Bow Common, Tower Hamlets
A historically poor quarter, situated south-east of Mile End
The overgrown Tower Hamlets cemetery, which lies to the north of Bow Common Lane
This area was industrialised in the mid-19th century as factories moved towards the River Lea from districts such as Whitechapel, and the Great Central Gas Company’s works were built to supply the City of London.
In 1883 Andrew Mearns observed that, “Out of 2,290 persons living in consecutive houses at Bow Common, only 88 adults and 47 children ever attend [a place of worship] ” – a situation that he blamed on the conditions in which they lived. “Block of streets between Gale Street and Furze Street are the worst in the district, worse than almost any district in London. Three policemen wounded there last week …” wrote Charles Booth a few years later in notes for his classic study of London poverty. The streets were offensively nicknamed the ‘Fenian Barracks’ on account of their Irish inhabitants. There has been much slum clearance since, and replacement of buildings damaged in the blitz. More recently, much of the council’s housing stock has been refurbished or replaced by housing association properties.
St Paul’s church, originally built in 1858, was bombed and cleared away and a new church consecrated in 1960. Designed by two radical architects in their twenties, with a Marxist vicar for a client, this Modernist building made innovative use of space and is now grade II* listed. The church of the Holy Name and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart opened in 1894 and was also damaged during the war. It was restored and reopened in 1957 and has since become London’s Vietnamese Catholic church.
The Fern Street Settlement is a community charity, founded in 1907 by Clara Grant, headmistress of Devons primary school. She introduced a ceremony that became known as ‘Farthing Bundles’, whereby any child who could pass under a small wooden arch without bending their knees would receive a parcel of toys for a farthing.
The heavily wooded Tower Hamlets cemetery dates from 1841 and is now a 33-acre public park and nature reserve.
