Looking
back in time
1st
century: The Romans build Ermine Street from London
to Lincoln, passing through what will one day be Shoreditch.
12th century: The area is still mostly fields. St
Leonard's church is founded.
16th century: A prosperous village. Richard Burbage
opens "The
Theatre" in Shoreditch (because performing has been
banned inside the City). One of the actors in his company
is a young William Shakespeare, and Romeo and Juliet
is first performed here.
17th century: Burbage is buried in St Leonard's, known
as "the actors' church".
 |
| The site has been occupied by a church since the
1100s, but the present building, by George Dance,
dates from 1740: the village stocks and whipping
post are in the gardens |
18th
century:
St Leonard's church is rebuilt (see picture left). The spire
is an imitation of Wren's steeple on St Mary-le-Bow
in Cheapside.
19th century: Shoreditch descends into poverty, crime
and prostitution.
1900: A huge area of slums to the east of the High
Street is reborn as the magnificent Boundary Estate.
1940s: The area is heavily bombed in the Blitz, and
later heavily redeveloped.
1990s: Artists move into Shoreditch seeking cheap studio
space. The White Cube gallery opens in Hoxton Square,
trendy bars, clubs and restaurants follow, and Shoreditch
is suddenly the hip arty place to be and to be seen.
21st century. A new mecca of social
and business enterprises.
Mary
Kelly, the Ripper's last victim
Mary
Kelly, the last of the victims of Jack the Ripper, was
taken to a mortuary attached to St Leonard's Church in
Shoreditch. It was from here that her funeral cortege left
to begin the journey to St Patrick's Cemetery in Leyton.
A crowd several thousand strong arrived to pay their respects
to the last of the victims of Jack the Ripper.
She
was the only one of the victims of Jack the Ripper
to be photographed at the scene of her murder. Even
today this one of the Jack the Ripper photos is very
disturbing and the words of her landlord, John McCarthy,
that her murder looked "...more like the work
of a devil than the work of a man..." still
ring true.
She
was heard singing in her room in the early
hours of the morning of the 9th November 1888. Around
2am she was seen to bring a man back to her room.
At around 4am several of Mary's neighbours claimed
to have heard a faint cry of "Murder!" However,
Dorset Street was a very violent street and drunken
brawls were commonplace in which the people often
made similar cries. So Mary's neigbours ignored what
was probably a cry for help as the Ripper struck
in that tiny room in Miller's Court. The site of
Miller's Court is now occupied by a food warehouse. ...JAY
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