Comments on: In Old Bow https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/18/in-old-bow-ii/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:42:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 By: Cherub https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/18/in-old-bow-ii/#comment-1702857 Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:42:44 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=202599#comment-1702857 There are some very lovely properties around this area. I was a mature undergraduate at Queen Mary on the Mile End Road 30 years ago, 2 student friends of mine back then rented a flat on Bow Common Lane.

]]> By: John Cunningham https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/18/in-old-bow-ii/#comment-1702435 Tue, 18 Mar 2025 23:22:06 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=202599#comment-1702435 When I’m in London I like to catch the tube from Whitechapel to Bow Road and then take a walk to Bow Church Station to catch the DLR to Greenwich. On the walk you can get an experience of the East End as it is now but with historic buildings still intact and in use. I’m now retired and living outside the UK but back in the 1980s I had a secondment job in Holborn for six months,including accomodation. During the weekends I explored the nearby East End. I was fascinated by it but it was a gritty and grimy place back then and often felt threatening., especially in some of the pubs. When I go back to my old stamping grounds from that time I marvel at how it has changed. For the better I have to say!

]]> By: Marcia Howard https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/18/in-old-bow-ii/#comment-1702388 Tue, 18 Mar 2025 18:16:46 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=202599#comment-1702388 I love all the brick built buildings which show so much history and prosperity where relevant, not so, sadly, for the final block of hi-rise flats shown at the end. I was also interested in the Beehive stone on the Co-op building, but doing a quick ‘google’ discovered it was ‘Greeks and Romans – Beehives represented an ideal society and prosperity’. My elderly aunts, all now gone, could always remember their Co-op divi numbers.

]]> By: Bernie https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/18/in-old-bow-ii/#comment-1702302 Tue, 18 Mar 2025 11:14:44 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=202599#comment-1702302 How I would like to see beneath the surface of these old houses!
I am a householder in a suburb of Glasgow, with a rather shoddily built 1930’s suburban house. Its roof is slated and the nails are driven into sarking, a complete layer of timber planks, covered with waterproof felt. A roof for all seasons.

As a young man I helped my father maintain his 1890’s terrace house in Hackney. Here the slated roof was shoddy by comparison. The nails of the slates were driven into narrow battens, and there was no waterproofing felt. A roof to be ashamed of!

How were and are the roofs of these old houses constructed?

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