IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Cleveland Way, LONDON, E1 4TZ

Geoffrey Fletcher wrote in 'The London Nobody Knows' in 1962: "Bellevue Place is off Stepney Green, down a little street. A green gate opening in the wall leads to a totally unexpected corner of London. Bellevue Place is well named. It is a cul-de-sac with a paved pathway leading to the far end, under a creeper-covered wall. The cottages are early nineteenth century, and have true cottage gardens fenced with wooden rails, pointed at the top. Here are unbelievably rural gardens, full of lilac, roses, hydrangeas, wallflowers, lupins, and delphiniums – all a minute’s walk from the Mile End Road." Amazingly when so much else has changed, well over half a century later Bellevue Place is unchanged. It still has the green gate, seen here from Cleveland Way, which leads beyond the gate to the cottages seen at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6055566

Geoffrey Fletcher wrote in 'The London Nobody Knows' in 1962: "Bellevue Place is off Stepney Green, down a little street. A green gate opening in the wall leads to a totally unexpected corner of London. Bellevue Place is well named. It is a cul-de-sac with a paved pathway leading to the far end, under a creeper-covered wall. The cottages are early nineteenth century, and have true cottage gardens fenced with wooden rails, pointed at the top. Here are unbelievably rural gardens, full of lilac, roses, hydrangeas, wallflowers, lupins, and delphiniums – all a minute’s walk from the Mile End Road." Amazingly when so much else has changed, well over half a century later Bellevue Place is unchanged. It still has the green gate in Cleveland Way as at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6055563, which leads beyond the gate to the cottages seen here.

Geoffrey Fletcher wrote in 'The London Nobody Knows' in 1962: "Bellevue Place is off Stepney Green, down a little street. A green gate opening in the wall leads to a totally unexpected corner of London. Bellevue Place is well named. It is a cul-de-sac with a paved pathway leading to the far end, under a creeper-covered wall. The cottages are early nineteenth century, and have true cottage gardens fenced with wooden rails, pointed at the top. Here are unbelievably rural gardens, full of lilac, roses, hydrangeas, wallflowers, lupins, and delphiniums – all a minute’s walk from the Mile End Road." Amazingly when so much else has changed, well over half a century later Bellevue Place is unchanged. It still has the green gate in Cleveland Way as at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6055563, which leads beyond the gate to the cottages seen here.

In 1892 the Wickham family of Drapers began to expand their thriving business by buying up the neighbouring shops, intending to acquire the whole block. But one jeweller named Spiegelhalter refused to budge. Thinking that the jeweller would eventually give in Wickham built his huge store around it, intending to fill the gap upon Spiegelhalter's capitulation. This magnificent facade built in 1927 was intended to be "The Harrods of the East End", and to a large degree it was. But the old jeweller held out to the end, and the gap remains to this day. Wickham's closed following the decline in the popularity of department stores in the sixties, and the jewellers some years later.

Looking west-northwest.

Ian Nairn wrote in Nairn's London in 1966 “Messrs Wickham, circa 1910, wanted an emporium. Messrs Spieghalter, one infers, wouldn’t sell out. Messrs Wickham, one infers further, pressed on regardless, thereby putting their Baroque tower badly out of centre. Messrs Spieghalter (‘The East End Jeweller’) remained, surrounded on both sides by giant columns a la Selfridges. The result is one of the best visual jokes in London, a perennial triumph for the little man, the bloke who won’t conform.” Wickham’s closed first but it was many years before Spieghalters closed and the odd façade remains to this day. See also https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6054309