Living in Whitechapel: area guide to homes, schools and transport links
This traditionally working-class East End community has had to strive hard for its living, in a district that has welcomed waves of immigrants over the decades, most recently from Bangladesh.
But now a cluster of new tower blocks dominates the skyline as Aldgate is transformed by two large developments of new homes — Goodman’s Fields and Aldgate Place.
Traffic improvements include sweeping away the hated Aldgate gyratory road system — replacing it with a calmer two-way street, new cycleways and pedestrian routes, plus green space linking the historic church of St Botolph without Aldgate and Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School.
Crossrail arrives in 2018, cutting the journey time to Heathrow airport to 36 minutes, while you will be in Bond Street in nine minutes and Canary Wharf in about three minutes.
With the wind of change in its sails, Tower Hamlets council has produced Whitechapel Vision — a 15-year plan to build 3,500 new homes, transform Whitechapel Road and create seven new squares and open spaces.
Two cornerstones of the plan are already in place, with Tower Hamlets town hall moving to the redundant Royal London Hospital building in Whitechapel Road, and the redevelopment of Sainsbury’s on the corner of Cambridge Heath Road to provide a new larger supermarket, 608 homes and a new public square.
This will be a borough completely unrecognisable from the streets where Jack the Ripper roamed in the late 1800s. His serial murders of prostitutes shone a light on the sordid, overcrowded conditions that prevailed in Whitechapel and, as a result, many of its slums were cleared away.
Husband-and-wife philanthropists Samuel and Henrietta Barnett lived and worked in Whitechapel and were instrumental in founding the Whitechapel Gallery in 1901, with the aim of bringing art to the people of the East End. The gallery, which occupies a fine Art Nouveau building in Whitechapel High Street, is now one of the country’s leading modern art galleries and continues to work with the local community. Dame Henrietta, of course, went on to found Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Properties in Whitechapel
A small number of period houses are found in the area behind the Royal London Hospital. Elsewhere, there is a mix of period conversion flats, often above commercial premises, converted warehouses, modern flats and right-to-buy former council flats.
Estate agent Rory Willmott, from the local branch of Winkworth, says Whitechapel is fast becoming a much more desirable place to live. “New developments at Aldgate, the arrival of Crossrail and being within walking distance of the City are changing perceptions,” says Willmott, who points out that the area remains cheaper than more fashionable Shoreditch.
Prices in Whitechapel range from about £700 to £1,000 per square foot, compared to between £800 and £1,200 in Shoreditch.
Renting
Winkworth lettings manager James Holness says renters either work in the City or at the hospital. Rents for one- and two-bedroom flats are about £200 a month less than in Shoreditch.
Postcode
Whitechapel is in the E1 postcode, which also includes Spitalfields and Stepney and parts of Aldgate and Shoreditch.
Best roads
Ford Square, Sidney Square, Ashfield Street and Turner Street.
What’s new
The area around Aldgate East Tube station is becoming a new neighbourhood of shining towers, with two major new developments — Goodman’s Fields and Aldgate Place.
Goodman’s Fields (020 317 1000) is a Berkeley Group development of 1,053 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and penthouses arranged in a medium-rise block and three tower blocks of between 17 and 22 storeys. The flats, of which 35 per cent are affordable, overlook a two-acre park graced by statues of galloping horses. They are reference to the fact that the land was once used to stable horses for London’s carriage trade and were created by sculptor Hamish Mackie. The development also includes a new hotel, 618 units of student housing and commercial space for shops and restaurants, including a Sainsbury’s Local, Pastry Pantry and a new pub, the Leman Street Tavern. Prices for the flats start at £708,000 for a studio and from £1,475,000 for a three-bedroom flat. A triplex penthouse on the 17th floor of Satin House has recently been launched at £5 million. The development completes in 2019.
Aldgate Place (0844 358 3270) is a Barratt Homes development of 463 studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom flats arranged over six blocks ranging in height from six to 25 storeys. Phase 1 is selling now off-plan and prices range from £745,000 to £1,135,000. Phase 2 goes on sale in the summer.
The area attracts
Young City professionals, parents buying for their children, medical staff at the Royal London Hospital and buy-to-let investors.
Staying power
Whitechapel is not a family area and typical buyers stay between three and five years.
Up and coming
Buy-to-let flats offer the best value in Whitechapel.
Travel
Whitechapel (Zone 2) and Aldgate East stations are on the District and Hammersmith & City Tube lines. Whitechapel is also on the Overground and will link to Crossrail from 2018. Aldgate is on the Circle and Metropolitan lines.
The two Aldgate stations are in Zone 1, and an annual travelcard for Zones 1 and 2 costs £1,296.
Council
Tower Hamlets is Labour-controlled and Band D council tax for 2015/2016 costs £1,180.52.
Lifestyle
Shops and restaurants
Whitechapel Market, which is open every day except Sunday, stretches from Vallance Road to Cambridge Heath Road along the wide pavements of Whitechapel Road. It sells everything from fruit and veg and Asian cooking ingredients to clothes, fabrics and toiletries. To help furnish all those new apartments, Ligne Roset has a large branch in Commercial Road with a display of French designer Pierre Paulin’s work.
Brick Lane is famous for its curry houses but one of the best known, Tayyabs, is in Fieldgate Street. Also in Brick Lane, Chez Elles Bistroquet offers French cuisine, while Dark Sugars is a chocolate shop with an enticing selection of flavoured truffles.
Artisan coffee shops abound, with Mouse Tail Coffee near Whitechapel Tube station, Exmouth in Whitechapel High Street, Love in a Cup round the corner in Osborn Street, Grounded in Whitechapel Road and Nude Espresso in Hanbury Street. There is also a café in the Whitechapel Gallery.
In Commercial Road, sandwich shop Benugo has opened The Warehouse pizzeria, while in Commercial Street, gastropub The Culpeper has a rooftop bar with an allotment. Indo pub/restaurant/music venue in Whitechapel Road serves pizzas and pintxo bar snacks.
What the locals say on Twitter
@AProoms
#Whitechapel you have to try tayyabs #Greatfood
@cwrci
Best place to eat in Whitechapel? Easy, @1tayyabs of course...
@tuuiii
@ChickenShop for the best chicken in London and @foxanginger for a nice weekend brunch
@tyinthesky
#Whitechapel @dirtyburger is a must! Good for veggies too.
Open Space
Altab Ali Park in Whitechapel Road is a small park named after a 25-year-old Bengali man who was killed in 1978 in nearby Adler Street in a suspected racist attack.
Elsewhere, Whitechapel is short of green space, although a new two-acre park will feature at the Goodman’s Fields development in Aldgate, and Tower Hamlets council has included a greenway behind the Royal London Hospital as part of its Whitechapel Vision plan.
Leisure and the arts
Whitechapel Gallery is one of London’s foremost modern art galleries, with an active community programme. Wilton’s Music Hall in Graces Alley has been described as “the most important surviving early music hall”. Today it puts on a combination of dance classes, historic tours, magic shows, craft classes, plays and musicals.
The Royal London Hospital Museum, in the former crypt of St Augustine with St Philip’s Church in Newark Street, has exhibitions on the Elephant Man, nurses Edith Cavell and Eva Luckes, and the investigations into the Jack the Ripper murders.
Genesis in Mile End Road is the local art house cinema, while the nearest council swimming pool is at St George’s Leisure Centre in The Highway.
Three things you may not know about Whitechapel
What mishap befell Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and the Great Bell at Westminster, and how did they both help to put Whitechapel in the Guinness Book of Records?
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry in Whitechapel Road has made it into the record books for being Britain’s oldest manufacturing company. Established in 1570, both Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and the Great Bell — “Big Ben” in the clocktower at the Houses of Parliament — were cast there. Unfortunately, the Liberty Bell cracked as soon as it was given a test ring on arrival in Philadelphia in 1752.
The first Great Bell had a similar malfunction. It was cast in 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees for the new clocktower. It arrived at New Palace Yard on a trolley drawn by 16 horses, and crowds had cheered its progress. Alas, it cracked beyond repair when given a test ring before its installation in the tower. This time, Whitechapel Bell Foundry came to the rescue, casting a new 13.5-ton bell in April 1858.
When did Guernica come to Whitechapel?
Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica depicting the bombing of the Spanish village of Guernica during the Spanish civil war was shown at Whitechapel Gallery in 1938 before going on tour to Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. This is the only time the painting has been in Britain. It now resides in Madrid at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.
What links the actor John Hurt with Whitechapel?
Hurt played Joseph Merrick, the severely disfigured “Elephant Man” in the 1980 film of the same name. Based on a true story, Merrick was rescued from a freak show by a doctor at the Royal London Hospital, where he spent much of his life as a patient.
Schools
Whitechapel offers a wide choice of state primary and comprehensive schools and private Muslim schools.
Primary
The following primary schools are rated “outstanding” by Ofsted — Smithy Street in the street of the same name, St Paul’s Whitechapel CofE in Wellclose Square, and Sir John Cass’s in St James’ Passage.
Comprehensive
The following state comprehensive schools are also judged “outstanding” — Swanlea (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Brady Street, Mulberry School for Girls (ages, 11 to 18) and Bishop Challoner RC (girls, ages 11 to 18), both in Commercial Road, Morpeth (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Portman Place, St John Cass Foundation and Redcoat CofE (co-ed ages 11 to 18) in Stepney Way, and Bethnal Green Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Gosset Street.
There are two new local Free comprehensive schools — Wapping High (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Commercial Road, which is judged to be “requiring improvement” by Ofsted, and London Enterprise (co-ed, ages 11 to 16), also in Commercial Road, which has not yet been inspected.
Private
The two nearest top-performing private schools are in the City — City of London School (boys, 10 to 18) in Queen Victoria Street and City of London Girls (ages seven to 18) in St Giles Terrace.