The market runs along the north pavement of Whitechapel Road. The Royal London Hospital is on the other side of it.
What Whitechapel looks like
is the London end of the Roman road to Colchester. The market runs along the north pavement in front of . It has been a conservation area since 1997.
The shops behind the stalls have changed hands more than once. This was the centre of Jewish London from the 1850s to the 1930s. The drinking fountain opposite the hospital was paid for by Jewish subscriptions in memory of Edward VII and unveiled in 1912. One of the cherubs on it holds a needle and thread for the tailoring trade. Most of the signs along the road are in Bengali now.
The Royal London Hospital has been on the south side since 1757. Joseph Merrick lived there from 1886 until he died in 1890. That first building stood empty for years and reopened in 2023 as .
Further west the made Big Ben and the Liberty Bell. It worked from 32 for 250 years and closed in June 2017, after nearly 450 years in business.
at the Aldgate end was the churchyard of St Mary Matfelon, the whitewashed chapel the area is named after. Bombing wrecked the church in 1940 and its floor plan is still marked in the grass. The park was renamed in 1998 for Altab Ali, a clothing worker murdered nearby in 1978.
The streets south of Whitechapel High Street are older and tighter. has a bookshop in Angel Alley and has been publishing since 1886. on Alie Street was built in 1762.
Films shot in Whitechapel
turns up in three British films from the early 1960s. It is the same few hundred yards each time. None of them is The Elephant Man. David Lynch shot the London Hospital exteriors at the old Eastern Hospital in Homerton and the corridors at the Liberal Club on Whitehall Court.
The Small World of Sammy Lee, 1963
Sammy takes a cab east into the East End and the camera runs along the shopfronts on the north side of . Berry Pianos was at 265 and Vyners at 267. The pub beside them was the Grave Maurice, which has since closed. The alley in the same shot is Wood's Buildings.
The Barber of Stamford Hill, 1962
Mr Figg buys lemons at a fruit stall outside the entrance to . He then walks north east up past the Lord Rodney's Head, which closed in 2004. The same station front is in The Small World of Sammy Lee and in The Informers. Crossrail rebuilt the station behind it and kept the Victorian face on the road.
What Whitechapel can double for
Whitechapel can stand in for the East End and a Victorian hospital quarter.
