Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the old brewery smokestack. This is the epicenter of a youthful, trendy scene with several
lively pub/café/nightclubs (including Vibe Bar and 93 Feet East).
Now turn around and backtrack south on Brick Lane, passing the mosque at Fournier
Street (where you entered this street); continue another block and turn right (west) on
Fashion Street.
Though it twists around and changes names several times, this road leads
straight back to the Liverpool Street Station. Along the way (on the left just after you start
down Fashion Street), you'll pass the Islamic-looking
Abraham Davis' Moorish Mar-
ket,
now housing high-tech businesses.
When you hit busy Commercial Street, cross it, then veer left, and detour a block
south on Toynbee Street—past a hair salon called “Jack the Clipper”—then right on
Brune Street.
Here you'll see more Industrial Age tenements, the “Soup Kitchen for the
Jewish Poor” (see engraved sign on building on right, at #9), and, to the left, a peek-a-boo
view of the modern, bullet-shaped building known around here as “the Gherkin.” Modern-
ization is changing this neighborhood. At the end of the block, turn right onto Tenter
Ground, the street where weavers once dried cloth “on tenterhooks,” giving us the phrase
that means “uneasy.”
Tenter Ground leads you back to White's Row (at the parking garage). Turn left onto
narrow
Artillery Lane,
which soon becomes the atmospheric
Artillery Passage,
lined
with tiny eateries—giving you an idea of how densely packed this neighborhood was
when it was filled with grimy-faced 19th-century factory workers.
At the intersection with Sandy's Row are the
bollards
(black-white-red stakes in the
pavement), alerting you that you're officially leaving the East End and entering the City
of London.
Continue west one block on Widegate Street to busy Middlesex Street. Just to the left,
along Middlesex Street, is the start of
Petticoat Lane Market.
One of the oldest markets
in Britain, this one has existed here in some form for more than 400 years.
Continuing straight on Middlesex Street, you'll again see
Dirty Dick's Pub
on the
corner (although the name has a history, the pub itself doesn't). Turn left and cross the
street to return to the
Liverpool Street
train and Tube stations. At 8:45 on July 7, 2005, a
Tube train had just pulled out of Liverpool Street Station when it was rocked by a terrorist
bomb—the first of four to hit London that day. But the next day, Londoners were back on
the Tube.
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Geffrye Museum
This low-key but well-organized museum—housed in an 18th-century almshouse—is loc-
ated north of Liverpool Street Station in the hip Shoreditch area. Its displays give a his-
torical overview of the “middling sort” (middle class), as seen through the prism of home
