Exploring

Thursday was my day to explore Stepney and Mile End. On each visit to London, I choose at least one area I don't know, do my reading and research before coming, and set out with map and camera to explore. I used a walk in Stephen Millar's series London's Hidden Walks for my guide. (I have all three volumes of the series and think the walks are great.) This walk starts at Whitechapel station and ends at Bow Church, but I knew I wouldn't do it all.

Along the way, I passed former breweries, hospitals, social housing, a workhouse, two Jewish cemeteries and various institutions of education and culture. Through the buildings and the geography, I saw the history of immigration to this part of the East End, as well as poverty and wealth, alcohol and temperance, work and home, life and death. One of my favourite stops was Stepney Green, with a lovely garden in the middle. Around the green are Georgian houses, two Victorian social housing blocks, some more recent social housing, the Stepney Jewish School and a sweet little memorial clock tower. Just a few meters from the busy, noisy Mile End Road. it's a green oasis of quiet.

I made it as far as the Green Bridge when I knew it was time to start making my way back to Spitalfields to meet Molly at 1:30, so I hopped the tube from Mile End to Whitechapel and worked my way northwest towards Hanbury and Pedley streets, passing Spitalfields City Farm as I walked along. My destination was the Nomadic Community Gardens in the derelict goods yard to the east of Shoreditch High Street station. With so much development going on in Shoreditch, mostly unaffordable residential tower blocks, my fear is always that I'll return to the East End one year to find a monstrosity on this site. Happily, for now, the local community has taken the land for gardening and other community use. I had a sit down at the Roving Cafe and ate tuna mayo on a bagel, then rushed to Bishop's Square to meet Molly under the white goat (only five minutes late).

I'd promised Molly we'd look at streetart around Brick Lane, but first we popped into the Bishopsgate Institute to use the loo and look at the library. After that, we zigzagged around for a couple hours, then had tea and a sit down at the Albion Cafe in Red Church Street. No time to walk round the Boundary Estate, but we did go over to Village Underground to see the latest streetart piece by Ben Eine, which is in tribute to the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Our final destination was the Walkietalkie, where I had booked us tickets for Sky Garden. We took in the view, had a drink and watched rain clouds move in from North London.

Stats:
£1.60 for cookies
£4 for lunch
£2.75 for tea
£3.20 for dinner (Sainsbury and M&S)
6 quid for a bottle of wine

30275 steps
13.33 miles