Down The Old Roman Rd

The recent sunshine encouraged me to enjoy a Sunday stroll down the Roman Rd and experience the manifold wonders of this celebrated thoroughfare, tracing a path eastward from Bethnal Green across two millennia.

Have you ever noticed that the Roman Rd is not aligned with the Bethnal Green Rd that precedes it to the west? This clue reveals that the Roman Rd was there long before the Bethnal Green Rd was laid out. Old Ford Rd to the north was the former route eastward to Norwich from London, continuing the path of Old St and Old Bethnal Green Rd towards the ford over the River Lea. Yet Old Ford Rd became frequently waterlogged in winter which caused the Romans to lay out a new road – a little to the south – which they called ‘Pye Rd’. This was the road we know as the ‘Roman Rd’ and the Bethnal Green Rd was cut through relatively recently to connect it with Bishopsgate.

The prevailing character of the Roman Rd declares itself in the higgledy-piggledy terrace that you encounter upon the north side beyond Museum Gardens and the fire station. In the nineteenth century and for much of the last century, these terraces of small shops lined the entirety of the Roman Rd with the small trades and family businesses that were lifeblood of the East End for generations and define its architectural landscape even to this day.

Beyond Globe Town, you encounter postwar redevelopment in the form of the three checkered towers of Cranbrook Estate designed by Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey & Berthold Lubetkin in 1963, with the sculpture of the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and his dog by Elisabeth Frink in the foreground.

Crossing Regent’s Canal, you enter Mile End Park, carved out from the bombsites of former streets in an ambitious yet not entirely realised plan to connect Victoria Park with the Thames by a green corridor. Grove Rd bounds its eastern extremity, lined with some fine Victorian villas.

William Wigginton’s curious St Barnabas of Bethnal Green, with its spire knocked off in the blitz and its shrine outside adorned by biblical texts, stands sentinel at the beginning of the longest remaining stretch of  small shops in Roman Rd. As I passed that Sunday, the congregation of the devout were saying their prayers.

On each side of Roman Rd, long elegant nineteenth terraces of houses extend to north and south. Many of the most attractive of these have already been renovated, and skips and scaffolding attest to those currently in progress. Yet equally, you do not have to look far to discover evidence of a crude imperative to maximise redevelopment at the expense of the neighbourhood, manifest in cheap new buildings that show little respect for their gracious predecessors.

To my mind, the heartland of the Roman Rd is the stretch between W F Arber’s Printworks at 459 and George’s Plaice at 484.  Yet since Gary Arber and Tom Disson have both slung their hooks in recent years, and George’s Plaice is now demolished, perhaps I will have to rethink? Reassuringly, there are still some long established shops that remain in this section – Sew Amazing, Thompsons Ironmongers and Denningtons Florists to name only a couple of favourites. Yet the thought of the fabled Roman Rd on the penumbra of living memory, when it was lined with an infinite variety of small shops, remains intoxicating.

Once you pass under the arch with its fanciful inscription in Latin and enter the pedestrianised Roman Rd Market, you enter a more domestic territory where street life takes precedence over traffic and residents walk slowly, exchanging greetings. There is a tangible sense of community here and the Passmore Edwards Library is an inspiring example of the philanthropy of the past. I often wonder if the proprietors of G Kelly, my favourite eel & pie shop (currently closed for rebuilding), have ever considered their position on the highway once known as Pye Rd? This final section of the Roman Rd is distinguished by some fine greengrocers before it all peters out at Parnell Rd, where the route once descended to the ford over the River Lea.

Gary Arber used to regale me with tales of the phenomenal number of pubs that lined the Roman Rd in his youth and the possibilities of multiple refreshment continuously on offer between here and Bethnal Green. I dreamed of undertaking a pub crawl to visit all these establishments. Yet such is the depletion of pubs in the Roman Rd that I fear if I were to do so today, I should return home sober.

St John on Bethnal Green by Sir John Soane marks the beginning of the Roman Rd

This nineteenth century brick fire station has been replaced by a brutalist concrete fire station to the east and is now a Buddhist centre

Cranbrook Estate designed by Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey & Berthold Lubetkin in 1963, with the sculpture of the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and his dog by Elizabeth Frink

Regent’s Canal

Mile End Park, carved out from the bombsites of former streets in a ambitious yet not entirely realised plan to connect Victoria Park with the Thames by a green corridor

Grove Rd, lined with some fine Victorian villas

A shrine with biblical texts at St Barnabas Bethnal Green

Elegant nineteenth terraces of houses extend to north and south

The meeting of the old and new in Roman Rd

The meeting of the old and new in Roman Rd

Passmore Edwards Library is an inspiring example of the philanthropy of the past

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At W F Arber’s Printworks

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