Market stalls run along the north pavement of Whitechapel Road, the same stretch two films from 1963 used as itself.
What Whitechapel looks like
A market runs down the length of , with stalls set along the north pavement in front of the shops behind them. The stalls come down at night and are stored a block away on . Buildings along the road run three to five storeys, some lower. They stand tall and narrow on individual plots, with mansard roofs breaking the roofline here and there.
The shopfronts are red and yellow stock brick with stone and stucco trim above them. Many keep timber fronts with pilasters and carved brackets, restored in 2012. A few later fronts are plain sheets of metal instead, and most of the signs above them are lettered in Bengali.
The station's entrance front dates from 1876 and was kept in place when the building behind it was rebuilt for the Elizabeth line. A white stone fountain with a bronze angel on top stands on the pavement opposite the old hospital building, put up in 1912.
That hospital building is five storeys of dark brick, built in 1757 and used today as the borough's town hall. West toward Aldgate, a low three storey building at numbers 32 to 34 has stood empty since 2017, its ground floor still fitted out as a shopfront.
Shot in Whitechapel
Whitechapel Road turns up in two British films from 1963, both showing the market and the station front as they actually stood. A Channel 4 series later filmed inside a disused hospital building along the same road.
The Small World of Sammy Lee, 1963
265 and 267 Whitechapel Road
Sammy takes a cab east along the road, and the camera runs along the shopfronts at numbers 265 and 267. Berry Pianos was at 265 and Vyners at 267, with the alley called Wood's Buildings beside them. Street View
The Barber of Stamford Hill, 1963
Mr Figg buys lemons from a fruit stall right outside the station, then walks off past the market. The station's own 1876 entrance front is still standing behind today's stalls. Street View
Crashing, 2016
The Channel 4 series filmed its interiors in a disused building of the Royal London Hospital in the summer of 2015, the same year this building stood boarded up. It has since been restored as Tower Hamlets Town Hall, so the derelict hospital the series shows no longer exists in this form. Street View
Low tenement blocks with shops on the ground floor line Orchard Street the way they line Whitechapel Road. The street's pushcart trade ran from the 1880s to the 1930s, much the way stalls still fill Whitechapel Road's own pavement. The cast iron fire escapes on the tenement fronts are the giveaway in a wide shot. Orchard Street also runs narrower than Whitechapel Road, so a tighter lens holds the illusion better. Try searching cast iron fire escapes now.
Thomas Street has carried a market since a bazaar opened there in 1782. Its terraces mix Georgian brick fronts with later Victorian shopfronts, much the way Whitechapel Road's own plots were rebuilt again and again on the same lines. Dublin's granite kerbs and Georgian fanlights over the doors are the tells in a close shot, so keep the frame on the shopfronts and stalls rather than the doorways. Try searching granite kerbs Georgian fanlights now.
Gallowgate in Glasgow, Scotland
The Gallowgate's barrow market, the Barras, dates from the 1920s. Its tenement blocks with shops on the ground floor sit at a similar scale to Whitechapel Road's own three and four storey terraces. Glasgow's tenements are built in red and honey coloured sandstone rather than brick, which shows up close, so this works better in a wide shot than a detail one. Try searching sandstone tenement blocks now.
