A Guide to the East End of London

Posted by Billy Jones

Of course most people know of London because of the Queen, who lives at Buckingham Palace and has a number of other properties around the city. There is much more to London than the Queen and the usual tourist attractions of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the likes. As the largest city in Europe the city is one of the most cosmopolitan in England and each sector of the city has it’s own uniqueness. To experience the quintessential London it is best to spend some time in the area known as the East End.

Anywhere east of the centre of London is known as the East End. When visiting London, the East End is not most peoples first port of call and it is often overlooked. However the area does have a number of popular tourist attractions, one of which is the incredible Bethnal Green Museum. Inside you will discover a massive selection of exhibits including the highly interesting collection of antique Doll Houses, including some that are several hundred years old.

must have been born close enough to Bow Church to hear it’s bells, which are known simply as “Bow Bells”. The word originates from the word “cokeney” which is old middle English for a cock’s, or misshapen, egg.

During the time of the plague (1348 and 1350), or “Black Death” as Londoner’s called it, there were so many victims that the corpses were thrown into huge pits known as plague pits. In excavations of a plague pit close to Tower Bridge over seven hundred skeletons were discovered in only a small space.

Between the years 1788 and 1960 London’s East End port was, by far, the largest in the world. At one time (in the 1930’s) the were about one hundred thousand men working in the port and the amount of cargo handled was incredible, around thirty five million tons. London had a number of important docks, the earliest being the West India Dock completed in 1802 (the East India Dock was built in 1806).

Joseph Merrick, or the “Elephant Man” as he is better known, was, for some time, one of the attractions of an East End freak show. Another famous East Ender is the seafaring explorer Captain Cook. He lived in the Wapping area, and in 1762 married his wife who was also from the East End. She was first introduced to her future husband when she was only a child.

The East End has an even darker side to its history; steeped with murder, mystery and other crimes. Two names that spring to mind when talking of the East End are those of the infamous, gangster twins, Ronnie and Reggie Kray around whom a number of modern myths and legends have developed. The most famous criminal associated with the East End will, most probably, always be Jack the Ripper, because of the brutality of his crimes. In 1888 he butchered five women in Whitechapel then disappeared, to this day nobody can be sure of his true identity though there are many theories.

At the time of the Ripper murders the population of Whitechapel was about ninety percent Jewish and this led to many assuming that the Ripper must, almost certainly, have been a Jew. The East End has always been one of the areas in which new cultures settle when first arriving in England. Even today this is the case and the East End is all the richer for it.

Tags: Recreation

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