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Local Spitalfields paper from 1996

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  • Local Spitalfields paper from 1996

    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
    Chelsea FC. TRUE BLUE. 💙


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