English Heritage in East End
English Heritage has a pretty demanding remit: ‘making sure that the historic environment of England is properly maintained and cared for’. Employing some of the country’s best architects, archaeologists and historians, they aim to help people understand and appreciate why the historic buildings and landscapes around them matter.
And England has a lot of ‘historic environment’ to care for. Sites under the protection of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (to give it its full title) include the earliest traces of civilization and building (Stonehenge). They include the fruits of the industrial revolution (the world’s first iron bridge, at Ironbridge in Shropshire). And there significant buildings of the 20th century, such as Centre Point, the BT Tower … even our red telephone boxes.
A large part of English Heritage’s work is to do with the country’s industrial heritage in fact. We’ve got plenty of that in the East End, including the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Britain’s oldest manufacturing company, the foundry was established in 1570 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and has operated continuously since then. Big Ben and the Liberty Bell are just two of the bells produced by the foundry over the centuries.
But much of the East End’s industrial and architectural heritage has disappeared over the last century. In the last 20 years, old factories, wharves and warehouses have likely been preserved, probably to be transformed into expensive apartments. But until the 1980s, redundant buildings were likely to be torn down. Many that escaped bombing in World War II were razed in the redevelopments of the 1950s and 60s.
Now, a great many sights and sites that will never be seen again are available on the English Heritage Viewfinder website, at http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk.
A series of new collections of photographs are now online. England at Work traces our industrial heritage. Some 5,000 images show how it was in English agriculture, coal mining, railways, textiles, tin mining, transport, windmills … some of the industries hardly exist anymore
There are Henry W Taunt’s 13,800 photographs of the River Thames in Oxfordshire and around. And a collection of 2,800 photographs by Eric de Maré illustrate what de Maré termed the “functional tradition” within architecture: canals, bridges and modern architecture.
York and Son, meanwhile, was one of the largest English producers of lantern slides in the second half of the 19th century. These fragile images of London street views, buildings and events, views of the River Thames, Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and enduring features of London life (such as traffic jams) are now available to view online).
And most interesting for East End viewers, there are the pictures of S W Rawlings. Stanley W Rawlings worked for the Port of London Authority, including a period as photographer in the Information Office. A collection of 1,300 photographs (broadly dated 1945-65) records life on and around the River Thames, its docks and its shipping. Other early snappers include Robert Howlett, who in 1857 pointed his lens at Brunel’s monumental Great Eastern ocean liner, being constructed at Blackwall.
There is a crowded Regent’s Canal Dock, the sailing boats crowding out any view of the water, and a view of two things you won’t see in the Commercial Road today: trams and a constable on point duty. And we come right up to date with a view of 1 Canada Square from Cabot Square … the old docks finding a new life.