Stepney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 51°30′55″N 0°02′46″W / 51.5152°N 0.0462°W
Stepney is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east north-east of Charing Cross and forms part of the East End of London.
The area is a mix of post-war high density housing, Victorian mansion blocks and terraced housing that were not demolished during slum clearances. The east side of historic Stepney Green is notable for its architecture - Arbour Square and Sidney Square and the surrounding streets retain many Georgian and Victorian houses.
Stepney is roughly bounded by Commercial Road, part of the A13, in the south, Mile End Road, part of the A11, in the north and the Regent's Canal in the east. The Western Boundary with Whitechapel is rather ambiguous.
The area has not yet experienced the levels of gentrification seen in nearby Bow, Wapping and Limehouse but some redevelopment has taken place, notably with the Roger Black scheme, Stepney City [1]. The former Arbour Square Police Station and the East End Mission building are also being redeveloped.
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[edit] History
In 1085 Stepney was listed in the Domesday Book survey of England which was recorded in Old French, and whose translation includes:
III. The land of the Bishop of London
In 'Ossulstone' hundred the Bishop of London holds Stepney 32 hides. There is land for 25 ploughs. To the demesne belong 14 hides, and there are 3 ploughs; and 22 ploughs among the villeins. There are 44 villans each on 1 virgate, and 7 villans each on half a hide, and 9 villeins each on half a virgate, and 46 cottars on 1 hide: they pay 30s a year. There are 4 mills rendering £4.16s less 4d, meadow for 25 ploughs, pasture for the livestock of the vill and 15s, woodland for 500 pigs and 40s. In all it is worth £48: and when received, the same: £50. This manor belonged and belongs to the bishopric.
Bishop William held this land in demesne, in the manor of Stepney, on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead. In the same vill Ranulph Flambard holds 3½ hides of the bishop.[1]
St Dunstan's is Stepney's oldest church, founded in 923, but the present building dates principally from the 1400s. St Dunstan's has a long association with the sea, being responsible for registration of British maritime births, marriages and deaths until the 19th century.
In the early 1900s, Stepney was one of the most Jewish neighbourhoods in England; it was eventually replaced by Stamford Hill.[2]
The Siege of Sidney Street took place in Stepney in 1911.
[edit] Education
- For details of education in Stepney see the List of schools in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
[edit] Transport and locale
- Nearest places
In the northern part of the district, the nearest London Underground stations are Mile End, Stepney Green and Whitechapel. All are on the Metropolitan and District Lines; Mile End is an interchange with the Central Line.
In the southern part of the district, the nearest Docklands Light Railway station is Limehouse.. The station is also served by c2c, from Fenchurch Street station. It was formerly known as Stepney East.
[edit] Notable residents
- Des O'Connor was born in Stepney[3].
- Steven Berkoff was born in Stepney[4]
- Terence Stamp was born in Stepney
- Craig Fairbrass was born in Stepney
- Roy Shaw was born in Stepney
- Charles Coborn was born in Stepney
- Ledley King was born in Stepney
- Ashley Cole was born in Stepney
- Frank Paton was born in Stepney
- Darren Purse was born in Stepney
- John Sentamu, formerly Bishop of Stepney, and now the (97th) Archbishop of York as well as the Church of England's first black Archbishop
- Kenney Jones drummer with The Small Faces and The Who was born in Stepney 16 September 1948 and attended St. George's In The Green School.[5]
- "Bombardier" Billy Wells, the heavyweight boxer was born in Stepney
- Father Richard Wilson, a priest from Stepney, campaigned to improve the conditions of his parishioners who lived in hopper huts during the hop picking season in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He founded the Hoppers' Hospitals at Five Oak Green, Kent[6].
[edit] Notable fictional appearances
The BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart was set in Stepney.[citation needed]
The Rolling Stones' song "Play with Fire" references Stepney: "Now she gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore."
In Blackadder II Episode 6, Lord Percy explains the disappearance of his Uncle Bertram's old oak table thus: "'twas on the night of the great Stepney fire. And on that same, terrible night, his house and all his other things completely vanished too. So did he, in fact. It was a most perplexing mystery."
In the film Help!, Alfie Bass has a cameo where he portrays a doorman of an Indian restaurant. When Ringo Starr discovers Alfie Bass is not an actual Indian, he exclaims "He's from the West!" Bass replies "Nah, east...Stepney."
The English Nursery Rhyme Oranges and Lemons refers to the "...bells of Stepney."
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, set in England, he writes about rocket bombs killing many people: "One fell on a crowded film theatre in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins." This is in Chapter 5, Part 2.
In the opening scene of the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the character Bacon makes reference to a piece of jewelry that is "hand made in Italy, hand stolen in Stepney".
[edit] See also
- Metropolitan Borough of Stepney
- Battle of Stepney
- Stepney is the name of a steam locomotive on the Bluebell Railway, which has also featured as a character of the same name in The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry[7].
- Stepney is also the name of an episcopal area in the Anglican Diocese of London, which covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets, and has its own suffragan bishop [8].
- The word stepney is used in India, as well as in Egyptian Arabic[9] (in which it is pronounced إسْتِبْن), to refer the spare tyre of a car, after Stepney Tyre & Rubber Co Ltd's[2] popular spare motor wheel, which was invented by Walter Davies in 1904. The company was named after Stepney Street, Llanelli, Wales.
- Also in Brazil the common word for spare tyre, estepe, appears to be derived from stepney through a classic apocope.
[10] In the new series of the Wombles the ethnic womble is called 'Stepney'
[edit] References
- ^ Domesday Book - A Complete Translation Folio 127V: MIDDLESEX. Penguin Books. Nov 2002. ISBN 0-14-100523-8
- ^ Kosher in the country The Economist 01 Jun 2006 accessed 14 August 2007
- ^ Dec O'Connor at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Steven Berkoff: The real East Enders The Independent 04 Jan 2007 accessed 10 May 2007
- ^ small faces the young mods' forgotten story Acid Jazz ISBN0952393506 p.58
- ^ The hoppers of Kent (BBC Kent) accessed 21 Dec 2007
- ^ Stepney the "Bluebell" Engine (vol 18 of The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry
- ^ Stepney Episcopal Areaaccessed 10 May 2007
- ^ Martin Hinds and El Said-Badawi, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1986
- ^ BBC Wales Bio of Walter Daies accessed 10 May 2007
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