A Little Part of Poplar

When you start researching you family tree you begin by collecting just names and dates, but gradually you want to know more about them, such as what they looked like and also where they lived and nothing does this better than a photograph, unfortunately if they lived and loved in London's eastend there is little chance of that.

One of my family lines arrived in Poplar in 1855 to work in the London Docks, as did successive generations. It was the Docks that were to be the target of Hitler's bombers in the next century, apart from destroying the warehouses any street built close to that area was also a target as houses were flattened and people were killed.

When peace came in 1945 Poplar was battered but not out, and to rehouse the families made homeless by the bombing the government embarked on the quick fix of assembling prefabricated houses on the debries where once houses stood.

http://www.britishpathe.com/1record.php?id=12878

The 'prefab' as they were known were only supposed to be used for a few years but some remained until the 1960's/70's and it was during these years that the massive 'slum clearances' began. Whole streets containing families that had lived there for years were wiped away, young married people had no chance of getting on to the housing waiting list had had no option but to buy, and this meant moving out of the borough into Essex where housing was relatively inexpensive at that time.

Some rebuilding was done post war such as the school and flats in the above photo built on one of the many areas destroyed on the first day of the Blitz. The block of flats on the left of the picture was built in 1952 the same year as Sir Edmund Hillary conquered Everest and were named after him.

It was demolished a few years ago and replaced by dozens of small houses. In front of the school was a playground and football pitch which is now a green space and a community hall .

Behind the school there were once rows of small terraced houses. Running down the centre from St Michael's church to East India Dock Road was St Leonards Road with plenty of side streets of housing running off at right angles all these have now vanished and with the houses went most of St Michael's congregation. 

St Leonards Road itself was full of every type of shop and none was duplicated, and of course we there was the obligatory pub on nearly every corner, then it was designated for slum clearance and the shops as well as the surrounding streets, were demolished all shops that is except for one a greengrocers owned by the Jolly family were determined they wouldn't bow down to the council diktat and remain they did.

As the shops fell around him Joe Jolly kept on trading until his shop was the only one standing, after a while the council decided he wasn't going to move so they grassed the area around him and that is how it stayed for some years.

At the far end of Jolly's Green as it became known stood Balfon Tower and Carradale House which mopped up some of the families from the streets that used to stand and there, including my Aunt and Uncles families and my nans which disappeared under Carradale House.

Just a small portion of Jolly's Green can be seen in the foreground.

Both Balfron Tower and Carradale House were the work of architect Erno Goldfinger, and have been designated as 'listed buildings' and part of the surrounding area a 'conservation area'. This doesn't however cover Jolly's Green.

Time it seems takes care of most things and the time came when Jolly's greengrocers became vacant and the only thing left to mark his being there was the name 'Jolly's Green' which the council adopted when building the new housing estate on the open space.

The houses of course have far more comfortable amenities than those they replaced, electricity for a start, nans house only had gas lighting until a couple of years before it was demolished, then there was an indoor bathroom, central heating, double glazing, fitted kitchens and so on.

In the picture at the top of the page it's the church of St Michaels and all Angels that stands out above the ranks of terraced houses where it's congregation once lived out their lives.

Although the church didn't suffer quite the same fate as the streets around it for it still stands but no longer functions as a working 'house of God'.

Like many other churches up and down the country it was sold of for housing some years ago. So now instead of being a living church it's become a curch people live in.

So this part of Poplar like almost every other part of the borough has changed beyond recognition from the place it was pre WW2, and maybe it's just sentimentality but I don't think the changes have been for the better.

As a postscript this is St Leonards Avenue, just one of the streets that ran off of St Leonards Road, as you can see the photo was taken in 1935, but it stayed the same until it too was swept away in the 1970's, it's the street where my G G Grandfather and members of his family lived, and it is the Poplar I like to remember.

 Posted by kitwint at 2:56 AM