Stepney Green Gardens: a ribbon of green, a clock tower, and a fountain
Once known as Mile End Old Town, Stepney Green Gardens was a strip of green space saved from developers back in the 1700s and is now protected as part of Stepney Green Conservation Area.
Like entering into Narnia through the back of a wardrobe, turning off the busy Mile End Road into Stepney Green Garden, opposite the rather uninspiring Anchor Retail Park, takes you back 300 years to when Stepney Green was the last green space in a quickly developing East End.
The best way to immerse yourself in its history is to walk down the impossibly narrow cobbled lane barely wide enough for a car that runs down the eastern flank of this skinny gated park, just 20 metres wide and 320 metres in length.
The story of Stepney Green begins in the medieval period, with the earliest recorded mention of the area in the Domesday Book of 1086.
The area was originally named Stebenhythe. Then, it was a rural expanse dotted with fields and marshes. Stepney was part of the sprawling Manor of Stepney, controlled by the influential Bishops of London, leaving us the legacy of St Dunstan’s Church.
Mile End Road is an ancient route leading from London to the East, realigned to its current path following the construction of Bow Bridge in 1110. During the medieval period, it was called ‘Aldgatestrete’ because it led to Aldgate, the eastern entrance to the City of London.
The area adjacent to Mile End Road, known as Mile End Green during the medieval period, became a notable gathering spot for Londoners. It was reflected in the name Assembly Passage and still holds the same name today.
By the 18th century, the once quiet fields had given way to urban sprawl. What is now Stepney Green emerged as a distinct residential area, retaining green space that lent the district its name. You can clearly see it on John Rocque’s 1746 Map of London, marked as Mile End Old Town.

The map was made a few years before Anchor Brewery was founded by Robert Westfield and Joseph Moss in 1757. This was located where Anchor Retail Park, and the Asda, Halfords and PCWorld stores now stand, giving the shopping mall its name. The brewery later joined with John Charrington, the company becoming ‘Westfield, Moss & Charrington’.
Eventually, Moss and Westfield retired, with John and his brother Henry Charrington taking full ownership. From 1794 to 1833 Henry lived along Mile End Road in Malplaquet House.
By 1807 they were the second largest brewers in London, producing 20,252 barrels of beer per year.
The company expanded to brewing beer all across the UK. The Anchor Brewery closed in January 1975 and the brewery buildings were demolished in 1976, but the offices survive.
Although the main brewery site is used for Anchor Retail Park today, the Brewery Offices built in 1872 survive on the corner of Mile End Road and Cephas Avenue.
Like much of the East End at the time, the area had high levels of deprivation. William and Catherine Booth, co-founders of the Salvation Army, held sermons on Mile End Green in 1865 for the poor and destitute people of the East End.
In 1872, local residents in Mile End Old Town – which is now Stepney Green – campaigned to save the last remaining strip of Mile End Green from developers.
This led to the designation of a public garden by the Metropolitan Board of Works, now Stepney Green Gardens.
It was around this time that the London plane trees were planted in the area. They are some of the most efficient species at removing air pollution. The tree’s leaves and bark function as filters absorbing pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particles.
On the opposite side of the road to Stepney Green Gardens is The Clock Tower. It was erected in 1913 and was funded by local businessman William Fairbairn to serve as a memorial to his mother. William Fairbairn was a Scottish civil engineer, structural engineer and shipbuilder.
The Leonard Montefiore memorial fountain on Stepney Green is named for a young writer and philanthropist, Leonard Montefiore, who at the time of his death in 1879 was known for his philanthropic work in the East End of London. The fountain was built in 1884.
In the 20th century, Stepney Green was connected to public transport. In 1902, the Whitechapel and Bow Railway was opened with a station at Stepney Green. This line was electrified in 1905 and was later nationalised in the 1930s as part of the London Underground network. Today, it is part of the District Line.
With the East End being a hub for imports and the centre of the docklands, it was a prime target for bombing in WW2.
By 1940, the East End was known as Target Area A for German bombers. The German propaganda broadcaster, Lord Haw-Haw predicted before the Blitz even started that the Luftwaffe would “smash Stepney”.
Widespread bomb damage during the Second World War led to the redevelopment of large areas adjacent to the Conservation Area. These include the Stifford Estate, built in 1963 on the south edge of Stepney Green.
In 1973, the Conservation Area of Stepney Green was designated. It branches out from Stepney Green Gardens and includes sections of Mile End Road, Assembly Passage, Louisa Place and the start of Ben Jonson Road.

Dr.Barnado, founder of Barnado’s children’s charity is commemorated with a plaque at 58 Solent House, Ben Jonson Road.
Nowadays, Genesis Cinema and Queen Mary’s, University of London, attract younger people new to the area. But just off Mile End Road, Stepney Green Gardens continues to remind us of its past.
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my family lived down the highway in batnado gardens i was 5 and attended nicholas gibson primary school until 1959 when we moved too bow,i remember as a child our mum picking my suster and me up from school and taking uz too shadwell park for an ice cream my brother was a baby the band would play on the bandstand every afternoon it is a great memory i will always treaure.of my childhood .