinking water would have emerged from the centre of a drilled stone for the benefit of the local populace [photo]. » Worm gravestone: I'm not convinced this is serious, it's probably just art, but I couldn't help smile on discovering this tiny tombstone in Altab Ali Park (beside a human 1850s original) [photo]. » The Nag's Head: No longer a pub, now a "Gentlemen's Venue". Sorry ladies, although I suspect you might not approve of the shenanigans that go on inside over a pie and a pint. There are Pole dancers aplenty, so I'm told, but I doubt that many are from Warsaw. » A11 mileage sign: It's outside Tesco, giving distances to three places which aren't actually on the A11 at all [photo]. Recently hidden from oncoming traffic behind a framed poster plonked in the middle of the pavement, because advertising revenue is more important than useful information.
High Street 2012
First up is the area's one patch of open space - Altab Ali Park. It's named after the young Bangladeshi victim of a racial murder back in 1978, remembered through a wrought iron gateway at the entrance to the park [photo]. In one corner is the Bengali Martyr's Monument [photo], simplistically Japanese in style, though these days more a convenient spot to sit and swig cheap lager. The grass is patchy and covered with pigeons, and the whole place has the feel of somewhere frequented by those with nowhere better to go. But look more carefully and there's the stone outline of a large church laid out in the turf, and a handful of gravestones in the corner. It turns out that this park is the churchyard of medieval St Mary Matfelon, the original "white chapel" after which the local area is named. The church was rebuilt several times over the centuries - taller, grander, spire-ier - until bomb damage during the Blitz obliterated it forever. St Mary's lives on now only in name, and as somewhere for incoherent alcoholics to congregate while their mangy dogs squat in the nave.
four local sights
