The Italian Boy murders took place in a tiny district called Nova Scotia Gardens, though that name never actually appeared on any map. The 1838 parish map below only marks it as “Garden Grounds” – just north of Crabree Row, today’s Columbia Road.

After the killings, Nova Scotia Gardens took on several new unofficial names: Burkers’ Hollow; the Hackney Road Hollow; The Ruins. (False) stories grew up that beneath was a secret system of tunnels and cellar rooms.

A journalist writing in the late 1880s recalled: “In Bethnal Green, the hideous event produced a deep sense of horror that years have not altogether removed. The district of the crime was looked upon for a long time with repugnance and apprehension, and many are now the ageing inhabitants of the districts who can well recall the thrill of horror that shot through them when they found themselves out on dark evenings in the neighbourhood overshadowed by the memory of this hideous and inhuman outrage.” (Eastern Argus, 9 April 1887.)

Another article, from the end of the century, was written by an aged resident of Shoreditch, who recalled, “Just past Cooper’s Gardens, there used to be a row of dilapidated old houses standing back from the line of frontage and in a hollow, with a strip of waste land in front, on which was laid out for sale flowers, greengrocery and old rubbish of all kinds; but. . . the large-hearted philanthropist, the Baroness Burdett Coutts, purchased them and the whole of those fearful hovels called Nova Scotia Gardens, once so famous in the days of Burking.” (Hackney Express & Shoreditch Observer, 1 January 1898, ‘Chapters of Old Shoreditch from an “Old Shoreditch Observer” ’.)

The baroness bought up the land and property and demolished, but rebuilding was delayed, and so the area degenerated even further. The illustration below appeared in George Godwin’s 1859 campaigning book Town Swamps and Social Bridges, and shows “the table mountain of manure” (as another sanitary investigator put it) that built up during the delay in redevelopment. The drawing shows children playing on the heap of sewage and refuse, which Godwin saw on his visit. (It’s all a bit Terry Gilliam. . .)

Below, from the top: George Godwin’s 1859 sketch of the manure mountain; sightseers touring the site of the killings at No 3, Nova Scotia Gardens,, in autumn 1831; the 1838 parish map of Bethnal Green, drawn up to show disease and poor sanitation – showing “Garden Grounds” near the top.