Sarah Wise

For her degree show, London Metropolitan University fine art graduate Anna Hamilton constructed a three-dimensional version of the Old Nichol. Anna lived for several years in Sclater Street, Bethnal Green, and became fascinated with the area and its past. After… Continue reading →

Internal memo, London County Council, regarding the creation of the Arnold Circus raised garden on the Boundary Street Estate, built upon the site of the Old Nichol. 14 October 1896 From Mr Sexby, of the Parks and Open Spaces Sub-Committee,… Continue reading →

In 1957, BBC film editor John Hall was asked by the warden of St Hilda’s East, the Boundary Estate community centre, to make a film about the centre’s work and life on the estate. John’s documentary, St Hilda’s East, captures… Continue reading →

June was a child on the Boundary Street Estate during the Second World War. Her father, Archie Guiver (1909-2007), was the local ARP warden, and in 1939 he put together the amazing hand-drawn map (below) of the streets immediately to… Continue reading →

“Dear Sarah, “As a child, I was a resident of ‘Stripeland’, a name that is new to me [this was the architectural press’s sneering name for the Boundary Estate when it opened]. Between the years 1941 and 1947, my parents… Continue reading →

Vladimir Nabokov always knew a book “of genius” by a feeling it gave him not in his mind, not in his heart, but in his spine. That’s the area in which I felt the genius of East End Underworld: Chapters… Continue reading →

More from the London County Council Housing of the Working Classes Committee. . . Internal memo from Thomas Blashill, LCC Architects’ Department: 3 February 1896 “During my visit to the Boundary Street area on 26 December I saw that the… Continue reading →

6 April 1897 44 Leman Street, Aldgate To the London County Council’s Clerk of Works “Dear Sir, “This evening when I was passing through Boundary Street, in consequence of the projecting kerbstone and the inadequate lights where you are doing… Continue reading →

One of the most hilarious items relating to the Boundary Street Estate/Arnold Circus in the London County Council files (held at the London Metropolitan Archives) is this very long letter of complaint by one of the first residents to move… Continue reading →

Although the flats on the Boundary Street Estate had basic cooking facilities, many of the early residents will have chosen to continue the working-class/lower-middle-class tradition of using a “cookshop”. Customers could either take in their own bought produce to be… Continue reading →