Disgusted by what had become of the site of John Bishop’s murder house (see Part 1 posted on below) banking heiress Baroness Burdett Coutts decided, in 1852, to buy the land and construct a market building (below left) and tenements for the poor (below right) on Columbia Road. Her architect was Henry Darbishire, also responsible for Holly Lodge Estate in Highgate (Holly Lodge locals will spot the similarity between Columbia Market and the Estate).

In an amazing act of vandalism, both Columbia Market and the Columbia Square dwellings were demolished in the late 1950s/early 1960s, despite being structurally sound. The pictures below show the market and the street running behind it in their final days. The aerial shot beneath them shows the cleared site, with the blocks of the Dorset Estate council housing newly completed. (Hackney Road is running immediately to the north of these.) The picture at the bottom is of the Berthold Lubetkin-designed tower block Sivill House, which is just south of the Dorset Estate blocks.

Photographs, top row: the Columbia Market and Columbia Square pictures are part of a collection held at the London Metropolitan Archives, with the shelfmark 72.COL; LMA, 40 Northampton Road, London EC1, tel: 020 7332 3820 https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/Pages/default.aspx

Second row: from The East End Then & Now, edited by Winston G. Ramsey, published by After the Battle.

Aerial shot: Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archive collection; THLHL&A, 277 Bancroft Road, E1 4DQ, tel: 020 7364 1290. localhistory@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Sivill House: photographed in summer 2013 by your blogger.