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Archiver > LONDON > 1998-09 > 0905551140


From: #< >
Subject: Re: LONDON-D Digest V98 #677
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 22:59 +0100 (BST)


> X-Message: #8
> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 14:51:01 -0500
> From: "David E. Arnette" <>
> To:
> Message-ID: <000101bddcf4$57e37fa0$>
> Subject: St Matthew, Bethnal Green, London 1857
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>
> Questions;
>
> 1.If it were still around, where would it be? According to the
> London and

St Matthew Bethnal Green is (or was) situated on the south side of
Bethnal Green Road and just to the north of that part of Cheshire Street
which was formerly called Hare Street. Maybe you and Bill Newman should
get together? It was still standing a few years ago when I last saw
Hereford Street, which abuts it on the eastern side, but I agree that
current maps no longer show it. I must have been away too long. This is
the entry from the excellent "London Encyclopedia" by Ben Weinreb and
Christopher Hibbert:

"St. Matthew Bethnal Green E2. Built in 1743-6 to the designs of George
Dance the Elder. It was rebuilt in 1859 after a fire; and remodelled
after severe damage in the 2nd World War."

> Middlesex site, it looks as if it is no more. My GGGParents were
> married there.

My parents got married there, my father was a choir boy there!

>
> Name Daniel FAIRCLOUGH and Emma BURTWELL
> Date 13 Dec 1845
> Church Saint Matthew
>
> 2. What kind of neighborhood would it have been then? Notes say that

Not sure about in 1845. Rocque's map of 1769 shows it virtually
surrounded by fields but with the first fingers of development from the
direction of the City just touching its the western boundary of the
churchyard. By the end of the 19th century it was well built up and a
pretty rough tough working class area. My maternal grandmother, who
lived in Hereford Street and was scared to death of Jack the Ripper,
told me she remembered seeing horses grazing in a field off Three Colts
Lane. She also claimed to remember stage coaches going along Cambridge
Road (now Cambridge Heath Road), all this would have been sometime
during the 1870s. Of course, she may have told me this to please me!

> Daniel
> FAIRCLOUGH was either a sea captain or a worked for a tea merchant.
> Would
> that area make sense for a tea merchant or sea captain??

Not too far at all from the river and the docks. Even closer to the City
from where the tea merchants operated. Quite plausible I'd say.

I hope the personal reminiscences weren't too boring.

Best wishes,

Roy Dent

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