Remarkably, Paul Pindar’s house survived the Great Fire along with the rest of Bishopsgate which preserved its late-medieval character, lined with shambles and grand mansions, until it was redeveloped ...

At the end of each week, Dad gave his unopened pay-packet to Mum. She kept it so if the family needed money in India she could get it. They never had a bank account, but had a way of hiding valuables ...

Is your purse or wallet like mine, bulging with old trade cards? Do you always take a card from people handing them out in the street, just to be friendly? Do you pick up interesting cards in idle ...

Alfred Solomons of 195 Caledonian Rd is another name I found here in Spitalfields on a couple of manhole covers, with some rather fetching, almost orientalist, nineteenth century flourishes. I ...

Seduced by the promise of spring offered by the change in the weather, I decided to return to Bow Cemetery to see if the bulbs were showing yet. Already I have some snowdrops, hellebores and a few ...

This is one of three monster pumps whose purpose is to maintain the water level in the West India Dock at Canary Wharf. Coiled up like giant sea serpents, these mysterious green creatures inhabit an ...

Since I wrote about sculptor Keith Bowler’s Roundels, describing how he set new manhole covers into the pavements of Spitalfields with motifs to commemorate all the people, cultures and trades that ...

19 11.28.13 Joseph Markovitch, I’ve Lived In East London For Eighty-Six & A Half Years ...