Chapman Street

Chapman Street area

As this 1882 map [left] shows, north of the railway viaduct between Cannon Street Road and Watney Street ran Lower and Upper Chapman Streets [now Bigland Street and Chapman Street]. The Chapmans were major local landowners, and Miss Chapman was a benefactor of Christ Church Watney Street. In between ran Chapel Street, which was presumably named for Andrew Reed's Independent/Congregational chapel on Cannon Street Road (which became Trinity Episcopal Chapel in 1831), though there had also been a small 'Free Chapel' at 2 Lower Chapman Street. Although still shown as 'Chapel Street' on this map it had in fact been renamed Tait Street in 1868 (and is so shown on other maps), after Bishop Tait, who, despite being distinctly unhelpful over the Ritualism Riots, had visited the area during cholera epidemics. The King and Queen public house was at 51 Tait Street. Confusingly, after portions of Walburgh Street, Tait Street and Tillman Street were closed in 1962 to enable LCC residential development, part of Walburgh Street was renamed Tait Street.

Walburgh Street and Anthony Street ran north-south under the viaduct from Cable Street. W.C. Hood's St George's Dye and Colour Works was in Walburgh Street. The Chemical News of 23 November 1874 noted to obtain a good writing ink, dissolve Geigy's soluble aniline black in water. This colour is manufactured by John R. Geigy, Basle, Switzerland, and is much used for that purpose; it can be obtained in this country from W.C. Hood, Walburgh Street. The Printing Times of 1880 reported that one Hood's specialities was a liquid printing ink which is said to be very useful and economical, drying well. The following year the journal announced that he had produced a number of new dyes and inks of various colours for home consumption and export, which he had named 'Cycloids'. The colours included methyl green, eosine, safranine [both red], magenta, violet, blue, black, grey, brown, orange and yellow.

In 1905 the British Esperanto Association was formed, and Philip Kalisky of Walburgh Street was Vice-President of the East London Esperanto Guild, and taught a weekly class at St George's Street School on The Highway [pictured is Walter Crane's plate for the national journal, and some early enthusiasts]. Here are pictures from the 1920s looking south and north along Walburgh Street, and a peace party after it was blitzed in the Second World War, showing the damage done by the 1,00-pound bomb that fell on the night of 18/19 September 1940. Edith Wyeth's childhood home was at number 33.

The writer Jean Fullerton grew up in Anthony Street [pictured there. left], and based parts of a novel set in the early 19th century in neighbouring Walburgh Street. Chapter 11 of A Glimpse of Happiness (Orion 2009) describes a party after a nuptial mass at St Mary & St Michael, Virginia Street, the couple having first married at St George-in-the-East as current law required. In 1885, the single death attributed to typhus was at 42 Anthony Street (General Register Office).
Pictured [right] is the street from Commercial Road in 1963.

As a teenager in the post-war years, the actor and playwright Steven Berkoff [pictured] lived for a time in Anthony Street. His father Abraham (Al) had run a tailor's shop in Leman Street, cutting lavish zoot suits for West Indian settlers, and supplying some of the Jewish East End boxers. The family's move to the USA was unsuccessful, so they returned to two rooms and an outside WC, with chickens in the yard, in Anthony Street. Here are some of his memories of his childhood: the Troxy cinema in Poplar on Saturday mornings, the Palaseum on Sunday afternoon, swimming at Victoria Park lido in the summer and at Betts Street baths in the winter. He was a near-contemporary of the late Harold Pinter at Raine's School, then in Arbour Square.

Lower Chapman Street [now Bigland Street]: one of the names on the war memorial in St George's Gardens is 'J Keil'. His great-nephew David Keil tells us that John Keil, who lived in this street, was a driver in the Royal Field Artillery; David's father says that he went 'over the top' and was advancing towards the enemy when a shell landed nearby; a mate later returned to the spot but there was nothing to be seen. Similar tragic stories could no doubt be told about many of the others listed.

At the eastern end of the street a Board School [pictured left, in a later use] was built in 1873; see here for more details, including its spot-listing. After closure, for a time it became an outpost of the University of Greenwich's School of Earth Sciences, as 'Walburgh House', before becoming an Islamic centre. There is a small park next to the building. On the corner of Walburgh Street, at no.18, was the Australian Arms pub, built some time before 1851 and in its later years a Courage's house; it was burnt out in 1989 and subsequently demolished - now rebuilt as a supermarket, with flats over [pictured right at each stage]. The Chapman Arms was at 25 Lower Chapman Street, from the 1850s to the 1920s or later, and the Victoria Arms at 77.

In 1934 two 4-storey blocks of 'philanthropic housing' were built in the area (incorporated rather awkwardly, says Pevsner in London vol.5 (Penguin 2005)) by the Chapman Development Trust: Chapman House on Bigland Street [left], next to the Congregational Church's Coverdale & Ebenezer building, and in a more 'progressive' style, designed by Joseph Emberton, Turnour House [right], with 15 flats, on Walburgh Street - named after the Winterton family, who were significant local landowners (see here for a picture of a visit of Lady Winterton to Tillman Street). Also named for them is Winterton House, a tower block on Deancross Street (now outside the parish), built in 1968 with a concrete service core, light steel external columns and precast lightweight concrete floors and external GRP cladding - one of only four towers built to this system and later virtually rebuilt (the other three have been demolished). It was one of a pair with Gelston Point, off Watney Street.

Left is Chapman Place in 1956, before the area was substantially redeveloped. It now includes Bigland Green Primary School, which hit the headlines in 2010 when a dismissed teacher made allegations that it was aggessively Islamic and hostile to Judaism and Christianity: a difficult time for the school! We welcome classes who visit the church for curriculum activities.

There is now nothing left of Ann Street and Mary Street which ran between Upper and Lower Chapman Streets, nor of the various local courts and alleys, including Albion Place and Victoria Place.

South of the viaduct

is Cornwall Street, with three blocks of flats - Newton House, Richard Neale House, and Maddox House [pictured]. At the junction with Cannon Street Road, against the viaduct, is a small informal 'peace garden'.

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