Commercial Street, London
Commercial Street is an arterial
As the name implies, Commercial Street has historically been dominated by industrial and commercial activity, which it maintains to this day. It is on the City fringes, and much industry that was seen as too noisome for the City was once exiled to such areas as this. However, since the early 1990s the street has grown increasingly fashionable, while maintaining its busy commercial feel.
History
New Street from Spitalfields to Shoreditch Act 1846 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 27 July 1846 |
Spitalfields was historically one of the poorest, most overcrowded and most crime-ridden districts in London: a parliamentary report of 1838 described this area as harbouring "an extremely immoral population; women of the lowest character, receivers of stolen goods, thieves and the most atrocious offenders".[1] The southern section of Commercial Street was created in 1843–5 as part of a slum clearance programme, and to connect the Whitechapel thoroughfare with Spitalfields Market.[2] It was laid out by the architect and planner Sir James Pennethorne along the approximate line of former Essex Street, Rose Lane and Red Lion Street, and entailed the demolition of some 250 sub-standard properties in Whitechapel and Spitalfields. The extension north from the market, to the Eastern Counties Railway's Bishopsgate terminus and to Shoreditch High Street, was made between 1849 and 1857 and opened in 1858.[3][4] In both phases of development there was some initial difficulty in finding tenants for the building plots, and much of the street was not built up until the 1860s and 1870s. Only once Great Eastern Street had been laid out further north between 1872 and 1876, creating a continuation of the route towards Old Street and the City Road, did Commercial Street really begin to succeed as what had always been Pennethorne's aim, an artery allowing traffic to bypass the City of London. With the implementation of the London Congestion Zone in the 2000s, the road has once again seen continued activity from private and commercial vehicles seeking to avoid the 7am–6pm charge, and is a typical arterial route for emergency vehicles.
Until the late twentieth century, the street was heavily dominated by the activities of Spitalfields wholesale fruit and vegetable market, and by outlets for the "rag trade" (the wholesale clothing and textile trade). Since the mid-1970s, however, the area has been increasingly subject to a process of gradual gentrification. In part this reflects the changing character of Spitalfields more generally, but in Commercial Street in particular it was stimulated by the departure of the market in 1991 (and subsequent redevelopment of its buildings), the arrival of a number of private residential developments (especially at the northern end of the street), and the introduction of some modest traffic-calming measures. Many of the commercial units in the street are now occupied by fashionable clothing shops or restaurants.
Topography and architecture
The street's most significant features are
The northern end of the street is dominated on its eastern side by the sprawling Exchange Building, an Art Deco former tobacco works, now residential. On the western side stands the former Commercial Street Police Station (built 1874-5, with an extra storey added in 1906), also now a residential block named Burhan Uddin House. Just to its south, with a wing extending into Folgate Street, is the first tenement block of model dwellings to be erected by the Peabody Donation Fund (now the Peabody Trust) for London's "industrious poor". The red-brick Jacobethan block was designed by H. A. Darbishire and opened in 1864, but was sold by the Trust in the late 1970s and is now a private residential block named The Cloisters.
On the opposite corner of
Much of the southern section of the street is occupied by warehouse buildings of the 1860s. Wentworth Street (part of the busy
Nearby stations
The nearest
References
- ^ Second Report from Select Committee on Metropolis Improvements (1838), p. 103 (Parliamentary Papers 1837–8, vol. XVI).
- ^ Fiona Rule (2008) The Worst Street in London. Hersham, Ian Allan: pp. 54–5.
- ^ White, J. (2007) London in the Nineteenth Century. London: Vintage: pp. 33–4.
- ^ Tyack, G. (1992), Sir James Pennethorne and the Making of Victorian London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: pp. 64-6.
- ^ Taylor, W. (2001) This Bright Field. Methuen: London: p. 61
- ^ Fiona Rule (2008) The Worst Street in London. Hersham, Ian Allan: p. 217
Further reading
- Bezodis, P.A.; Ison, W. (1957). "Commercial Street". Spitalfields and Mile End New Town. Survey of London. Vol. 27. London: London County Council. pp. 256–64.