Spitalfields Life

Among the cherished hostelries in this penultimate installment of my series of The Alphabet of Lost Pubs, is The Still & Star in Aldgate which I have been campaigning to save. I can report that the City of London have deferred their decision on its future to consider an Application for Asset of Community Value status for this pub. Keep your fingers crossed! My time-travelling pub crawl is presented in collaboration with Heritage Assets who work in partnership with The National Brewery Heritage Trust, publishing these historic photographs of the myriad pubs of the East End from Charrington’s archive for the first time.

The Scarborough Arms, 11 St Marks St, Aldgate, E1 (Opened before 1855 and closed in 2011 for conversion to residential use)

The Sebright Arms, 26 Coate St Haggerston, E2 (Opened before 1849, rebuilt 1936 and open today)

The Sekforde Arms, 34 Sekforde St, Clerkenwell, EC1 (Opened before 1839 and closed in 2015)

The Shakespeare’s Head, 46 Percival St, Clerkenwell, EC1 (Opened before 1839, rebuilt in the twentieth century and demolished in 2012)

The Ship Aground, 144 Lea Bridge Rd, Hackney, E5 (Opened before 1871, closed  2009 and now a Sikh temple)

The Ship, 10 Narrow St, Limehouse, E2 (Opened before 1722 destroyed by enemy action on the 12th August 1944)

The Ship & Bell, 74 Prusom St, Wapping, E1 (Opened before 1810 but damaged by enemy action on the 9th September 1940 and closed)

The Smithfield Tavern, Charterhouse St, Smithfield, EC1 (Opened before 1851 as ‘The Red Cow,’ rebuilt 1871, closed 1942, reopened 1946, renamed ‘The Smithfield Tavern’ in 1952 and closed in 2015)

The Spread Eagle Hotel, 1 Manor Rd, West Ham, E15 (Opened before 1886, damaged by enemy action and closed between September 1940 and January 1941, rebuilt on Mitre Rd and now a supermarket)

The Star, 31 Aldersgate St, EC1 (Opened before 1839, closed 1963 and now demolished)

The Star of the East, 83 Goldsmith’s Row, Hackney, E2 (Opened before 1861, closed 1983 and now a shop)

The Star & Garter, 233 Whitechapel Rd, E1 (Opened before 1807, closed 2001 and now a fried chicken shop)

The Still & Star, Little Somerset St, Aldgate, E1 (Opened before 1820 and open today, but under imminent threat of demolition)

The Suffolk Arms, 76 Boston St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened before 1839 but now demolished and the space occupied by Hackney City Farm)

The Sugar Loaf, 65 Cannon St, City of London, EC4 (Opened before 1839, renamed ‘O’Neil’s’ in 1999 and open today)

The Sultan, 112 Grange Rd, Plaistow, E13 (Opened before 1872 but demolished in 2005)

The Sussex Arms, 71 Upper North St, Poplar, E15 (Opened before 1863, closed in 1963 and now demolished)

The Sussex Arms, 107A Culford Rd, N1 (Opened before 1856, renamed ‘The Scolt Head’ in 2006 and open today)

The Swan, 73 Clapton Common, Upper Clapton, E5 (Opened before 1745 but closed in 2009 and now a synagogue)

The Swan & Sugar Loaf, 53 Fetter Lane, Holborn, EC4 (Opened before 1800 but destroyed by enemy action in May 1941)

The Temple St Tap, 428 Hackney Rd, E2 (Opened before 1934, renamed ‘Septembers’ in 1983 and demolished in 2000)

The Thatched House, 245 High Rd, Leytonstone, E11 (Opened before 1826, closed by 2008 and now a betting shop)

The Three Compasses, 99 Dalston Lane, E8 (Opened before 1849 and open today)

The Three Crowns, 237 Mile End Rd, E1 (Opened before 1719, renamed ‘L’Oasis’ in 1999, closed in 2010 and now an Italian restaurant)

The Three Crowns (West’s Brewery Tap), 311 Hackney Rd, E2 (Established 1822 and closed 1929)

The Three Nuns Hotel, 11 Aldgate High St, EC3 (Opened before 1665, rebuilt 1876, closed 1960 and now demolished)

The Ticket Porter, Arthur St, City of London, EC4 (Opened before 1841, but closed and demolished in 1970)

The Trafalgar, 17 Remington St, N1 (Opened before 1856 but closed in the eighties and now offices)

The Two Brewers, 197 High St, Stratford, E15 (Opened before 1776, closed in 1995 and demolished in 2006)

Photographs courtesy Heritage Assets/The National Brewery Heritage Trust

You may also like to take a look at

The Alphabet of Lost Pubs A-C

The Alphabet of Lost Pubs D-G

The Alphabet of Lost Pubs H-L

The Alphabet of Lost Pubs M-P

The Alphabet of Lost Pubs Q-R

The Pubs of Old London

At the Pub with John Claridge

At the Pub with Tony Hall

Alex Pink’s East End Pubs, Then & Now

Anthony Cairns’ East End Pubs

Mrs Johnson walks past 19 Mile End Place

Whenever I walk down the Mile End Rd, I always take a moment to step in through the archway and visit Mile End Place. This tiny enclave of early nineteenth century cottages sandwiched between the Velho and the Alderney Cemeteries harbours a quiet atmosphere that recalls an earlier, more rural East End and I have become intrigued to discover its history. So I was fascinated when Philip Cunningham sent me his pictures of Mile End Place from the seventies together with this poignant account of an unspoken grief from the First World War, still lingering more than fifty years later, which he encountered unexpectedly when he moved into his great-grandparents’ house.

“In 1971, my girlfriend – Sally – & I moved from East Dulwich to Mile End Place. It was number 19, the house where my maternal grandfather – Jack – had been born into a family of nine, and we purchased it from my grandfather’s nephew Denny Witt. The house was very cheap because it was on the slum clearance list but it was a lot better than the rooms we had been living in, even with an outside toilet and no bath.

There were just two small bedrooms upstairs and two small rooms downstairs. In my grandfather’s time, the front room was kept immaculate in case there might be a visitor and the sleeping was segregated, until Uncle Harry came back from the Boer War when he was not allowed to sleep with the other boys. For reasons left unexplained, he was banished to the front room and told he had better get married sharpish – which he did.

I first met my neighbour Mrs Johnson when gardening in the front of the house. I said ‘Morning,’ but there came no reply.‘What a nasty woman’ I thought, yet worse was to come. Mrs Johnson lived at the end of the street and two doors away lived a vague relative of hers who was married to an alcoholic. ‘She picked ‘im up in Jersey,’ I was told. He drank half bottles of whisky and rum, and threw the empties into the graveyard at the back of our houses – sometimes when they were half full.

I would often go to our outside toilet in socks and, on one occasion, nearly stepped upon pieces of broken glass that had been thrown into our backyard. At first, I assumed it was Paul – the graveyard keeper – and went straight round to his house in Alderney St. I nearly knocked his door down and was ready to flatten him, until he became very apologetic and explained that Mrs Johnson had told him we were students and always having parties. True in the first count, lies in the second. Mrs Johnson knew quite well who the culprit was, as did the everyone else in street. I was still angry, so I threw the glass back where it came from  – which must have been a real chore to clear up on the other side

Sometime after all these events, Jane Plumtree – a barrister – moved into the street. She said ‘We must have street parties!’ and so we did. At the first of these, the longest established families in the street all had to sit together and – unfortunately – I was sat next to Mrs Johnson. She hissed and fumed, and turned her back on me as much as she could, until suddenly she turned to face me and said, ‘I knew your grandfather J-a–c—k, he came b-a–c—k!’ She spat the words out. I did not know what she was talking about so I just said, ‘Yes, he was a drayman.’

Later, I reported it over the phone to my Auntie Ethel. ‘Oh yes,’ she explained, ‘Mrs Johnson had three brothers and, when the First World War broke out, they thought it was going to be a splendid jolly. They signed up at once, even though two were under-age, and they were all dead in three months.’ Unlike my grandfather Jack, who came back.

Jack was married and living in Ewing St with his five children, but he was called up immediately war was declared because had been in the Territorial Army. He was present at almost every major piece of action throughout the First World War and, at some point, while driving an ammunition lorry, he got into the back and rolled a cigarette when there was no one around. He got caught and was sentenced to be shot, but – fortunately – someone piped up and declared they did not have enough drivers, so his punishment was reduced to six weeks loss of pay, which made my grandmother – to whom the money was due – furious!

When Jack and the other troops with him came under fire in a French village, he and an Irish soldier broke into a music shop for cover. On the wall was a silver trumpet which Jack grabbed at once, but his Irish companion grabbed the mouthpiece and would not let Jack have it unless he went into the street, amid the falling shells, to play. Reluctantly, Jack did this – playing extremely fast – and he brought the trumpet home with him to the East End.”

19 Mile End Place

Philip’s grandfather Jack was born at 19 Mile End Place

View from 19 Mile End Place

Philip purchased 19 Mile End Place from his cousin Danny Witt, photographed during World War II

Outside toilet at 19 Mile End Place

Backyard at 19 Mile End Place

View towards the Alderney Cemetery with the keeper’s house in the distance

Paul Campkin, the Cemetery Keeper

The Alderney Cemetery

Looking out towards Mile End Rd

Entrance to Mile End Place from Mile End Rd

Photographs copyright © Philip Cunningham

You may also like to read about

The Mile End Place Mulberry

At the Velho & Alderney Cemeteries