London History

‘We absolutely love living in the East End … we are part of the East End and it is part of our part.’ So quoth Gilbert and George (rather like Ant and Dec we have no way of knowing which one said it and indeed which one is which. But that’s the point isn’t it. And like or loathe their art, G&G do walk it like they talk it. They were in Spitalfields long before it got trendy the first time let alone the second. The first wave being the likes of Dennis Severs, Dan Cruickshank and the Spitalfields Society, who did sterling work to prevent the area being razed by developers, the second being the Nathan Barley generation. You can see the major retrospective of G&G at Tate Modern until May 7th, 2007.

Mental health services at St Clement’s Hospital in Bow Road, E3, begin transferring to a new, purpose-built site at the old Mile End Hospital in Bancroft Road. It draws to a close the sometime grim history of St Clement’s which started life as a Victorian workhouse and was then used as an asylum … every bit as grim as it sounds. We’ll be looking at St Clement’s and the London Victorian asylums in a piece on www.eastlondonhistory.com in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime go to East End Life for possible updates.