IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Harford Street, LONDON, E1 4GF

On the right is Steptoe and Son, its parking protected by an assortment of chairs. Beyond the Chicken Mahal takeaway and across Ben Jonson Road is a new block, Mercer Court.

Looking from the lower gates of Johnson's Lock to the site of Stepney Gas works, under redevelopment.

Ben Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor.

After the construction of a large development of flats, Candle Street now leaves Ben Jonson Road between Mercer Court (left) and Gray Court (right). The names of the succeeding blocks on the right reflect the industrial history of the area: Coalstore Court and Tramway Court. These overlook the Regent's Canal at their eastern ends.

Rare surviving canal-side warehouses in Copperfield Road, once used for one of Dr Barnado's ragged schools.

Ragged schools were free schools, initially established in the late 1860s by Thomas Barnardo to provide poor children in the East End of London with a free basic education. This building, which was originally a lime juice warehouse on the Regent's Canal, which runs at the rear, became the largest ragged school in London when it opened in 1877. It closed in 1908 as schools provided by the local government authorities were opened. After various industrial uses the buildings were saved from threatened demolition and the Ragged School Museum Charitable Trust was established to create a museum to show today's children what life was like in a Victorian school classroom. The Museum opened in 1990 and its website is here http://www.raggedschoolmuseum.org.uk/nextgen/ The distant towerblock is Waterview House, a 1969 built 16 storey structure on Carr Street, arranged into 66 flats. (From a technical point of view this is a fine illustration of how distorted tall buildings can apparently become and appear to lean into the photograph.)

Smartly tended walkways and landscaping now border the canal, seen here from Ben Jonson Road at Victory Bridge. On the left is Gray Court. Johnson's Lock is overlooked by flats on Candy Wharf.

The site is now occupied by Solent House, a block of council flats set back from Ben Johnson Road near its junction with Aston Street.

The shuttered building is on the corner of Durham Row (right - the terrace is listed http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-205930-3-19-stepney ) and Whitehorse Road. Can anyone identify the symbol on the upper left side? It appears to be a pair of wings on either side of a tower, with the date 1757.