From Pudding Mill Lane to Brick Lane - 8th June 2013

Jinan suggested that I lead a walk in East London, to finish at a Syrian restaurant she'd discovered in Brick Lane. I think she assumed that – my origins being in East London – I'd know this area intimately. Well I don't – apart from teen-age trips to Tubby Isaacs and Blooms around Whitechapel – and a stint as a postman which incorporated delivering to dwellings in Middlesex Street (or Petticoat Lane, as it is known). My knowledge is more of an area south of the Bow Road; the Roman and its surrounds is almost as alien territory to me as is Rome.

Anyway, a few weeks ago Jinan and I had reconnoitred a route I'd devised by looking at a map, starting from a fairly-convenient-to-all Pudding Mill Lane DLR station, and found our way to the said restaurant, so our next step was to offer it to the group.

This proved a slightly more complex operation than most of my walks are, where I either know them or wing them, and both ways usually work out OK in the end, albeit half the time I'm changing my mind part way through anyway. That's not a way that would be recommended to lead a walk, but it works for me and indeed this east London walk proved that my usual way is by far the better way.

So – after quite a bit of correspondence between Jinan and I relating to times and numbers – I arrived at Pudding Mill Lane Station some 25 minutes early and awaited the arrival of others. As the time went on, and no-one had arrived, I began to wonder if I'd got the right day. At about 5 minutes to our allotted departure time I got a call from Jinan saying that just about everybody who said they'd be coming were already enjoying coffee in the View Tube and only Amina was still to turn up.

Amina duly arrived by 10.30, together with an unexpected Ken and Jill, and we walked up to the Greenway to meet the others. The others consisted of a few more people than I'd expected; all of the plans thus far had catered for a known number and a couple of possibles, and thrown into the mix now was a few more with still possibilities to come.

Anyway, twelve of us began the walk by my talking about what could be viewed from near the View Tube. There was the View Tube itself, of course, but I left that out because most of the group had had plenty of time to find out all about it anyway.

The Greenway itself is an important aspect, and it's an interesting fact that we were actually standing over an immense volume of north London's sewage, being transported beneath our feet for conversion at the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works a few miles away. The Northern Outfall Sewer Bank (now re-named The Greenway so as not to offend) was designed by Joseph Bazalgette so that it not only transported the sewage but could act as a promenade and a viewpoint for the deprived people of east London. It performs both those functions today – magnificently – although some of the people of east London are now far from deprived.

Looking west, the Bryant & Mays Match Factory can be seen – originally the production point for a famous brand of match but now dwelling places and studios for less-than-deprived people. The female workers at the factory took part in the famous “Match Girls' Strike” when in 1889 about 1400 women and girls protested against the horrible and dangerous working conditions, and were a major influence in changes to women’s rights.

It was nice and sunny as we follow the Greenway northwards towards Wick Lane, crossing the Lea Navigation at Old Ford Locks and past Percy Dalton's Peanut Factory. Here there are some remnants of the old industrial buildings and factories which were so common in the area before the Olympic site was created. At the end of the Greenway Wick Lane passes under the A12 and a road bridge crosses the Hertford Union Canal with the “Top of the Morning” pub to the right. A plaque on the pub commemorates the first person to be murdered on a train.

We went into Victoria Park, with a short introduction as to how the park was created to provide a valuable “lung” for the people living in a vastly overcrowded area, and headed towards the children's play area, which Julie expressed an interest in visiting. However it was only Jinan that actually rode the giant slide – though I've a feeling that if there hadn't been so many children around at least a few more of us would have done so.

We exited Vicky Park at Gun Maker's Bridge, named after the nearby Gunmakers Arms and Gunmakers Wharf where at one time the London Small Arms Factory was situated. The factory used the Regents Canal to transport components for the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle, which was used during the 1914-1918 war, to Enfield for assembly.

For much of the walk along the towpath of the Hertford Union Canal we were accompanied by a swimming and diving cormorant, who moved on into the Regents Canal at much the same time as we reached the junction of thee two canals. The Hertford Union is only 1.5Km long and had been constructed in 1830 to provide a short cut – alleviating the long route via the Thames – to the Lea Navigation. It was only a short walk southwards along the Regents Canal before we left it to gain Roman Road, which was where Julie left us to continue along the Regents Canal. Although I'd offered a quick tea-break at Victoria Park's cafeteria only 10 minutes earlier, there was quite a bit of muttering at this point about finding a pub – which I was somewhat loathe to do considering that we'd planned a visit to the Museum of Childhood where we could get refreshments anyway, and still had some way to go and things to see on route. The museum – after all – does have a somewhat earlier closing time than the pubs!

The group became further depleted as some elected to go to a pub anyway, so I continued the planned walk looking for Meath Gardens. Unfortunately – in the discussions about the pub – I'd missed the turning and so only reached the gardens at the further end – missing possibly finding a reputed London Plane tree with a plaque commemorating an Aboriginal cricketer called King Cole. His real name Bripumyarrumin, and he died on 24th June 1868 in London, where his team - the Australian Aboriginals – had played that year. They were the first Australian cricket team to play in England. The large gateway entrance to the gardens at that end has the inscription VPC 1895 – the only remaining indications that these gardens were once Victoria Park Cemetery.

We were now walking parallel to Roman Road past a variety of mostly post-war maisonettes and flats, although Morpeth Street School still has vestiges of its Victorian origins attached to some ultra-modern buildings. At Digby Street, glancing towards Roman Road we could see see a former fire station of 1888 which was converted to a Buddhist Centre in 1978.

Shortly we reached Bethnal Green Gardens – sometimes known locally as Barmy Park - passing a library which was built as the male wing of a lunatic asylum in 1896 and adapted as a library in 1922. Just before leaving the gardens by the NW corner is the Stairway to Heaven, a new memorial to the 173 people killed on 3 March 1943 when Bethnal Green tube station was in use as an air-raid shelter. Following a salvo of anti-aircraft rockets someone tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. It was the worst civilian disaster of WWII. The memorial is very moving, with plaques inset relating people's experiences of the tragedy.

As we were right by the tube station, Peter and Maz decided to leave us there. Just across the road from the memorial is the Georgian church of St. John on Bethnal Green, a grade 1 Listed Building designed by Sir John Soane and built between 1826 and 1828. It is a fine building, but I hadn't planned a visit as the museum was so close. However, people were going in and a notice on the railings caught our attention. I was intrigued that it was written in English and Gaelic – Bangladeshi being more likely around here – and was an invitation to visit an exhibition called 'Tha tim, am fiadh, an Coille Hallaig'. Obviously, that translates to 'Time, the Deer, is in the Wood of Hallaig' – so we went in. Having been invited to have a look around the church itself – worthwhile in its own respect; it is a fine building – we went up into the belfry where there was a lovely exhibition “investigating the properties of forest memories through text, archive and a wood collection”. I'd like to have spent more time there, but the Museum of Childhood was calling, and those five of us still remaining were looking for refreshments!

We had our refreshments in the museum's cafeteria, which was grossly over-priced, but museum-entry is free and the profits presumably go to the running of the museum. The building is a fine one in its own right, and I enjoyed a solitary wander around nostalgia-ising until the get-out bell sounded at closing time.

We had made contact with Jinan, Ian and Paul G., who were spending their time in a nearby pub, so we extricated them from there to continue the last part of the walk to Brick Lane, so now there were eight.

Bethnal Green Road is – to my mind – a busy and not pleasant thoroughfare – but we were able to look at at what had once been Bethnal Green Chapel and subsequently became the United Reform Church, a building of Kentish ragstone that was built 1843-57 to cater for the increasing number of Christian but not Church of England immigrants to the area. Lying just off the main road, Weavers Fields is a larg-ish open space – well used on such a fine afternoon – Proposed as part of the 1943 Abercrombie Plan to rectify the over-crowding and lack of open space of the surrounding population, and eventually coming to fruition since the 1960's by the clearance of 19^th century weavers cottages. This was yet another example during our walk where thoughts had been given towards the health and welfare of a very deprived area of London. The name Weavers Fields is a reminder that much of the population at one time would have been Huguenot and Irish weavers spreading eastwards from Spitalfields.

Cheshire Street runs towards Brick Lane parallel with the Liverpool Street railway line, and just off this is Wood Close, at the corner of which is "The Watch House" - a former watchman's house of 1754. This was to enable the watchman to guard against the “resurrection men” - body-snatchers who provided corpses for dissection at local hospitals. The watch house was extended in 1826 to house a fire engine. We lost Ian and Paul again at this point – there are many pubs in the vicinity – but had a quick look at St. Matthew's Church which was one of 50 churches planned in the 18th century to counter the non-conformism!

We were nearly at Brick Lane, and half an hour or so early for our allotted table-booking of 7pm, so we strolled (or manoeuvred) along Brick Lane before going into the “Damascu Bite “ restaurant. Ian and Paul joined us, as did Christine who had been unable to come on the walk, and the Syrian meal made a very pleasant finish to a somewhat confused (for me, at least) but enjoyable walk.

Paul Ferris, 9^th June 2013