Set off with a spring in your step
Walk of the Month: Bethnal Green
By Graham Barker. Photos by Mike
Askew.
April 2010
To follow
this walk offline, download a PDF of the route and map (pdf,
1mb)
Spring can be an inspiring time to get out and about, with
flowers, green shoots, buds and blossom breaking through. This
walking route takes in some East End highlights including parks,
canals, history and art.
We start this month’s walk at Bethnal Green Tube station. St
John’s Church (1) towers above you, with its elegant windows and
golden weather vane. It was designed in 1825 by Bank of England
architect Sir John Soane and holds a commanding position.
Cross at the lights in front of the church, and there, behind
Paradise Gardens, sits Paradise Row, cobbled and narrow. The
celebrated bare-knuckle fighter Mendoza the Jew lived at No 3 (2)
and wrote The Art of Boxing here.
Continue along Bethnal Green Road, under the railway bridge and
cross to the bow-fronted former police station – now
home to Providence Row Housing Association.
Head alongside it, and bend right with Ainsley Street to reach
Wilmot Street. The flats here, five storeys high and running the
full length of the street, were built between 1869-75 by the
Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, led by social housing
pioneer Sir Sydney Waterlow.
Take the turning by Nos 121-125 into Weavers Fields. After the
colourful adventure playground, the green opens out. Head
to the Weaving Identities steel sculpture (3) of sporting figures,
one above the other – “If we see further today and tomorrow, it is
because we stand on the shoulders of yesterday’s seers” explains
the plaque. The figures dance around a swirl of lustrous metal
ribbons, echoes of 17th century Spitalfields silks.
Red-brick Oxford House (4) sits north of the park. It was the
first university ‘settlement’, a place for students to work
with
disadvantaged communities. These days you can attend yoga, samba or
sewing classes, or art exhibitions here.
Veer diagonally over the grass towards a red-windowed warehouse
and leave by a side gate, or walk along Derbyshire Street if you
prefer. Then go up Hague Street and at Bethnal Green Road turn
left, past the wood panelled café of E Pellicci (5), the antidote
to chain coffee shops.
By the Marquis of Cornwallis, cross and head along Squirries
Street. Head to the cluster of poplar trees and you’ll see
the
ornate Queen Adelaide Dispensary (6), originally built to cope with
a cholera epidemic. Beside it, adorning the working men’s club, is
Banksy’s flower painter (7) – sadly defaced, yet still
remarkable.
Cross Gosset Street and curve left through Nelson Gardens. Cross
at the zebra crossing and then head between two small greens and
right along Durant Street, part of the Jesus Hospital Estate,
designed in the 1860s as ‘breakfast-parlour houses’.
Continue through Ion Square Gardens, glimpsing Columbia Road as
you reach Hackney Road. You now detour briefly out of the borough.
To the left of Hackney City Farm (8) enter Haggerston Park, once
the Imperial Gas Works. Tuilerie Street alongside marks the French
tile makers who had kilns here.
At the tennis courts, join the Woodland Walk as it skirts
initially by the farm and then left uphill and around the BMX
track. On reaching Goldsmith’s Row, turn left – beware of
enthusiastic cyclists – cross to the Albion pub and continue on
over the Regent’s Canal hump-backed bridge.
Ahead is Broadway Market (9), full of interesting independent
shops, cafés and pubs. The Saturday farmers’ market here offers
breads, olives, cheeses and other tasty treats.
By the Sir Walter Scott step down to join the canal and follow
the towpath past gasholders and under two bridges. Go through Canal
Gate into Victoria Park as it opens out on your left, and follow
the road running parallel with the canal. (Note: until the end of
April part of the towpath is closed for essential repairs. If you
find it closed, follow the diversion shown on the boards, along
Andrews Road, Vyner Street and Sewardstone Street, which brings you
to the main Victoria Park gates.)
The impetus for Victoria Park was the Registrar General’s
observation in 1839 that “A park in the East End would
probably
diminish the annual deaths by several thousands... and add several
years to the lives of the entire population.”
After a 30,000-strong petition to Queen Victoria, land was
secured and Victoria Park opened in 1850, with tree-lined avenues
and lakes landscaped by James Pennethorne.
Beside Bonner Hall Bridge sit the two white Dogs of Alcibiades
(10) – or they will once they return from restoration.
Enter the next section of park and take the left-hand tarmac
path. The West Lake appears on your right. Aim for the glassdomed
Pavilion Café (11), a place to watch the coots, geese, ducks and
swans, with the fountain beyond. There are loos here too.
Continue around the lake, and back to the bridge, and leave
through the main gates.
Stroll down Approach Road, past the London Chest Hospital (12) –
built in the 1850s to care for TB patients – and over a
mini-roundabout. Look out for two children inset into the façade of
Raine’s Foundation School (13), dressed in blue uniforms.
At Old Ford Road, turn right and towards the end you’ll come to
a cluster of the oldest buildings in Bethnal Green, many from the
1750s. York Hall (14) comes next, opened in 1929 by the Duke and
Duchess of York and incorporating a swimming pool, gym, health spa
and boxing hall.
Cross to the V&A Museum of Childhood (15), with its
decorative panels depicting agriculture and the arts. First built
as a temporary museum in South Kensington after the Great
Exhibition, it earned the nickname the ‘Brompton Boilers’. It was
relocated and re-opened here in 1872 and now houses the UK’s
national collection of children’s games and toys. Entry is free and
you might visit the museum café at the end of your walk, before
finishing back at Bethnal Green tube.
To follow
this walk offline, download a PDF of the route and map (pdf,
1mb)