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Hello all,
Just thought I'd pop this one up to give a view of Spitalfields in the early part of the last Century...It's the parish magazine, Columns, Christ Church.
Note the reference to Dorset St, and how rough it was then!
Personal Column page 4
Isobel Barker
Born in Spitalfields before the First World
War. and living in the area ever since. Isobel
Barker recalls for Columns Christ Church
and Spitalfields in earlier days.
1 was born in the Tenter Ground [now the site
of the 1930s Holland estate], known as the
Dutch Tenter because there were so many
Jews of Dutch origins living there. My family
were Christians, but we always got on so well
with the Jews — wonderful people they were.
We had a dairy. The cows came in by train
from Essex to Liverpool Street, and we kept
them while they were in milk. Then they went
to the butchers. The children would buy a cake
at Oswins the baker around the corner and then
come and buy milk from us.
At Christ Church, i have known eight
rectors. Mr Barile came as a curate. He was
terrified when he went visiting in Dorset Street
[off Petticoat Lane, now demolished]. The
children in the flats had broken all the
banisters off the stairs for firewood so you had
to be careful. I was confirmed by Mr Chard
[Rector I909-25|. He got pneumonia shortly
afterwards and died. In his days there were
proper pews, and a verger who led in the choir,
and we always referred to the altar. In 1926
Rcvd Colin Caustin Kerr came, and he was
really evangelical. We lost all the trimmings,
as he called it. He started a movement called
the Campaigners, as a result of a vision he had.
They had a special salute, and all the boys in
the Campaigners wore kilts & tammies! —
army surplus he had bought after the First
World War. It was a time then when a
clergyman's word went a long way: he
managed to get jobs for so many young men.
and he did a lot of good around here in the 30s.
In the second war. the crypt was used as an
air-raid shelter, but I was evacuated to
Thaxted, Essex. The Vicar there was Conrad
Noel; they used to call him the Red Vicar
because he once Mew a red Hag on the church.
My brother-in-law was organist in the
1930s. The last time I heard the organ play at
Christ Church was in 1957. That was when
they closed the church. There was a prayer
meeting on the Thursday, when the Bishop of
Stepney came. It was closed by the Sunday.
The old boy who always came and checked it
over wasn't there. It was a younger surveyor
who closed it — the same one who closed St
Luke's Old Street [by Hawksmoor and John
James, now derelict). The Area Dean came
along too, and they talked about us going to
another church but we had a good Church
Council and they stuck up for you.
best wishes
Phil
Just thought I'd pop this one up to give a view of Spitalfields in the early part of the last Century...It's the parish magazine, Columns, Christ Church.
Note the reference to Dorset St, and how rough it was then!
Personal Column page 4
Isobel Barker
Born in Spitalfields before the First World
War. and living in the area ever since. Isobel
Barker recalls for Columns Christ Church
and Spitalfields in earlier days.
1 was born in the Tenter Ground [now the site
of the 1930s Holland estate], known as the
Dutch Tenter because there were so many
Jews of Dutch origins living there. My family
were Christians, but we always got on so well
with the Jews — wonderful people they were.
We had a dairy. The cows came in by train
from Essex to Liverpool Street, and we kept
them while they were in milk. Then they went
to the butchers. The children would buy a cake
at Oswins the baker around the corner and then
come and buy milk from us.
At Christ Church, i have known eight
rectors. Mr Barile came as a curate. He was
terrified when he went visiting in Dorset Street
[off Petticoat Lane, now demolished]. The
children in the flats had broken all the
banisters off the stairs for firewood so you had
to be careful. I was confirmed by Mr Chard
[Rector I909-25|. He got pneumonia shortly
afterwards and died. In his days there were
proper pews, and a verger who led in the choir,
and we always referred to the altar. In 1926
Rcvd Colin Caustin Kerr came, and he was
really evangelical. We lost all the trimmings,
as he called it. He started a movement called
the Campaigners, as a result of a vision he had.
They had a special salute, and all the boys in
the Campaigners wore kilts & tammies! —
army surplus he had bought after the First
World War. It was a time then when a
clergyman's word went a long way: he
managed to get jobs for so many young men.
and he did a lot of good around here in the 30s.
In the second war. the crypt was used as an
air-raid shelter, but I was evacuated to
Thaxted, Essex. The Vicar there was Conrad
Noel; they used to call him the Red Vicar
because he once Mew a red Hag on the church.
My brother-in-law was organist in the
1930s. The last time I heard the organ play at
Christ Church was in 1957. That was when
they closed the church. There was a prayer
meeting on the Thursday, when the Bishop of
Stepney came. It was closed by the Sunday.
The old boy who always came and checked it
over wasn't there. It was a younger surveyor
who closed it — the same one who closed St
Luke's Old Street [by Hawksmoor and John
James, now derelict). The Area Dean came
along too, and they talked about us going to
another church but we had a good Church
Council and they stuck up for you.
best wishes
Phil