Whereas my last B Road was a non-entity this one's a full-on tourist attraction. It's also not much use as a B Road because it's almost entirely one-way and one end is closed to vehicles at weekends. I'll be walking it in the driveable direction which is south to north. Also there's no way I can cram in everything of interest, especially along Brick Lane, so what you're getting here is essentially a taste... but a spicy one.
The B134 starts on the eastern edge of the City as a turnoff from Mansell Street. Alie Street first emerged in the late 17th century as one side of Goodman's Fields, a large square tenterground, and was originally known as Ayliff Street. It looks terribly 21st century today, a canyon of brick and glass including a smug office development called One and the new HQ of the Royal College of Pathologists. Even the White Swan pub isn't as old as it wishes it was, having replaced the up-and-coming
Half Moon Theatre (alongside Half Moon Passage) in the 1970s. We'll pass umpteen Indian restaurants later but Halal Restaurant claims to be the oldest in East London, having started out in 1939 as a mess hall for merchant seamen.
Alie Street's oldest building is St George's, the UK's oldest surviving German Lutheran church, which was opened to support a congregation of sugar boilers in 1763. Services ceased in 1995 but the Historic Chapels Trust stepped in and it's wellworth a look inside if events (or Open House) allow. That apart this street's got really bland of late, with falafel and bubble tea merchants occupying characterless units under flats and offices, plus a gym that's shoved its boxing ring against the window in an attempt to lure clientele inside. The last few metres of Alie Street are actually called Goodman's Stile - I've not sussed why - and at The Castle pub we swing north and cross Commercial Road.
White Church Lane is only brief and also one-way (as is everything to come). It's named after St Mary's church, the whitewashed medieval building that gave Whitechapel its name and whose footprint lives on in the adjacent park. Most of this scrap of road is old East End, which means a pub called the Bar Locks and a few rag trade businesses with an eye on the wholesale trade rather than the general public. One has a windowful arrayed with dubiously sloganed baseball caps, another a job lot of boxed-up braces. But one end of the road has already morphed into a faceless aparthotel with dine-in options, and the Fresh sandwich bar opposite is now a demolition site that looks like going the same way. The B134 promises better ahead so let's not linger.
Contrary to expectations Brick Lane doesn't stretch as far south as the Whitechapel Road. The first block is actually Osborn Street, a downbeat prelude with none of the flavour of what's to come. One side is mostly substation, because infrastructure's got to go somewhere, and provides a useful canvas for colourful street art. The other side is smothered in sheeting and scaffolding while a four star hotel is upgraded to a much larger Hilton, notionally flagship, whose location may prove a shock to jetsetting travellers. A few Bangla tokens grace the lampposts to encourage onward progress, and finally here we are.
Brick Lane earned its name from medieval brick and tile manufacture because even hereabouts was once fields. It's seen Huguenots and Ashkenazi Jews pass through and today is the heart of Tower Hamlets' Bangladeshi community. Before the curry houses start there are signs that thousands live very close by, including council flats glimpsed up alleyways, an actual primary school and an oddly triangular health centre. Come early in the morning and you may see wives hurling keys down from balconies, shoppers buying fish at Zaman Brothers and the awning being lowered at Butt Textiles... or you may not. The former police station's still empty, more likely from lack of funding than lack of crime.
The Jamme Masjid dominates this end of Brick Lane, or rather its cylindrical minaret does, rising from street level like a silver waste pipe. The building's been used for worship by several minorities that have passed through the area since the 1740s and for the last half century has been a mosque with space for 3200. The street here is so narrow that one-way traffic is the only option, while a trio of classic Spitalfields thoroughfares - Fournier, Princelet and Hanbury Streets - thread across to provide local access. Any unused shopfront soon becomes covered in graffiti and posters, so passers-by will swiftly become familiar with the name of Frank Turner's new album. It feels busy and dense, even before the lunchtime crowds turn up.
Brick Lane's less a curry mile and more a curry cluster, although expect to be properly spoiled for choice. Each vies for trade by means of its name or its reputation, or else by how excitedly its waiters can cajole you from the doorstep. Some hope you'll be lured inside by displaying faded photos of celebrities like Adrian Chiles, Billy Ocean, Dom Littlewood and Brexit minister David Davis, however unlikely that may seem. Not many of their menus are visible when the shutters are down but I see it's possible to get a masala for £10.95, an onion bhajee for £3.95 and individual poppadoms for 40p. And if Bengali's not your thing then multiple alternatives are now available, including a Morley's fried chicken, somewhere that only does pitta bread and a rustic bistroquet.
The Truman Brewery ceased production in 1989 and has since become, it likes to think, "East London's revolutionary arts and media quarter". Its substantial footprint springs to life at weekends, especially for grazing and drinking purposes, for example when the indoor car park transforms into stalls serving spicy street food brunches. I passed through midweek to avoid the crowds so only saw the preparations, including i) broccoli-obsessed artist AdrianBoswell spray-painting plaster brassicas in blue and green, ii) a man dressed like a playing card knave delivering a package to the Backyard Market and iii) the creation of a giant superhero mural funded by a high street pizza chain. My B Road safari has never felt trendier than this.
Beyond Quaker Street the road is sealed off to vehicles at weekends to facilitate full-on street market action. Some of the shops are now a bit boutiquey, but you can still buy a fringed jacket from a traditional leatherseller, a historical treatise at the Brick Lane Bookshop or an E1 postcard at the Post Office. For those who like to know which abandoned tube station we're close to that'd be Shoreditch, its husk of a ticket hall now the target of multiple layers of aerosol paint. The bridge over the tracks into Liverpool Street used to be where thugs would sell your bike back to you but now boasts a long rack of unridden hire bikes. Come back later to queue for egg and sausage baps, Portuguese tarts or thick grilled cheese sandwiches.
Beyond the railway the clothes shops are back, some genuinely wholesale, others merely playing at 'vintage'. This is also where we find Brick Lane's famous beigel duo who compete for sales in two almost-nextdoor shops. One claims to be Britain's first & best Beigel Shop (established 1855) and the other is 1974 interloper Beigel Bake. Judging by the crowds the latter is much more popular, and I'd say rightly so. Both have menus with suspiciously similar prices (plain beigel 40p, smoked salmon £2.60, salt beef £5.50) but anyone wanting to follow up with lemon tart or apple strudel will have to pick one or the other. Blasphemously the intervening unit has now been occupied by Crosstown Doughnuts, purveyors of holey dough that costs £30 more per dozen. And we're done.
The B134 very much hits the narrative jackpot so my apologies for skating over what could have been a full length essay. The B135 can't top it but does start in pretty much the same place, indeed we crossed it during the last paragraph, so I'll see you back here later in the week.
