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The building on the site of Kelly's room - help needed

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  • The building on the site of Kelly's room - help needed

    Can I just double check when the building that now covers the site of Kelly's room in Millers Court was built? And what was there before it?
    I am asking because I saw this piece which puzzled me considerably:-

    The Ghost Of Mary Jane Kelly

    I and my family lived in a apartment in White Chapel that actually contained the room of Mary Jane Kelly in fact the same room where Jack the Ripper murdered her November 9th 1888. The room that used to be her Apartment at the time of the Ripper Murders was downstairs in our apartment.

    It is interesting to note that we had three cats in the Apartment in 1996 but all three cats refused to enter the room that was at one time the room of Mary Jane Kelly. We also from time to time would see the shape of a lady in the room that had been Mary Jane Kelly's that looked exactly like her.

    On the stairs that led down into the room that had been the apartment of Mary Jane Kelly we would see a dark shape on the stairs in front of you that would appear suddenly out of no where and vanish just as quickly. Those stairs were not added until 1918 which was many years after the death of Mary Jane Kelly.

    The cats we had in the apartment there in 1996 would go to the top step leading down into the former room of Mary Jean Kelly but they would go no further. The older mother cat would go to the top of the stairs and hiss at something down those stairs. But she would not go down those stairs.

    At first when we moved into the apartment we had the downstairs room as a guest bedroom but who ever slept there would feel something jump on the bed with them and nothing would be there or something would jerk the covers off you while you lay there. Eventually we just turned it into a storage room. It was not until we had lived there two years until we learned the truth about the downstairs room and the Jack the Ripper murder that occurred there.


    How recently would there have been a residential building on the site of Millers Court?

    This article is at

  • #2
    Kelly's place, No. 26 was a either warehouse or parking garage in '72 when I was there. Earlier in 1960 (Feb), the papers reported a murder "at the same place where Jack the Ripper struck". The building was a gambling establishment known as the Pen Club.


    Dorset Street was renamed Duval Street in 1904.
    In 1920 the Corporation of London purchased Spitalfields Market. A major expansion was planned and included in the work was the demolition of the whole of the north side of Duval Street. Obviously that included Miller's Court. The new fruit exchange opened in 1928, so demolition must have preceded it by some time.
    Yet another new market development in the 1960s saw Duval Street disappear as an official thoroughfare. It became just an anonymous road which acted as a parking place for market lorries. The buildings on the south side of Dorset Street were covered with a multi-story car park; those on the north side by a large building which has variously been used as a market building, a sports hall and a storage warehouse for an import-export company.


    The above, thanks to Viper, RIP.

    Regards, Jon S.
    Regards, Jon S.

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi Chris,

      Interesting post. I've just read the one above it on the link, where Leather Apron chases a screaming & already badly cut woman near Whitechapel Tube Station - presumably intended to be Polly Nichols. Many witnesses are referred to, but none is actually named or quoted. Funny that!

      I had wondered if 1996 was a misprint for 1896, but the whole "stairs weren't there till 1918" thing knocks that on the head. Thinking about it, there must have been stairs prior to 1918, because one of the witness (Elizabeth Prater?) lived in the room above Mary's and accessed it via stairs leading from a door immediately behind No.13.

      I think this has to be fiction, as it refers to a building which, in 1996, no longer existed.

      Regards, Bridewell.
      I won't always agree but I'll try not to be disagreeable.

      Comment


      • #4
        But to show the power of tradition...When my Dad worked at the market(mid-1960's),there was a strong tradition the Fruit Exchange was haunted by MJK.....Even 'tho it wasn't actually on the site of the murder........

        Comment


        • #5
          Hi Chris.
          The haunting story is interesting but doesn't sound very convincing to me. They say the ghost "looked just like her", but we don't know what Mary looked like. And they call her Mary "Jean" Kelly.

          Can you tell me what was built on the site between the late 20's when Miller's Court was pulled down and the modern Fruit Exchange building going up? I'm drawing a blank. Thanks.


          Hi Steve.
          Do you have any more details you can share about Mary purportedly haunting the Fruit Exchange? Any anecdotes from those who thought they saw or heard her ghost? Did the workers take the story seriously, or was it sort of an urban legend? I'd love to hear more.

          Thank you,
          Archaic

          Comment


          • #6
            As I recall it...Dad never mentioned anything actually being seen,more a sense of a prescence...Of course it could all have been a self-fulfilling urban legend as people expected to feel something...If nothing else,his stories led to my teenage self getting Autumn of Terror from the library................

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