Bethnal Green
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| Bethnal Green | |
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| Location | |
|---|---|
| OS grid reference: | TQ345825 |
| Latitude: | 51.5275° |
| Longitude: | -0.066° |
| Administration | |
| London borough: | Tower Hamlets |
| County level: | Greater London |
| Region: | London |
| Constituent country: | England |
| Sovereign state: | United Kingdom |
| Other | |
| Ceremonial county: | Greater London |
| Historic county: | Middlesex |
| Services | |
| Police force: | Metropolitan Police |
| Fire brigade: | London Fire Brigade |
| Ambulance service: | London Ambulance |
| Post office and telephone | |
| Post town: | LONDON |
| Postal district: | E2 |
| Dialling code: | 020 |
| Politics | |
| UK Parliament: | Bethnal Green and Bow |
| London Assembly: | City and East |
| European Parliament: | London |
| London | List of places in London | |
Bethnal Green is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. Bethnal Green is located 3.3 miles (5.3 km) north east of Charing Cross.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Early history
A Tudor ballad about the 'Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green' tells the story of an ostensibly poor man who gave a surprisingly generous dowry for his daughter's wedding. The tale furnishes the parish of Bethnal Green's coat of arms. According to one version of the legend, the beggar was the son of Simon de Montfort, who then lived nearby.
The local gymnasium and leisure centre, York Hall, is notable for its boxing. Boxing has a long association with Bethnal Green. Daniel Mendoza, who was champion of England from 1792 to 1795, though born in Aldgate, lived in Bethnal Green for 30 years. Since then numerous boxing greats have been associated with the area.
[edit] Modern history
Image:Bethnal green town hall 1.jpgImage:Bethnal Green museum of childhood 2005.jpg In the nineteenth century, Bethnal Green was characterised by its market gardens and by the silk-weaving trade. Having been an area of large houses and gardens as late as the eighteenth century, by about 1860, Bethnal Green was characterised by tumbledown old buildings, with many families living in each house. By the end of the nineteenth century, Bethnal Green was one of the poorest slums in London. Jack the Ripper operated at the western end of Bethnal Green and in neighbouring Whitechapel.
By 1900, the Old Nichol Street Rookery was demolished, and the Boundary Estate opened on the site, near the boundary with Shoreditch. This was the world's first council housing, and brothers Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont were brought up here.
In 1943, the unopened Bethnal Green tube station was the site of a wartime disaster. Families had crowded into the underground station to escape German bombing, but the sounds of explosions started a panic. 173 people died in the resulting crush. The news was not released at the time for fear of damaging wartime morale, but there is now a plaque at the entrance to the tube station.
During the 1960s, famous gangsters the Kray twins lived in Bethnal Green, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century, Bethnal Green, in common with much of the old East End, began to undergo a process of gentrification.
The former Bethnal Green Infirmary, later the London County Council Bethnal Green Hospital, stood opposite Cambridge Heath railway station. The hospital closed as a public hospital in the 1960s and was a geriatric hospital under the NHS until the 1980s. Much of the site was developed for housing in the 1990s but the hospital entrance and administration block remains as a listed building. Marcus Garvey was at one time buried here, before his body was returned to Jamaica.
[edit] Places of interest
- Museum of Childhood, part of the Victoria and Albert Museum
- Centre for Recent Drawing
- London Buddhist Centre
[edit] Trivia
- Most of the sketches of Andy & Lou in Little Britain are filmed in Bethnal Green. The shop where they buy the snake is actually Magri's pets, a shop on Bethnal Green Road owned by former boxing champion and East End boy Charlie Magri.
- Bethnal Green is famous for the staple cheap London meal, pie and mash with jellied eels. The most famous pie and mash shop is Kelly's. They have two outlets in Bethnal Green.
- It is also famous for the street market on the Roman Road, which specialises in fashions.
- The 7th model of Lara Croft - Karima Adebibe comes from and lives in Bethnal Green with her family.
- In the fictious videogame The Getaway, Bethnal Green is presented as the hub of cockney gangster activity.
- The 1947 Ealing Studios film It Always Rains on Sunday was set in Bethnal Green, with extensive filming in the local area. It provides an excellent insight on post war East London, with bomb sites and slums before most were swept away in redevelopment of the 1960's and later. The area is now very close to the planned Olympic Games of 2012. The film is now available on DVD.
[edit] Transport
[edit] Nearest places
[edit] Nearest tube stations
[edit] Nearest railway stations
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
