nd Stepney Green with Graham Barker. Photos by Kois Miah. of history revealed and turned to temperance campaigning. He’s one of many notable figures depicted in the eye-catching Whitechapel mural (7), commissioned by solicitors TV Edwards. The centuries swirl together, forming curious combinations; diarist Samuel Pepys chats with poet Isaac Rosenberg and Lenin stands beside Joseph Merrick ‘the Elephant Man’. Mahatma Gandhi, the Krays, and the Queen add to the mix. Just beyond Booth’s statue, cross over. A long slate panel recalls Captain James Cook – circumnavigator, explorer and surveyor of Australia, New Zealand and America – who lived at a house on this site for four years. The terrace of shops here was sensitively renovated as part of the High Street 2012 overhaul, with tastefully painted signage, cleaned brickwork, and reinstated stone balls. Opposite, a colossal tower tops the former Wickham’s department store, once dubbed the ‘Selfridges of the East End’. It’s now the Water Lily banqueting complex, with shops underneath, and is floodlit at night. Keeping south, you head through an archway – sandwiched between a bookshop and café – into cobbled Assembly Passage (8). As its name suggests, this was once a gathering place for political meetings. Nip into the East End Thrift Store – a depot packed with second-hand clothes. Fill a bag with tops and jeans, or cherry-pick a few more select items. At Redmans Road mini-roundabout, detour left into Beveridge Mews. This social housing project, set around a community garden, is remarkable for its timber tile cladding and stepped roofline. Retrace a few steps to the Stifford Centre – a base for the health trainer team, a lunch club, volunteering projects and youth activities. The buildings on your left – Cressy and Dunstan Houses (9) – were built by the East End Dwellings Company, one of several philanthropic housing organisations active in Victorian times. With fiery red bricks and copper dome, Dunstan House was home to anarchist and editor Rudolph Rocker, a key figure in the tailors’ strike of 1912. A series of linear greens form Stepney Green Gardens. Wander through the northernmost section – beside a daffodil wave – with fine houses behind. No 37 is Stepney’s oldest house (10), built in 1694 and occupied by Lady Mary Gayer, an East India merchant’s widow, whose initials are wrought into the gateway. It later served as a Jewish care home, craft school and council offices, before reverting in a family house. Roland House – note the flagpole – was bequeathed to the Scouts of east London by Roland Phillips, following his death at the Somme. The blue-brick road surfacing continues along Hayfield Passage; these Tees Scoriae setts, made from iron foundry slag, become lustrous when wet. Across Mile End Road, the Anchor Retail Park occupies the footprint of Charrington’s Anchor Brewery (11). The curving corner offices are all that remains of the vast complex of brew-houses. In its heyday, this was London’s second largest brewery; imagine the malty aromas of Anchor Stout and Toby Ale. With such an empire, the Charrington family became wealthy; Harry Charrington lived at Malplaquet House – one of the two spectacular 1740s houses in the next block, cloaked in lush greenery and guarded by eagles. The former Mile End public baths – designed with classical touches in 1930, and later brightened with a curved-glass column – is now Positive East’s Globe Centre (12), supporting those with HIV. It’s a remarkable building with which to end your walk back at Stepney Green station. 20 – 26 APRIL 2015 NEWS FROM TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL AND YOUR COMMUNITY 19
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