So would he have run?

[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]

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!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[Fisherman]

Yes, unless the carmen had developed a talent for jumping brick walls, horse, cart, load and all, I think we can safely exclude the building D as having been part of any Pickfords entrance - it obviously belonged to the railway.
Since the goods depot and the yard were positioned below the station, the maps we are looking at will not tell the whole story anyway.

What I would like to point out is that I think that 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; if Lechmere was the killer, he may wisely have wanted to avoid having his killings occur at Hanbury Street addresses only. And if so, then he would be wise to employ the Old Montague Street option too, mixing up the cards and obscuring the pattern.
One more thing that belongs to the discussion is that Lechmere grew up very close to Old Montague Street; when he was around ten, he lived in Holloway Street and in Sion Square, both of these addresses being a stone´s throw away from Old Montague Street. His other, later, addresses were also to the south of Old Montague Street and none of them very far from it: James Street, Pinchin (Thomas) Street and Mary Anne Street.
He was always a lot closer to - and would have been much more aquainted with - Old Montague Street than Hanbury Street! So apart from it being a very hard thing to establish that Old Montague Street was a street that was scarier and more dangerous than Hanbury Street, it would seem that Lechmere belonged to the people who were supposed to scare others away from Old Montague Street. He belonged there, he grew up in the vicinity.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Another interesting photo.
Do you have a date? And do you now it was taken at Broad Street?
The depot was remodelled several times.

If the entrance at D was used for Pickfords then you are right that the northern route is quickest and the most logical one to take.

However I very much doubt it was the relevant entrance;

The Address given was Eldon Street - not Sun Street or Appold Street.

Broad Street was on two levels. The goods depot was on the lower level as was the Pickfords Yard - as is made clear in that news snippet. The lower level was at the front - Eldon Street - part of the station precinct.

The access point D is into a building that seems to be blocked off from the Goods depot by walls. It is probably a service entrance for the tracks.

The building that access point D opens into is marked on a map I have as a 'covered tank'. Maybe it was where waste engine fuel or some such was kept before disposal?

It is far more likely that the entrance was on Eldon Street.

[drstrange169]

One more post!

Here's the quote from the Middlesex Courier about the volume of horses going through Broad Street Station a night.

This means that Cross/Lechmere was arriving to a brightly lit hive of activity.
If he had any blood on his person or bloodied knives, he might have had difficulty disguising the fact.

[drstrange169]

Here's one of the Broad Street goods yard photos to give you an idea of how open the yard was. (As in the area marked "C')

[drstrange169]

Originally, I mistook where the goods yard entrances were. (Marked in green)

The problem was, when I started researching, I found there was no way for a loaded cart to exit from any gates in that position.
Almost all the surrounding streets were blocked by bollards. (Marked in red)

The only open road option, the promisingly named, Horse Shoe Alley was too narrow for horse drawn carts. (Marked in blue)

On looking, no other area in the surrounding district was cordoned off to this extent,
so it's reasonable to assume the blocking was deliberately set up to stop the carters from entering via those streets.

There is an entrance in Eldon Street. (Marked "A")

Unfortunately, that entrance leads to a small area (marked "B") that is not big enough to support the 300 horses a night
I found out Pickfords were using at Broad Street Station. The other problem is, the background in pictures of carts in
the Broad Street goods yard that I found, show wide open spaces that matched the building configurations of the goods yard shown on the map. (Marked "C")

On looking closely at the map, I now believe the carts entered and left though an open Shed . (Marked "D")

The roads from this exit are wide, open and avail themselves for carts to travel in all directions.
It has the added advantage that it distances the haulers from the passenger congestion in front of Broad and Liverpool Streets stations.

[drstrange169]

Hello All,

I've been puzzling over Cross/Lechmere's route and I think I've finally cracked it. (Marked in red below)

I'm pretty confident in saying it was the shortest route from Mrs Nicols murder site to the Pickfords goods yard.

As I've mentioned previously it is by far the safest route.

I'm not sure whether he would have taken Primrose or Skinner (marked in green) as they both seem to be the same distance, but the rest is clear enough.

The other, long, unsafer and, I would argue, illogical route is marked in blue.

[Lechmere]

Here is an earlier map - from 1879 - that shows that Finsbury Avenue was pedestrianized then as well.
It also shows the boundary wall as being unbroken. To prevent theft these yards tended to have limited access points. Although from court papers it seemed easy enough to get into the complex, they checked people coming out.

[Lechmere]

Dr Strange - that is a very interesting aeriel photo - where did it come from?
This is an unadorned map of the relevant area from the 1894 Ordnance Survey.

Here is a marked up one.

Finsbury Avenue was pedestrianized as can be seen by the line of the pavements which I have marked in red.
This means there cannot have been a cart entrance at the apex marked on Dr Strange's map (red circle)
The gap in the wall as seen in the aerial photo is actually a little further down the road (Green circle) and is in the middle of a building. I would suggest that most likely it is later break in the wall to allow the demolished (and at that time undeveloped) goods station to be used as a car park.

[drstrange169]

One more map.

This is from the 1888 District Railways Guide.
It shows just how straightforward the route was.

[drstrange169]

I'm talking in the dark here, as I really don't know, but it appears from the info that I've found, that the entrance the horse carts went in an out of was in Finsbury Avenue.

If this is correct, then it would make sense that Cross/Lechmere would have taken the type of route I've described, approaching via Spital Sq and on through either Primrose or Skinner.

Her are two locations for the entrance I've identified so far.