LOCAL HERITAGE WALKS from
TOYNBEE HALL
DOWN MEMORY LANE Whitechapel
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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)
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CURIOSITIES to spot along the way
DOWN MEMORY LANE
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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’.
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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