East End

 

Today I visited the East End of London while on an excursion for another class. I felt it was important to discuss this visit because it is extremely close to Brick Lane, and felt that it added some additional context to the history of the area that we read about in class on Tuesday. Our group was led by a blue badge guide that was instructed to speak to us specifically about the inequalities and poverty within the area. Our tour guide spoke a lot about the history of the Hagguenauts and how they were kind of the first people to inhabit the area. It was interesting to walk around and take a closer look at some of the homes and building they were responsible for building. In addition to this our guide also explained the same kind of cyclical flow of migrants coming in and moving onto other areas, specifically how the hagguenauts dispersed all over the country, stating that about 1 out of 4 brit’s could be traced back to a hagguenaut or french ancestor. Another thing I really enjoyed about the tour was that she showed us one of the last remaining jewish synagogues in the area, explaining that the jewish population has dwindled significantly over the years to a mere couple thousand. It was kind of sad to hear that because of this the synagogue was now struggling to remain open. We also got to see how the area has been gentrified over the years. Our guide showed us both an old soup kitchen for jewish groups struggling with poverty and an old homeless shelter run by nuns. Both of which had now been converted to high end apartments and housing. In addition to this we also saw Spitalfields Market which was also nearby and had been present there for over a hundred years, I would be very interested in looking at old pictures of how it was ran and operated, including what type of people were visiting. I really enjoyed this excursion as it allowed me to learn more about the area which provided more context to the material and conversations we’ve been having about Brick Lane recently. 

• Francesca :)