A Walk from Whitechapel Church to the Leytonstone Road.

"As The Tram Car Goes" - An extract written by W. N. Noble in the 1870s.

Leaving the [Bow] Church I arrive at a branch of the river Lee, which separates Stratford from Bow and is the end of the Bow road - a spot remarkable for being the first stone bridge ever built in England. The particulars are thus related:- Matilda the Queen of Henry the First often went to visit the shrine of the nunnery at Barking, in Essex to which she usually rode on horse back. On one of these excursions as she and her attendants were crossing the ford it was found that the water by a sudden rain had swelled considerably so that the Queen narrowly escaped drowning - after the loss of several of her attendants. In memory of her signal deliverance she caused a bridge to be built different to all others in the kingdom - it being a stone Gothic arch. The place where it was built was then called the Strait-ford; and the people, who had never seen a stone arch over a river before, called it a "Bow," or the Bow near Strait-ford from which its present name is derived, namely Stratford-le-Bow.

This place was once celebrated for the manufacture of china, which obtained the appellation of Bow China. Some of the specimens of this ware proved to be extremely beautiful, but the rise of potteries and the opposition of the Chelsea, Worcester, Salop and Derby porcelain manufactories caused these works to stop. I now cross the bridge and step into Stratford High street, which in ancient times was famous for a company of white and brown bread bakers, who used to sell their bread in carts and on horses to the environs of the metropolis, and most grievously to undersell the Londoners who frequently complained; but as the people in power thought that the opposition thus created was beneficial to the poor it was never legally countermanded.

Modern Newham is the creation of East London's industrial revolution, the population "explosion" of London in the second half of the century and particularly by the Metropolitan Building Act of 1864.

 The partially completed  Beckton Gasworks in 1869 with, presumably, a site visit by the directors of the Gas Light & Coke Company. Named after the president of the Company, Simon Adam Beck, it was the largest gas plant in the world when it opened in 1870.

(Image: Newham Council Arts & Heritage)

War-time bombing left large gaps on the Forest Gate map. These trees, which once stood outside the houses in Windsor Road, stand in front of the land cleared for rebuilding.

From Newham Heritage & Archives collection (Stratford)