Poplar: Chrisp Street Market Clock Tower
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Poplar: Chrisp Street Market Clock Tower by Nigel Cox as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Poplar: Chrisp Street Market Clock Tower
Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 19 Aug 2008
After the devastation of many parts of Poplar during the Blitz, it was one of the first areas to be redeveloped after the Second World War. Chrisp Street Market was designed as part of the Festival of Britain in 1951, and the iconic clock tower was completed in 1952 to the designs of the architect Frederick Gibberd. The tower is about 75 feet or about 23 metres high and featured a viewing platform below the clock, accessible by two staircases, one ascending and one descending, that are visible through the open brickwork. The viewing platform was designed to enable views of the surrounding Lansbury Estate. The market place was the first to be designed specifically as a pedestrianized one in the UK, creating the sort of shopping environment that is taken for granted these days. As ever with public clocks the working and accuracy says a lot about the general level of maintenance of a building and here it is pleasing to report that the clock was telling the right time. The bus is on service D8 bound for Stratford.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.512362
Longitude
-0.014013