I'm doing another of my mini features about the line of derelict shops I came across on Toynbee Street, Spitalfields, London E1. Anyone know what's happening to the block or anything about the old shops there?
The combination of the brickwork, hipped tile roof and the formal layout of the shopfronts makes me think they were probably built by the LCC at the same time that the nearby Holland Estate was laid out as slum clearance (1910ish?). However, that side of the road apparently wasn't transferred to East End Homes when the estate was, so do Tower Hamlets still own them???
I used to walk past them most days for a couple of years. I wonder what state they're in, inside. Squatable?
They've been empty for ~10 years at least. We used a picture for a report or conference we did a few years back. I assume it's developers aiming to max out on profits, but they have been empty for ages so someone must be playing a very long game. It used to be lots of sweat shops and there was a halal slaughter house, but these shops were empty even then, afore the dickheads and red-braces and rah-rahs moved in.
Some of the shops were open recently - take a look at Google street view. I'm posting up more pics on my blog tomorrow.
It used to be called Shepherd Street and is marked as such on the Booth Poverty Map of 1898-99, which classifies the households along it as 'Mixed, some comfortable, others poor'. iirc some of the boarded-up shops might have been paper and string merchants, and would guess they were there because of Spitalfields market.
I love walking down Petticoat Lane and seeing the Gherkin loom out behind the stairwell of that big block of flats at the end i had a quick look on the Tower Hamlets Council internal website for any references to Toynbee Street and have found nowt relevant.
The shops apprently still belonged to Tower Hamlets in late 2009 when they agreed to flog the terrace: Report Minutes
Judging by the wide windows on the first floor they might have been silk weavers cottages at one point, just a guess.
Seriously doubt it. The previous buildings on the site that were cleared as "slums" might well have been. But I will eat my hat if that terrace wasn't built by the LCC sometime between 1895 and 1915 -the giveaway is the overly "architectural" design of the shopfront surrounds. It is astonishing what a patina of antiquity can be given by leaving a building derelict for less than fifteen years.
Due to be demolished and the area redeveloped, according to this article on the Tower Hamlets website: http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgsl...onsultations/toynbee_street_consultation.aspx
http://spitalfieldslife.com/ The Gentle Author might know the answer, assuming you are not the same person. EDIT: AArrgh ancient thread, I see. You probably have the answer by now.
