DOG ROW.
In the 1570s a broad area of waste
stretched from Mile End to Bethnal green,
through which the later Cambridge Heath Road
ran from north to south. (fn. 64) In 1582 Thomas,
Lord Wentworth, made three grants of waste on
the west side of the road, initially as copyhold
but converted to 500-year leases in 1585. The
plots were 30-57 ft. with frontages from north
to south of 120 ft., 120 ft., and 450 ft. respectively. Between 1582 and 1585 one house had
been built on the first plot and two houses on
the second. In 1585 Henry, Lord Wentworth,
leased for 500 years another plot to the south,
measuring 495 ft. by 66 ft. The southernmost
plot, abutting Mile End green and including a
house, was leased out for 40 years by Thomas,
Lord Wentworth, in 1621. By 1652 there were
39 houses or cottages (fn. 65) in what by 1649 was
called Dog Row. (fn. 66) By 1671 there were 46. (fn. 67) In
1652 at least 16 buildings were of brick and the
southernmost one had six rooms, although most
of the others were very small. (fn. 68) In 1671 two
houses in Dog Row were assessed for 5 hearths,
three for 3 hearths, 33 for 2 hearths, and eight
for only one hearth. (fn. 69) The 39 dwellings of 1652
included two public houses, the Dun Cow and the
White Bear, and farm buildings were associated
with 11. Some of the tenements had sheds, (fn. 70)
possibly the dog kennels which gave their name
to the road, and which survived, blocked up and
stuccoed, on the front of nos. 65-76 Cambridge
Road c. 1930. (fn. 71)
Building was on a small scale, the five leases
being held in 1652 by 11 intermediate tenants
who had probably built most of the dwellings,
which they sublet. (fn. 72) Another two houses were
built on the northernmost plot between 1659 and
1665 and two more between 1677 and 1679. (fn. 73)
Sales of wastehold in the Interregnum (fn. 74) were
usually to the existing intermediate tenants,
most of them local inhabitants. Other tenants
and purchasers were a London goldsmith, (fn. 75) a
Kentish 'esquire' (fn. 76) and a yeoman of the Minories
(Peter Smith). (fn. 77) It was probably the latter's son
William Smith, a London merchant, who engaged
a bricklayer and carpenter to replace decayed
houses with three new houses c. 1679. (fn. 78)
In 1671 Lady Wentworth and Sir William
Smyth granted another plot, to the south of the
existing wastehold plots, for 99 years to Henry
Meacock, blacksmith of Mile End. A house there,
occupied with c. 3 a. of garden by Walter Simkins
in 1703, passed in 1709 to Capt. Robert Fisher,
who founded almshouses on the site in 1711. (fn. 79)
In 1673 Lady Wentworth was licensed to build
on West Heath, the waste named by 1475 (fn. 80) on
either side of Mile End Road, which included
the portion in Bethnal Green around the
southern part of Dog Row. Sir Christopher
Wren, as surveyor for the licence, depicted the
plague burial ground on the west side of Dog
Row, and 'ancient houses' on the east, at the
junction with Mile End Road. By 1703 houses
fronted Mile End Road on both sides of the
junction, as projected by Wren. Those on the
west lay within Bethnal Green. (fn. 81)
Houses on the east side of Dog Row were part
of property owned by Sir William Smyth of
Stepney, Bt., who leased a brick house and 1 a.
in 1678 to Abraham Neale for 200 years (fn. 82) and
another house and ground in 1689 to Matthew
Walker, cowkeeper. (fn. 83) By 1703 there were four
buildings, the most northerly in the fork between
Dog Row and Red Cow Lane, the most southerly,
Walker's, opposite what was to become Darling
Row; between were two smaller buildings, one of
them probably Neale's house. (fn. 84) Smyth's property
and Neale's house passed to Joseph Jorey, whose
estate consisted in 1728 of four brick houses,
farm buildings, and c. 6 a. (fn. 85) Neale's 1 a. passed
to the Leeds family. (fn. 86)
Dog Row: principal estates
1 Fulmore Close, 2 Naylor, 3 Simkins Gardens
In 1695 Trinity House founded almshouses to
the south of Smyth's and Neale's estates, just
outside Bethnal Green. (fn. 87) Thereafter it acquired
additional sites within Bethnal Green: waste
ground next to Fisher's almshouses in 1723, (fn. 88) two
almshouses built by William Ogborne nearby in
1725, (fn. 89) Fisher's almshouses by 1732, (fn. 90) and
Walker's farm buildings, which adjoined Trinity
almshouses, in 1805. (fn. 91) Capt. Fisher's almshouses,
still there in 1838, had gone by 1850. (fn. 92)
There appears to have been little change in
Dog Row during the early 18th century, with
three farms on the eastern side and probably one,
at the entry to fields (called Mile End Corner at
the end of the century and later Darling Row)
on the west. A terrace replaced some of the
scattered houses farther north on the west side. (fn. 93)
In 1765 David Wilmot took a lease of ground
on the east side of Cambridge Road, before it
branched into Dog Row and Red Cow Lane,
where he built several houses within a year. (fn. 94) In
1775-6 at least five houses were built opposite
them by Flaw, a bricklayer, in Queen's (or
Charlotte) Row, (fn. 95) which by 1783 formed a complete
terrace. (fn. 96) Beardwood or Barwood, a builder,
erected 16 houses in Dog Row in 1766-81, (fn. 97) and
another 4 in 1783, (fn. 98) Galton built 5 there in
1788-9, (fn. 99) and Dodd and Wyers two each in
1802. (fn. 1) One Lara built 4 houses 'near Dog Row'
in 1783, (fn. 2) possibly at what was called Mile End
Corner in the 1790s. (fn. 3) Purim Place on the east
side of Dog Row was built opposite, south of
Walker's estate, c. 1783. (fn. 4) Griffin's Place, brick
cottages encroaching on the waste, existed
nearby when the Corporation of Trinity House
purchased Walker's farm in 1805. The Corporation
granted a 70-year building lease to Plunkett, a
timber merchant who built third-rate houses
there. (fn. 5)
The dairy farms north of Trinity House's
estate, on the east side of Dog Row, mostly
farmed by John Johnson, were given over to the
builders, John Jenkins of Whitechapel and
Thomas Oliver of Thomas Street, from 1808 to
1813. Houses were built fronting west on Dog
Lane, east on Red Cow Lane, and in new streets
(John, originally Johnson, and Thomas streets). (fn. 6)
Building also spread on the west side of Dog
Lane behind the waste holdings fronting the
main road. Darling Row (formerly Mile End
Corner), perhaps named after Sir Robert Darling,
a local official of 1769, (fn. 7) and Lisbon Street (existing
by 1811) (fn. 8) ran westward to join North Street and
Collingwood Street ran northward. William
Green, a Spitalfields builder, and John Reynolds
and John Dible, both local men, were responsible
for much of the building there between c. 1810
and 1825. (fn. 9) In 1818 Green bought 6 a. of Fulmore
Close to the north, (fn. 10) on which he built Northampton Street by 1828 (fn. 11) and Norfolk and
Suffolk streets by 1836. By 1836 there were
nearly 500 houses in Dog Row district: 80 houses
and two public houses fronted the main road on
the west, with 249, three public houses, a brewery,
a factory, and a slaughter house in the streets
behind; 73 houses and two public houses fronted
the main road on the east, with 92 houses
behind. (fn. 12)