The Whitechapel Mulberry
In a narrow hidden yard behind the Good Samaritan public house at the back of the Royal London Hospital grows the ancient Whitechapel Mulberry. Roy Emmins, the sculptor, who has lived in the flats next door for more than thirty years told me about it and opened the locked wooden gates to usher me inside this week.
Overshadowed on three sides by high walls, the yard is barely used by residents but – in the middle of the day – it functions as a sun trap, and this is sufficient encouragement for the Mulberry to flourish. Entering the quiet of the yard and leaving the clamour of Whitechapel behind you, it is astonishing to encounter the venerable Mulberry sequestered there, like a mythical beast lurking in a secret den. At six feet above ground, the twisted trunk divides into three branches, angled like a candelabre and lifting up the crown towards the light. Of indeterminate age, gnarled and supported by props, the Whitechapel Mulberry still produces fruit and Roy remembers harvesting the crop with his father to make wine thirty years ago.
Once we had paid due horticultural homage , Roy took me upstairs to show me the new water features in his rooftop sculpture garden and introduce to me to his three-legged cat, Sid, who has joined the household since I last visited. From here, we were able to peer down upon the Mulberry from above and raise our eyes to enjoy the view across the Whitechapel rooftops on a perfect spring day.
The Whitechapel Mulberry
The Whitechapel Mulberry seen from Roy’s roof garden
Looking east from Roy’s roof garden
Sid, Roy’s three-legged cat, dozes in the spring sunshine
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and Mulberry Trees
The Oldest Tree in the East End
Spiegelhalters Is Saved
In response to the campaign launched by David Collard and supported by readers of Spitalfields Life, the developers have decided to retain the facade of Spiegelhalters so that the legend may live on
Spiegelhalters, Mile End Rd
Five years ago, you could look through the metal shutter and see Spiegelhalters’ nineteenth century shopfront intact with its curved glass window and mosaic entrance floor spelling out “Spiegelhalters.” Since then, with disdainful arrogance, the owners of the building have destroyed this, leaving just the front wall of the building – and were ready to proceed with demolition to create a glass atrium when the campaign to Save Speigelhalters was launched in January of this year.
At first, the developers claimed fatuously that the void in the terrace left by the demolition would be a ‘homage’ to Speigelhalters but – after a petition signed by two thousand seven hundred people and objections by the East End Preservation Society, Victorian Society and English Heritage – Resolution Property have revised their planning application as you see below.
Demonstrating modesty worthy of Uriah Heep, the architects’ spokesman admitted, “we are not arrogant enough to believe we are right and everyone else is wrong,” then qualifed his statement by adding, “we still feel it is a slightly missed opportunity to create something more interesting.” So, although the development that is proposed for Wickham’s itself remains hideously overblown and the nineteenth century fabric of the Spiegelhalter building and its beautiful shopfront should never have been destroyed, we have been granted this small mercy.
Resolution Property have abandoned their proposal to replace the historic Spiegelhalters with a void
The revised proposal for Spiegelhalters by architects Buckley Gray Yeoman
Resolution Property’s scheme for Wickham’s
THE STORY OF SPIEGELHALTERS
Observe how the gap-toothed smile of this building undermines the pompous ambition of its classical design. Without this gaping flaw, it would be just another example of debased classicism but, thanks to the hole in the middle, it transcends its own thwarted architectural ambitions to become a work of unintentional genius.
Built in 1927, Wickham’s Department Store in the Mile End Rd was meant to be the “Harrods of East London.” The hubris of its developers was such that they simply assumed the small shopkeepers in this terrace would all fall into line and agree to move out, so the masterplan to build the new department store could proceed. But they met their match in the Spiegelhalters at 81 Mile End Rd, the shop you see sandwiched in the middle. The first Mr Spiegelhalter had set up his jewellery business in Whitechapel in 1828 when he emigrated from Germany, and his descendants moved to 81 Mile End Rd in 1880, where the business was run by three Spiegelhalter brother who had been born on the premises. These brothers refused all inducements to sell.
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall of the office of those developers because there must have been words – before they came to the painful, compromised decision to go ahead and build around the Spiegelhalters. Maybe they comforted themselves with the belief that eventually the gap could be closed and their ambitions fully realised at some later date? If so, it was a short-lived consolation because the position of the Spiegelhalters’ property was such that the central tower of Wickham’s Department Store had to be contructed off-centre with seven window bays on the left and nine on the right, rather than nine on either side. This must have been the final crushing humiliation for the developers – how the Spiegelhalter brothers must have laughed.
The presence of the word “halter” within the name Spiegelhalter cannot have escaped the notice of bystanders – “Spiegel-halter by name, halter by nature!” they surely observed. Those stubborn Spiegelhalters had the last laugh too, because the lopsided department store which opened in 1927, closed in the nineteen sixties, while the Spiegelhalters waited until 1988 to sell out, over a century after they opened. I think they made their point.
As self-evident testimony to the story of its own construction, the Wickham’s conglomeration is simultaneously a towering monument to the relentless ambition that needs to be forever modernising, and also to the contrary stick-in-the-mud instinct that sees no point in any change. Willpower turned back on itself created this unique edifice. The paradoxical architecture of Wickham’s Department Store inadvertently achieves what many architects dream of – because in its very form and structure, it expresses something profound about the contradictory nature of what it means to be human.
Wickhams seen from Whitechapel
Spiegelhalters in 1900
The Spitalfields Trust presents ELECTION HUSTINGS at 7pm on Tuesday 5th May at Toynbee Hall, Commercial St – discussing British Land’s proposals for Norton Folgate with Parliamentary Candidates. No booking required
The East End Preservation Society presents HERITAGE ACTIVISM, A FORCE FOR GOOD a talk by Loyd Grossman at St Botolph’s Church Hall, Bishopsgate at 6:30pm on Tuesday 26th May. Admission is free but email eastendpsociety@virginmedia.com to reserve your place
Huguenot Summer
The wooden spools that you see hanging in the streets of Spitalfields indicate houses where Huguenots once resided. These symbols were put there in 1985, commemorating the tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes which brought the Huguenots to London and introduced the word ‘refugee’ into the English language. Inspired by the forthcoming Huguenot Summer which runs from May to September, I set out in search of what other visual evidence remains of the many thousands that once passed through these narrow streets and Dr Robin Gwynn, author of The Huguenots of London, explained to me how they came here.
“Spitalfields was the most concentrated Huguenot settlement in England, there was nowhere else in 1700 where you would expect to hear French spoken in the street. If you compare Spitalfields with Westminster, it was the gentry that stayed in Westminster and the working folk who came to Spitalfields – there was a significant class difference. And whereas half the churches in Westminster followed the French style of worship, in Spitalfields they were not interested in holding services in English.
The Huguenots were religious refugees, all they needed to do to stop the persecution in France was to sign a piece of paper that acknowledged the errors of John Calvin and turn up at church each Sunday. Yet if they tried to leave they were subject to Draconian punishments. It was not a planned immigration, it was about getting out when you could. And, because their skills were in their hands, weavers could leave whereas those whose livelihood was tied up in property or land couldn’t go.
Those who left couldn’t choose where they were going, it was wherever the ship happened to be bound – whether Dover or Falmouth. Turning up on the South Coast, they would head for a place where there were other French people to gain employment. Many sought a place where they could set their conscience at rest, because they may have been forced to take communion in France and needed to atone.
The best-known church was “L’Eglise Protestant” in Threadneedle St in the City of London, it dealt with the first wave of refugees by building an annexe, “L’Eglise de l’Hôpital,” in Brick Lane on the corner of Fournier St. This opened in 1743, sixty years after a temporary wooden shack was first built there. There were at least nine other Huguenot Chapels in Spitalfields by then, yet they needed this huge church – it was an indicator of how large the French community was. I don’t think you could have built a French Church of that size anywhere else in Britain at that time.The church was run by elders who made sure the religious and the secular sides tied up so, if you arrived at the church in Threadneedle St, they would send you over to Spitalfields and find you work.
It was such a big migration, estimated now at between twenty to twenty-five thousand, that among the population in the South East more than 90% have Huguenot ancestors.“
Sundial in Fournier St recording the date of the building of the Huguenot Church.
Brick Lane Mosque was originally built in 1743 as a Huguenot Church, “L’Eglise de l’Hôpital,” replacing an earlier wooden chapel on the same site, and constructed with capacious vaults which could be rented out to brewers or vintners to subsidise running costs.
Water head from 1725 at 27 Fournier St with the initials of Pierre Bourdain, a wealthy Huguenot weaver who became Headborough and had the house built for him.
The Hanbury Hall in Hanbury St was built in 1719 as a Huguenot Church, standing back from the road behind a courtyard with a pump. The building was extended in 1864 and is now the church hall for Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Coat of arms in the Hanbury Hall dating from 1740, when “La Patente” Church moved into the building, signifying the patent originally granted by James II.
In Artillery Lane, one of London oldest shop fronts, occupied from 1720 by Nicholas Jourdain, Huguenot Silk Mercer and Director of the French Hospital.
Memorial in Christ Church.
Memorial in Christ Church.
At Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St.
Graffiti in French recently uncovered in a weavers’ loft in Elder St
Former Huguenot residence in Elder St.
The Fleur de Lis was adopted as the symbol of the Huguenots.
Sandys Row Synagogue was originally built by the Huguenots as “L’Eglise de l’Artillerie” in 1766.
Sandys Row Photograph copyright © Jeremy Freedman
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The Dalston Mulberry
Here we go round the Mulberry bushes! After I featured the Bethnal Green Mulberry last week which – at four hundred years old – lays claim to be the oldest tree in the East End, I was contacted by a reader who introduced me to the ancient Haggerston Mulberry and then, over the weekend, I was invited up to Hackney to meet the Dalston Mulberry.
Secluded in gardens behind a nineteenth century terrace near London Fields, the Dalston Mulberry grows upon the boundary of two properties and consequently has two custodians, neighbours Molly and Megan. When the fence was replaced in recent years, it was painstakingly constructed around the cherished Mulberry so that residents upon either side might enjoy its fruit and benign influence equally. In the same street, there are several early-eighteenth century cottages and it seems likely that Dalston Mulberry is their contemporary, planted three centuries ago.
For years, I wondered what happened to all the Mulberry trees. Since the East End was home to a thriving silk industry for generations, they must have been ubiquitous once and I could not believe they had all gone. In each case, the Mulberries I have met predate everything that surrounds them and it fills me with humility to encounter these gracious specimens, which have mastered the art of longevity – by producing a generous crop of fruit each year, they ensure their survival and earn their right to exist in spite of all the changes.
Now the venerable Mulberries of the East End are emerging from the shady groves where they have been sequestered for centuries and declaring themselves, who knows what horticultural discoveries may lie ahead?
The other side of the fence
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The Oldest Tree in the East End
Drivers In The Eighties
Today it is my pleasure to publish this selection of favourite photographs from Chris Dorley-Brown’s DRIVERS IN THE EIGHTIES, newly published by Hoxton Minipress this month
Honda Moped, Mare St
Ford Sierra, Bishopsgate
Vauxhall Astra, Piccadilly
Vehicle unknown, Bishopsgate
Ford Transit, London Bridge
Routemaster Bus, Bank
Telecom Van, City of London
Ford Escort, Gracechurch St
Peugeot 604, Mare St
Vauxhall Astramax, Moorgate
Leyland Sherpa, Mare St
Peugeot 305, Old St
Ford Escort Van, London Wall
Ford Tipper, Mare St
Black Cab, Bank
Toyota Corolla, London Bridge
Vehicle unknown, Bishopsgate
Austin Maestro Van, London Bridge
Black Cab, Mare St
Bedford Plaxton Coach, London Bridge
“I grew up around cars. Dad was a car man – he bought them, sold them, mended and polished them and sold the petrol to make them run. When I was eight years old, he arrived home one day in the most glamorous Ford I had ever seen – convertible Cortina Mk2, off- white with a black canvas roof. We piled in and went for a spin on country roads and at one point stopped to admire the view. I picked up mum’s camera and for the first time in my life I took a photograph. It was of the old man, still in his work clothes, dark suit and tie, looking out of the car window.
These images are from the first five rolls of colour film I ever shot. Simple portraits, faces and torsos reframed by the windscreens and doors of the vehicles, they hold a stillness in a world of movement and unpredictability. I never bought another roll of black and white film again, the journey had started.
My destination was to record the sell-off of Rolls Royce in May 1987 – one in a series of unedifying gold-rush stampedes – and as I left the studio on foot and headed towards Bank Station, the traffic on Mare St and Hackney Rd were gridlocked by people trying either to get to the sell-off, or mainly, trying to avoid it. It was the first warm day of the year and the drivers and passengers were trapped – impatient, sweaty, wanting to be outside in the sunshine. As far as I and the Rolleiflex were concerned, they were asking for it. I could get close, very close. They were sitting ducks.
I followed the traffic and walked south onto Shoreditch High St, then all the way down to the river by London Bridge. Tourists were stuck on open top Routemaster buses, motorcycle couriers were lighting fags, engines idled, the lights would only let a few through on green before the waiting continued. The sell-off was causing chaos, drivers looked deflated, maps were consulted for escape routes, midday editions of the Evening Standard given the once-over, frustrated children plonked on drivers laps. The traffic islands, surrounded by those now long-gone steel barriers, provided a refuge from which to take photos, and I was more or less invisible, able to fully concentrate on these prisoners of glass, metal and capitalist reverie.”
– Chris Dorley-Brown
Peter Dorley-Brown in his Ford Cortina, 1967
Photographs copyright © Chris Dorley-Brown
The Haggerston Mulberry
After I published my portrait of the four hundred year old Bethnal Green Mulberry yesterday, a reader invited me over to photograph the Haggerston Mulberry which has its own claim to longevity.
I hopped on a bus up the Kingsland Rd as soon as I got the message and I was filled with wonder to be led into a hidden garden where this magnificent ancient specimen flourishes in a sheltered corner surrounded by protective walls.
Its deeply-textured, gnarly bark was riven with the scars of innumerable branches gone long ago yet the old Mulberry had a healthy showing of new growth, heavy with buds unfolding into the fresh green leaves of spring. Like its relative in Bethnal Green, this tree produces a heavy crop of fruit each year.
Liz, the fond custodian of the Haggerston Mulberry told me that within living memory there were once two other Mulberries close by but people took them down “because the birds dropped red berries and juice over your washing.” Older than all the buildings around, local lore has it that these trees were planted at the time of the arrival of the Huguenots.
If readers know of any more ancient Mulberries in the East End please get in touch and I will come and photograph them.
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The Oldest Tree in the East End
The Oldest Tree In The East End
Thanks to an invitation from one of the readers, I had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the oldest tree in the East End yesterday, a dignified tottering specimen known as the Bethnal Green Mulberry. It is more than four hundred years old and its leaves were intended to feed silkworms cultivated by local weavers.
The Black Mulberry originally grew within the grounds of Bishop Bonner’s Palace that stood on this site and an inkwell in the museum of the Royal London Hospital, made in 1915 from a bough, has a brass plate engraved with the sardonic yarn that the Bishop sat beneath it to enjoy shelter in the cool of the evening while deciding which heretics to execute.
Yesterday’s visit was a poignant occasion since the Mulberry stands today in the grounds of the London Chest Hospital which opened in 1855 and closed forever last week prior to being handed over by the National Health Service today, in advance of redevelopment. My only previous visit to the Hospital was as a patient struggling with pneumonia, when I was grateful to come here for treatment and feel reassured by its gracious architecture surrounded by trees. Of palatial design, the London Chest Hospital is a magnificent Victorian philanthropic institution where the successful campaign to rid the East End of tuberculosis in the last century was masterminded.
It was a sombre spectacle to see workmen carrying out desks and stripping the Hospital of its furniture, and when a security guard informed me that building had been sold for twenty-five million and would be demolished since “it’s not listed,” I was shocked at the potential loss of this beloved structure and the threat to the historic tree too. Yet as far as I am aware, no formal decision has been made about the future of the Hospital’s fabric and, thankfully, the Mulberry is subject to a Tree Preservation Order.
Gainly supported by struts that have become absorbed into the fibre of the tree over the years, it was heartening to see this ancient organism coming into leaf once more and renewing itself again after four centuries. The Bethnal Green Mulberry has seen palaces and hospitals come and go, but it continues to bear fruit every summer regardless.
The Mulberry narrowly escaped destruction in World War II and charring from a bomb is still visible
The London Chest Hospital opened in 1855 and closed forever last week
Ancient Mulberry in Victoria Park which may be a contemporary of the Bethnal Green Mulberry
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