Malcolm Tremain’s Spitalfields
In 1981, when Malcolm Tremain was working as a Telephone Engineer in Moorgate, he bought an Olympus 0M1 and set out to explore his fascination with Spitalfields.
‘I used to come over and wander round whenever I felt like it,’ he admitted to me, ‘I never thought I was making a record, I just wanted to take interesting photographs.’ Published for the first time today, Malcolm’s pictures of Spitalfields in the early eighties capture a curious moment of stasis and neglect before the neighbourhood changed forever.
Passage from Allen Gardens to Brick Lane – ‘I asked this boy if I could take his picture and he said, ‘yes.’ When I looked at the photograph afterwards, I realised he had one buckle missing from his shoe.’
Spital Sq, entrance to former Central Foundation School now Galvin Restaurant
In Spital Sq
In Brune St
In Toynbee St
Corner of Grey Eagle St & Quaker St
In Quaker St
Off Quaker St
Outside Brick Lane Mosque – ‘People dumped stuff everywhere in those days’
In Puma Court
Corner of Wilkes St & Princelet St
In Wilkes St
Outside the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Brune St
Outside the night shelter in Crispin St – ‘He was shuffling his feet, completely out of it’
In Crispin St
In Bell Lane
In Parliament Court
In Artillery Passage
In Artillery Passage
In Middlesex St – ‘note the squint letter ‘N’ in ‘salvation”
In Bishopsgate
In Bishopsgate
Petticoat Lane Market
In Wentworth St
In Wentworth St
In Wentworth St
In Wentworth St
In Wentworth St
In Fort St
In Allen Gardens
In Pedley St
In Pedley St
In Pedley St – ‘Good horse manure available – Help yourself – No charge’
At Pedley St Bridge
In Sun St Passage at the back of Liverpool St – ‘Note spelling ‘NATOINE FORANT”
In Sun St Passage
Photographs copyright © Malcolm Tremain
You may also like to take a look at
David Hoffman at Fieldgate Mansions
Philip Marriage’s Spitalfields
Wonderful photos which bring back lots of memories. Valerie
Any clue what happened to the pub the Pendennis Arms which our Cavalier family had. Was in Quaker Street.
I lived opposite the entrance to Artillery passage and walked though it on my way to school, Sad to see the demolition of Central Foundation but think they preserved the doorway, My great grandparents lived in Gun Street. The whole area was once a place where they made weapons hence the names Gun, Fort , streets and Artillery |Lane
These are so evocative, reminders of how desolate Spitalfields had become in the 60’s,70’s and 80’s, though the markets were still full of life. Very pleased Malcolm Tremain took and kept these photos. I particularly like the one of the woman sweeping the step at Brune House. One regrets the exchange of the integrity and unpretentiousness of those days for the brashness and conspicuous consumption of now, but one can’t altogether regret the exchange of neglect and poverty for the life and vitality seen everywhere in Spitalfields today.
Photo’s of spitalfieldsi as it really was and show the real reasons why almost everyone
who lived there wanted to escape,realism doing it’s job.Keep up the good work.
Great photos. The streetscape was more interesting then though probably not for the residents. I came across a chicken market once which seemed a throwback to the past even in the 1970s. I guess it was part of the Jewish community. Somewhere off commercial street but I couldn’t find it again.
A RAINY day on SUN St.
Terrific texture in these photos. Many thanks.
It seems like only yesterday that Spitalfields looked like this, and yet it’s like a different world compared to the area that we know today. These photos are a wonderful reminder of the way things used to be.
By the way, I think that the notice advertising a “good home available” might have originally read “good horse manure available”. Just a thought…
Note for Richard – the kosher chicken market was in Leyden St off Wentworth St. You could smell it from a couple of blocks away! Not there now of course.
Wonderful photos. Does anyone know to whom I could write and maybe find out the occupants of Fieldgate Mansions in 1905? My grandparents lived there and my father’s birth Certificate says he was born there. tks regards Miriam Delorie
Did the photographer deliberately set out to record the deprivation in the East End then because that is what these photos show. As one comment says it is easy to see why so many young people just did all that they could to escape, as my lovely East End neighbours did in the 1960s. A very good record of how things were though, and something to make us all stop and think, perhaps there was a greater sense of community then but the surroundings in which those people lived certainly do look grim.
It’s hard to equate what is shown in these photos 35 years ago and the raging property prices that are driving out the long-standing residents now. Great photos yet again.
Thanks for that Ros. I’ll take a look there next time.
The times when I was in London …
Love & Peace
ACHIM
What a great collection of photographs of the East End.
We are looking for any old pictures and information concerning our great grand parents who had a bookshop and newsagents at 71 Hanbury Sreet in the late 1890’s.
http://libcom.org/history/street-where-god-did-not-strike-down-feigenbaum
Thanks for any help,
David
I think Chris is right… horse manure… not home!
I love these photographs.
Hello. the photo of the passageway leading from Pedley St to Brick Lane, do you have any other photos of the building on left hand side of the same period. 176 Brick Lane.
Thanks
@Phil Eldridge.
Yes, I have a few more.
Malcolm, i would like to see them if possible. phil.eldridge@btinternet.com
Discovered these through happenstance today. Incarcerated at home – as I now am – it was like a breath of fresh air to tread the so-familiar streets of Malcolm’s photographs in my mind’s eye.
Spitalfields was once my spiritual home… and unlike those who moved out, in the 1980’s I only wanted to move in.