VicLondon-MileEnd Stepney
Mile End & Stepney, the East End
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Centred on Mile End Road, this district is indistinguishable from Whitechapel. It is a poor, high-crime area with only adequate police coverage, and that is dedicated to protecting the legitimate businesses and middle class homes along the high streets. These houses are mostly new and have some of the modern amenities, like heated water, steam heating, and indoor plumbing.
This is an immigrant neighbourhood, with various populations living in tenements built either a few decades ago and quickly gone to seed, or ancient old houses that have stayed up more as an act of insolent will than decent engineering. These rookeries are often speci c to nationality or race. Mile End is heavily populated with poor Irish and Italians, Polish and Hungarians. Each group have their own gangs and neighbourhoods.
Industry is heavy here, much of it crowded out to the edges of London in the last few decades to try and clean up the city environment. Along the River Lea, there are heavy industries: mass production of chemical products, as represented by the largest employer Gas Light & Coke Company, and the Imperial Gas Works. The Three Mills distillery is tucked on the other side of the river on Three Mills Road and is always hiring (and ring). The turnover rate at these ‘dark, satanic mills’ is high, and former employees are frequently rehired for a period when need for labour spikes.
The City Union Workhouse is positioned on Mile End Road, and provides the truly destitute employment and a place to live (see the workhouse sidebar in Whitechapel entry. Across from the Workhouse is the City of London Cemetery, which has taken over from graveyards in Whitechapel and other East End neighbourhoods. A Jewish Burial yard is alongside the Regent’s Canal on Mile End Road, next to the People’s Palace.
The People’s Palace is rst dedicated in 1886 by the Princess of Wales. It takes a year to construct, and after that, it presents concerts and more edifying entertainment than the usual tripe of the East End. In the afternoon and evenings, classes are given to the poor; reading and writing, arithmetic, and the basic skills necessary to nd and keep a job in the city. Most of the students are adults, although some enterprising teens can be found here. The People’s Palace represents a middle and upper-class interest in the late Victorian period in improving the lot of the poor.
The Eastern Railway comes through the district, linking with rails from the Isle of Dogs and Limehouse at the Bow Station on Bow Road. Along with Bromley Station near the Gas Works, these stations represent the end of the line, as far as London goes. Further travel takes one out of the city and into the eastern country of the Thames Valley.
Stepney is a neighbourhood that is tucked between Mile End and Limehouse. As a result, it is a mixture of the two; a high-crime, low-income region with a smattering of middle-class streets, but predominantly industrial, with rookeries abounding.
