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Upper North Street, LONDON, E14 6DU

An attractive terrace of grade II listed Georgian town houses, a happy survival in an area comprehensively redeveloped since the Second World War. The effect is spoiled somewhat by the mauve wheely bins.

Built in the 1950s to the designs of architect Adrian Gilbert Scott (1882-1963).

This is the Jeremiah Street entrance of Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest opened in 1902. See http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.141/chapterId/2941/The-welfare-of-seamen.html for contemporary photos. Earlier there was a small mission, run by the Wesletyan Methodist church, consisting of a plainly furnished reading room and rest room with a third room available for daily Bible and Prayer meetings. An elementary nautical school ran three mornings a week and services were held on Monday and Friday evenings. Prior to that on this spot stood a tavern appositely named The Magnet - a considerable attraction, no doubt, to the recently-paid-off sailors who thronged this area. The Methodists had it closed down and took over the site.

Seen from the junction with North Street. A combination of enemy action and slum clearance schemes means that most of Poplar has a post-war appearance. In this view there are various housing styles and a few remaining older buildings.

By Cecil Handisyde and D. Rogers Stark, 1949-51. Very distinctive and original owing to its angular tower (the bell apparently survives from the predecessor destroyed in the war) and copper-clad body set within a concrete frame. It was included in the Exhibition of Live Architecture, part of the Festival of Britain at the nearby Lansbury Estate.

This world-famous hostel and retirement home for merchant seamen started out in 1887 as Methodist mission in Jeremiah Street (right), at the end of the century a new building went up which is now sandwiched between C20 extensions, this one fronting East India Dock Road to the south, the other behind to the north. It accommodates 170 men of all faiths. The old institute was bombed during WW2 but never closed. For full history of the QSVR see http://www.qvsr.org.uk/history.htm

Looking south-southeast down Saltwell Street.

A note on Clara Grant: "Clara Grant was a primary school teacher and settlement worker in London’s East End, who moved from the West Country to Bow at the turn of the last century. She became Head Teacher at the Infant’s School in Devon’s Road in 1900, quickly instituting a number of thoughtful changes that directly improved the lives of the children in her care. She revised class room techniques of structure and punishment, provided a hot breakfast for the children in her care, supplied them with some clothes and shoes and – most famously – created and distributed Farthing Bundles. Intended to provide children with toys to call their own, they were available for a token cost and the proceeds were directed back into the Settlement funds. These packages eventually earned her the affectionate nickname of the Bundle Woman of Bow." - quoted from this http://playtimes.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/clara-grant-and-the-farthing-bundles/.

A seamen's hostel -- the last in East London and the largest in the UK. Many retired seafarers now live here. See the Merchant Navy Welfare Board link http://www.mnwb.org/index.php/news-reader.89/items/queen-victoria-seamens-rest.665.html

The 1928 clock, and clock tower, on the former school in East India Dock Road commemorates the centenary of George Green's original foundation in Chrisp Street nearby. That school was outgrown and rebuilt here in 1883.