| AdminHistory | The Domesday Manor of Stepney, by then known as Stebunheath, covered most of Stepney parish as constituted in the 13th century, and parts of Hackney and Shoreditch. Stepney was the only district in East London to be entered in Domesday, when the principal landowner was the Bishop of London.
The (Bishop's) Manor House was variously known as Bishopswood (c.1465) and Bishops Hall (c.1548) and belonged to successive Bishops of London until 1550. A sitting Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner (1539-49 and 1553-59) had resided there, hence the term the Bonner Hall Estate. Historically, the area comprised largely of the Manor of Stepney was occupied by a few scattered dwellings in open fields (1). When the brick manor house was pulled down in 1652, only the outer walls remained.
Bishops/Bonner's Hall was conveyed to a Mary Deene in 1653. The following year she sold the Estate to a William Robinson one of the Trustees, and a Parliamentary Major and colleague of her late husband. Robinson then conveyed the Estate to the Crisp family. An attempt by creditors of the Earl of Cleveland on the Robinson title failed. Consequently, Bishop's Hall remained with Robinson's descendants.
Towards the end of the 17th century, there was substantial rebuilding. Open pastureland gave way to market gardens (a source of fresh produce), and brick kilns supplying the construction requirements of an expanding city (2). The increase in population led to rapid urbanisation. Most of the land was originally parkland, associated with the Bishop's Manor. By the mid-1800s, it had become spoiled by the extraction of gravel and clay for making bricks.
The loss of open land was linked to poor levels of public health and life expectancy. Thus in 1840, a 30,000-signature petition called for a green space to be made available for the 'healthful recreation' of the East End (3). The Government sold property to raise money for the acquisition of, by now, poor quality land, for the purposes of creating the park. Also, Trustees for the Robinson family conveyed Bonner's Hall and fields to the Commissioners of Woods, to form Victoria Park.
Sources of information:
'Bethnal Green: Estates' in british-history.ac.uk
'Stepney: Manors and Estates' in british-history.ac.uk
'Victoria Park, Hackney (Tower Hamlets)' in historicengland.org
History of Victoria Park (LBTH)
1/2/3 Character Appraisal in Victoria Park Conservation Area (2009) LBTH. |
| CustodialHistory | Previously held in Local History Library (L.2657), it was a gift of Bishopsgate Institute, Jan 1967 |