CHAPTER VII - Between Poplar High Street and East India Dock
Road, and All Saints' Church
Before the building of the East India Dock Road in 1806
the only roads running north from the High Street were
North Street, leading to Bow Common, and Bow Lane
and Robin Hood Lane, which merged to form a single
road leading to Bromley. Several buildings had appeared
along North Street by the late sixteenth century (Plate
145a), and by the early 1700s some building had taken
place on the east side of Bow Lane and the west side of
Robin Hood Lane, at their southern ends. (ref. 1) The setting
out of East India Dock Road and West India Dock Road
at the beginning of the nineteenth century provided an
incentive to development, forming a block of land
bounded by those roads on the north and west, on the
south by the premises in the High Street and on the east
by the boundary wall of the East India Docks. Even so,
new building was slow, perhaps because the rents from
the small houses characteristic of early nineteenth-century
Poplar produced an income not appreciably greater than
that obtained from keeping the land in use as pasture and
garden. (ref. 2) There was also a ropewalk north of Pennyfields—
along the alignment later followed by Church Path—and
the East India Company's land on which its almshouses
and Poplar Chapel stood. The development of the eastern
end of this block of land began in the first decade of the
nineteenth century and, at its western end, Castor Street
was laid out by 1812, but not until the 1850s and 1860s
was the space between the High Street and the East India
Dock Road filled up, except for the East India Company's
land, which became a recreation ground.
Castor, Morant and Oriental Streets
The ground to the north of Pennyfields, as far as East
India Dock Road, was held in the early nineteenth century
by Miss Mary Burch, of St George's-in-the-East (see
page 132). Perhaps encouraged by the development
generated by the East India Dock Road, in 1812 she
granted a number of leases in the recently laid out Castor
Street. (ref. 3) The lessees included two carpenters, a bricklayer
and a builder, and a number of small houses were erected
in Castor Street and Sandpit Road (later West Street,
from 1875 Birchfield Street) (fig. 59). It was entirely
characteristic of developments in Poplar at that time that,
although not all of the street frontages were filled, five
houses were erected in a narrow court off the north side
of the street. The court was pretentiously named Vulcan
Street. (ref. 4) No doubt the 31-year term granted by Miss
Burch was too short to encourage a higher standard of
building. The reputation of the neighbourhood was no
better: in 1840 some of the occupiers of adjoining premises complained of the filth 'of every kind' in Castor
Street, and commented that 'it is quite impossible for
any respectable persons to avail themselves of it, as a
short road to Limehouse'. (ref. 5)
By 1832 the Langley family had acquired the land
from Miss Burch. (ref. 6) Further development was carried out
in the 1850s, under the ownership of Joel Langley of
Limehouse, shipowner. From about 1855 Joseph and
George Mills established a cooperage in Castor Street
and from c1886 Lancaster & Bawn, iron tank manufacturers, took over premises on the south side of the
street. (ref. 7) In the 1930s these brick-and-slate workshops and
offices were still owned by the heirs of Langley and
Bawn, and the tank works were run by William Byron
Bawn & Company until c1940 (see page 117). (ref. 8) Joel
Langley also initiated new residential development. The
local architect E. L. Bracebridge (1812–92), who designed
a terrace of three houses for Langley at Nos 78–82 East
India Dock Road, set out Morant and Oriental Streets
in 1857 between Castor Street and the rear of Langley's
houses in East India Dock Road (see page 155). By 1859
the two streets contained 19 completed houses and nine
others in the course of construction, and by c1870 there
were 85 houses together with the Oriental Tavern. (ref. 9)
In 1878 an extension of Morant Street eastward on to
J. W. Perry Watlington's land was approved, superseding
an unexecuted plan to extend Perry's Close. Sheffield &
Prebble of Bromley built 26 houses in the extension and
four others in North Street. They were of slightly unusual
construction for their date, with the party walls and 'a
small portion of the external walls' of concrete, although
the external walls were chiefly of brick. (ref. 10)
Some of the properties in the three streets were cleared
following bomb damage in the Second World War, but
others remained until acquired in the 1960s for the
Saltwell Street housing scheme (see page 94).
The Wade Estate
The Wade estate lay to the north of Poplar High Street
and extended into Bromley. It had been in the hands of
the Wade family since the early 1700s, and a century
later was held by Mary Wade, a widow (see page 58).
The East India Dock Road, set out in 1806–12, cut across
the estate, and that part between the new road and Poplar
High Street was first developed in the early nineteenth
century. Wade Street and Wade's Place were set out
and building lots along them were sold in 1808–10. (ref. 11)
Development on the remainder of that part of the estate
was more haphazard, with Noble Street running in a
north-easterly direction from High Street and a number
of short streets and courts built off it. (ref. 12) This area was
developed on a short lease, and by 1815 contained 'a
great number of very small and dilapidated Tenements'
where, it was said, the 'scenes which have so long been
exhibited … are so destructive of the Morals and
dangerous to the Peace and security not only of the
Neighbourhood, but of all Persons passing through it'. (ref. 13)
The lease expired in 1818 and more systematic development followed the division of the land among Mary
Wade's daughters and their husbands in 1823. A modified
street layout was created between Wade's Place and Hale
Street—Noble Street was cleared away—and building
took place during the remainder of the 1820s and in the
1830s (fig. 59). (ref. 14)
By the late nineteenth century this area of small
terraced houses had developed an unenviable reputation.
The vicinity of Sophia Street and Rook (formerly Mary)
Street was described as 'a regular Irish den … all the
vices of the Irish rampant, murder, rows, riot etc… . and
fat brawny brawling women shouting at one another'. (ref. 15)
Figure 59:
The Morant Street area, the southern part of the Wade estate (A), and Hale Street. Plan based on the Ordnance Survey of 1894–6
The Holy Family Roman Catholic School, Wade's
Place.
Originally the school comprised a chapel, house
and school erected in Wade Street in 1818. (ref. 16) Until 1908
it was known as the Wade Street School and from
1908 until 1983, SS Mary and Joseph's Roman Catholic
School. (ref. 17) The mid-nineteenth-century buildings were
remodelled in 1905 and extended in 1922. A separate
building was erected in 1929, bringing the capacity of
the school up to 1,000 places for boys, girls and infants. (ref. 18)
The present buildings consist of the two-storey 1929
block, designed by Thomas H. B. Scott, with additional
classrooms constructed in the mid–1970s. (ref. 19)
Sophia Street Wash-house (demolished).
The washhouse was built in 1930–1 by Poplar Borough Council to
provide the laundry facilities hitherto available in the
baths and wash-house building in East India Dock Road
(see page 164). In 1929 it was decided to transfer the
laundry elsewhere, because there was not room for it in
the proposed new baths building. (ref. 20)
A part of the Lower North Street and Sophia Street
Improvement Area, formerly occupied by Nos 1–4 Sophia
Street, was acquired. The wash-house was built by direct
labour to the designs of Harley Heckford, the Borough
Engineer and Surveyor, at a cost of £6,091. (ref. 21) The machinery and plant was supplied by Messrs J. J. Lane of Old
Ford Road for £2,035. (ref. 22) The red-brick single-storey
building was well equipped, with six washing machines,
generous hand-washing facilities, and 18 drying cham
bers. (ref. 23) The coal-fired boilers were converted to oil firing
shortly after the opening of the building, and reconverted
to coal firing in 1933. (ref. 24) Both conversions were undertaken
because of comparative fuel costs.
In 1932–7 the wash-house had an average of 13,850
users each year, (ref. 25) but by the late 1950s the number had
dropped to 7,540. (ref. 26) The machinery had become obsolete
by the 1950s and the increasing availability of domestic
washing machines had also reduced the demand. Consequently, a double shop unit in Aberfeldy Street in South
Bromley was adapted by the Borough Council as a
launderette, and the Sophia Street establishment closed
in 1961. (ref. 27) The building was later demolished.
Hale Street
Hale Street was set out in the early 1800s on the land of
Thomas Hale, a builder of Bush Lane, Cannon Street. (ref. 28)
It contained seven houses by 1805 and 19 by 1826. (ref. 29)
Initially, its passage northwards was obstructed by Noble
Street on the Wade estate, but by 1823 it had been
extended to the East India Dock Road.
Wesleyan Chapel (demolished).
The chapel, on the east
side of the street, was registered for worship in 1807. (ref. 30)
In 1848, following the completion of the new chapel in
East India Dock Road (see page 160), there was an
unsuccessful attempt to dispose of the site, but instead
the buildings were employed as a school. (ref. 31) In 1905 they
were condemned as unsuitable for elementary education,
'chiefly owing to the inconvenient accommodation, the
awkward and inflammable staircases to the first floor, and
the close proximity of the offices to the schoolroom'. (ref. 32)
The school was closed at the end of 1906, (ref. 33) although the
Sunday school continued to meet there for a number of
years. It had been closed by 1937. The two-storey
buildings were remembered as being 'far from attractive
from the aesthetic point of view'. (ref. 34)