In Search Of Val Perrin’s Brick Lane
In recent days, the weather in London has been bright so I waited for a suitably occluded sky to set out with my camera in search of Val Perrin’s Brick Lane and below you can see my photographs beneath Val’s shots from 1972, revealing more than forty years of change in Spitalfields
Brick Lane 1972
Brick Lane
Cheshire St 1972
Cheshire St
Cheshire St 1972
Cheshire St
Brick Lane 1972
Brick Lane
Cheshire St 1972
Cheshire St
Brick Lane 1972
Brick Lane
St Matthew’s Row & The Carpenters’ Arms 1972
St Matthew’s Row & The Carpenters’ Arms
St Matthew’s Row 1972
St Matthew’s Row
Sclater St 1972
Sclater St
Corbett Place from Hanbury St 1972
Corbett Place from Hanbury St
Bacon St 1972
Bacon St
Code St & Shoreditch Station 1972
Code St & Shoreditch Station
Pedley St Bridge 1972
Pedley St Bridge
1972 Photographs copyright © Val Perrin
You may also like to take a look at
Thank you for another visual homecoming. My great great grandfather, Dr James Tilby is listed in a London Directory 1852 as living at 19 Brick Lane. I imagine this address is very different now. A surgeon, James and his wife Jane traveled all the way from the East End to New Zealand where he braved raging rivers to tend to patients in the isolated mountain valley of Takaka and Motupipi.
Fantastic comparison photographs & good to see not too many drastic changes
Interesting .look all those chimneys gone ,some pics not much change .
One of my favourite subjects photographs of then and now. Really interesting when you can still see original windows doors and brickwork from years that have passed. My daily reading many thanks Gentle Author.
Fantastic to see much of the architecture is the same
Hind sight, rose tinted glasses? Probably. Having looked at these comparison photographs I find it hard to be positive about the area in the here and now. The Code St & Shoreditch Station photograph differences typify how I see things now.
An interesting set of photographs though, thank you.
Very interesting, thank you.
Fascinating comparisons – more please!
It is so hard to convince people I am telling the truth when I remind them Shoreditch station was only serviced during peak hours Mon-Fri and Sunday morning for Petticoat Lane. I wonder how the Elizabeth line will affect areas how the Overground Line has.
Still in hope for a more imaginative name than the Overground!
At best the it looks the same and with all the current graffiti many places look much worse.
Thank you GA for your wonderful ‘Then and Now ‘ photographs, especially the one of Code St and Shoreditch station, my GG Grandfather James Sylvester and family lived in no 1 Butlers Buildings , at the other end of Code St in 1861, and to walk along that same cobbled street, gives you goosebumps !
I thought it was sad that the brick roads kept being asphalted over instead of re-bricked and then Ah-Hah! There actually is a photo that showed bricks were none were before!! Love this little bit of time travel- Thanks.
I love these historical comparison photos. I have an entire book of them for my city called “Then and Now.”
I can see the gentrification of the area. In some cases for the better, in some cases for the worse.
I apologize for the exportation of gang graffiti that seems to have infected the rest of the world. That generation of parents were irresponsible and we shall forever be reminded of it.
Thanks for this. Brilliant.
I lived a pre-fab in CODE street in the late 1940s there were 7 pre-fabs on the left of your photo
unlike a lot of people in the area, the pre-fab was quite luxurious all mod cons plus a garden,
we used to play cricket against the station wall , the burnt out building on the corner was home to
some homeless people they were drying out some tea leaves and started a fire and ended up jumping from the windows . the other end of the street on the same side the body of a young lady
was found murdered, I lived in code street till the early 1960s, and moved to melbourne australia
in 1972 .