| AdminHistory | Land in Baker's Row (later Vallance Road), was acquired by the Society of Friends as a burial ground in 1687. The first lease, due to expire in 1792, was renewed for a further 500 years (1). The last burial occurred in 1857.
The burial ground fell into neglect, to become 'a resort of evil characters by night as well as by day' (2). Later William Booth (1829-1912) conducted the first meetings in his open-air evangelistic campaign in Whitechapel from this site (3) and the Christian Mission, better known as the Salvation Army, was formed.
The former burial ground was leased by the Society of Friends to the Whitechapel District Board of Works (4). The site was redesigned and opened as a public park in 1880. Campaigners had emphasized the benefits of turning disused burial grounds and churchyards into parks. By 1896, the roadway from Whitechapel Road and Bethnal Green Road had been renamed Vallance Road (5). The Vallance Road Recreation Ground was named after William Vallance, long-standing Clerk to the Whitechapel Board of Guardians.
Between 1855-1860, the Spitalfields Workhouse, just outside the Quaker Burial Ground, on the east side of Vallance Road, was rebuilt to unify the Whitechapel Union Workhouse (6). The Whitechapel Workhouse's Male Casual Ward was demolished in 1860, and the site sold off. The Whitechapel Union Infirmary occupied part of the site until 1924, when its name changed to St. Peter's Hospital (7). The building was bomb-damaged in WW2, and eventually demolished. Treves House and Lister House, distinguished by their modernist design, were built on the site in the 1960s. Recently, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH) reversed its policy following a successful campaign against the proposed demolition of the buildings (8). LBTH then supported a recommendation to refurbish, rather than replace the buildings.
In 2002, new housing was built on three sides of the Recreation Ground (10). The garden was relandscaped and reopened in 2003. The refurbishment included a new playground and tree planting. Today, Vallance Road Gardens lies above the site of the Whitechapel Crossover, part of the Crossrail project. The scheduled tunnelling of this area at depth (11) was achieved without disturbing the densely packed burial ground.
Sources of information:
1. London Gardens Trust : Vallance Road Gardens - Inventory Site Record; Full Site Description (londongardenstrust.org)
2. 'Roundabout Old East London': p.7 in East London Observer, Saturday 4th July, 1914 (British Newspaper Archive)
4. 'The Christian Mission' (salvationarmy.org.uk)
4/5. 'Vallance Gardens (former Quakers' Burial Ground)': January 3 2018, in surveyoflondon.org
6. 'Parish Burial Ground, Almshouses and Workhouse': August 24, 2017 in surveyoflondon.org
See also 'The Vallance Road (Charles Street/Bakers Row) Workhouse' (workhouses.org)
7. 'St. Peter's Hospital' in Lost Hospitals of London
8. 'Londoners win battle with council to save homes from demolition': D. Taylor in The Guardian, 14 August 2009
9. Lister House and Treves House: LBTH Update, 21 August 2019 (towerhamlets.gov.uk)
10. London Gardens Trust (Ibid)
11. Archaeology Early East Fieldwork Report Archaeological Watching Brief at Vallance Road Gardens, Whitechapel (prepared by MOLA): Crossrail 2014 (learninglegacy.crossrail.co.uk) |