So would he have run?

[Lechmere]

Also there were other goods yards in the area north of the actual station but which were part of the station complex.
They would need general purpose carts to shift stuff about.
Is that cart a Pickfords cart?

[drstrange169]

Hello Lechmere,


"Do you have a date? And do you now it was taken at Broad Street?"


The photograph is dated Jan 1902 and, yes, it claims to be Broad Street goods yard. Below is another similar photo.


".The depot was remodelled several times."

I'm far from an expert, but from what I've found out so far, The major remodelling happened in the 1870's, as the goods station started to boom.


"The Address given was Eldon Street ..."

As far as I can tell, the Pickford office was in Eldon Street. Even in my youth office workers and delivery men did not mix.


"The access point D is into a building that seems to be blocked off from the Goods depot by walls."

No blocking walls. (See close up detail below)

Either way, the Eldon entrance was just as quick via Hanbury as it was Montague.

[drstrange169]

Hello Fisherman,

"... we should avoid painting ourselves into a corner when it comes to the two routes to Pickfords - no matter if the one was shorter than the other or vice versa"

I agree, I only brought it up, because Montague Street being the shortest, has been frequently cited as a reason to suspect Cross/Lechmere. I just wanted to point out that assumption was not necessarily true.

" ... Lechmere grew up very close to Old Montague Street..."

Of course these judgements are relative, but I would strongly disagree. The addresses were all the other side of Whitechapel Road and the only one that "I" would describe as vaguely close would be Sion Square and Cross/Lechmere was very young then and so was unlikely to have known Old Montague Street. As he grew up his family moved further and further away.

Interestingly, most people who reject Mrs. Stride as a Jtr victim, use the fact that it happened so far away from the others (the other side of Whitechapel Road) as one reason to exclude her.

[MrBarnett]

Thinking about Lechmere's possible routes to and from work has got me wondering how well he (or whoever else was JTR) really new the East End. The idea of someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the 'Whitechapel labyrinth' seems to sit better with top-hatted and cloaked Jack of myth than the mundane nobody epitomised by Lechmere.

Why would he know more than the main arteries and the handful of streets that he regularly used to get to work/family/pub etc. ? Wandering the streets of the East End for pleasure would have been a pretty strange thing for a LVP working man to do, I would think.

This might make an interesting thread on it's own, if only I knew how to create one!

[GUT]

G'day Mr Barnett

This might make an interesting thread on it's own, if only I knew how to create one!

To start a thread go to where you want to start it, ie this was started by going

Casebook Forums
Ripper Discussions
Suspects
General Suspect Discussion

Then at the top of the list of threads is a button "Start New Thread"

Click on the button, it will open a post reply frame, just like you use to reply
to an existing thread, whatever you put in the title box will be the name of the thread.

Hope this helps.

[MrBarnett]

Thanks, GUT, you're a gent.

[Lechmere]

This shows a close up of the yard and the wall that separates the building and entrance from the yard.

I am fairly sure there would have been a down ramp from Eldon Street to the lower level where the stables and goods yard actually was.
There is a similar entrance still for Liverpool Street on Liverpool Street

[Lechmere]

This map - from the 1930s - shows how the yard area had changed from 1893.

[Lechmere]

The major remodelling happen around 1902.

[Lechmere]

If he spent his entire life there - which apart from a couple of years when he was a baby he seems to have done - he would have had cause to wander about in those streets. With his friends as a child, through work, his children's schools and so forth.
It is a fairly safe bet that he would have been familiar with the area encompassed between Doveton Street, Broad Street and the James Street and Mary Ann Street areas, down to Betts Street - just off the Highway.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Ed,

I've started a new thread on this. I'll respond there.

MrB

[Lechmere]

I've measured the various northern routes (including cutting through the ally between Broad Street and Liverpool Street Stations) and they all come up about 100 yards longer than he Old Montague Street route - using the only known entrance to Broad Street Goods depot on Eldon Street.

[Sam Flynn]

Fish, I note that you started this topic raised on a "General Suspect Discussion" board. Was it to save time?

[Cogidubnus]

I've three sensible potential routes to walk to my town centre...they all take between twenty five and thirty minutes - one is very slightly longer than the other two...however, because it is also rather more interesting, (it has shop windows and some variety), time seems to pass quicker...it is, therefore, the route I habitually take...

I've two sensible potential routes to walk to two different bus stops for my daily commute to Chichester...the first is actually a slightly longer walk (7-8 minutes), ending at a bus stop slightly further from Chichester, but takes me past 18th/19th century houses, an 18th century school, a church with anglo saxon origins and two 17th century thatched cottages...the second is very slightly shorter, and brings me one stop closer to Chichester...but takes me through an ex council estate and is a boring as hell (6-7 minutes)...guess which one I've taken nearly every morning since 1985?

Folk don't always habitually take the most straightforward route or the geographically shortest route...for a variety of reasons...

All the best

Dave

[Lechmere]

But if a series of dead bodies started appearing down your shortest route and if you were found next to one of the bodies, and you gave Caraxticus as your name, and the first policeman you met said you said one thing while you claimed to say another - would you expect to come under suspicion?