Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The rural East End: Bellevue Place, Stepney Green
From here you turn in the direction of the City and the Whitechapel Road. Above the
cafés, cheap dress shops, and gents' outfitters are the remains of old terraced houses, but
to get the feeling of Whitechapel, it is necessary to leave the main road and plunge into
the maze of streets behind - the London of Jack the Ripper and a man of quite another
calibre, General Booth. Streets such as Greatorex Street and Montague Street give off the
full Whitechapel flavour. Montague Street is particularly rich in tottering old property and
greasy doorways. There are an astonishing number of cast-iron posts dotted about - one
every few feet in places - the tops of which have a patina created by the polish of innumer-
able elbows. This is the place to study the Jewish butchers and poulterers often established
in crazy old shops. With these go the small one-man tailoring businesses and barbers,
nearly all with foreign names above the door. Small, close-smelling shops sell Jewish can-
dlesticks, Old Testaments, the Talmud, the Psalms of David, and Songs of Zion. An en-
tire alley opposite the Whitechapel Bell Foundry supports itself by the sale of Hebrew
lucky charms and cheap gaudy jewellery. This part of Whitechapel abounds with shops
for the sale of oily fish and crummy little eating-places. Above the shops, the property is
invariably in an advanced state of decay; old enamel advertisements assist in keeping the
powdery brickwork together.
