Swallow Gardens

[KatBradshaw]

How about this for East End Humour?
[ATTACH]3052[/ATTACH]

That is a GREAT number plate!!

This site certainly does seem to be very isolated and creepy. Poor Frances to have died in such a horrible place.

[Sam Flynn]

Love the registration number, there must be money to be made in the seafood trade.

...I see from the DVLA Personalised Registrations website that "Y1 EEL" is on sale for £999, and I'd imagine "X1 EEL" wouldn't be too far off that price.

Anyone willing to shell out?

[George Hutchinson]

You have too much time on your hands, Gareth.

Don't fancy finding me FARSON'S GUIDE TO THE BRITISH, do you?

PHILIP

[Sam Flynn]

Don't fancy finding me FARSON'S GUIDE TO THE BRITISH, do you?

I'll see what I can do, Phil...

[John Bennett]

Sorry its a bit off topic, but...

...I see from the DVLA Personalised Registrations website that "Y1 EEL" is on sale for £999, and I'd imagine "X1 EEL" wouldn't be too far off that price.

Anyone willing to shell out?

Near where I live is Crews Hill, well known for its garden centres. There is a place that sells soil, mulch, compost, bark chippings, all that stuff.

The owner's number plate reads OLD 501L.

And a guy who drinks in my sister's local has DEL 80Y.

Anyway, back to our original programming....

[Sam Flynn]

Anyway, back to our original programming....

...come 2040, the "SW41LOW" reg mark will be on sale. Plenty of time to save up for it

[Observer]

Hi Sam

...I see from the DVLA Personalised Registrations website that "Y1 EEL" is on sale for £999, and I'd imagine "X1 EEL" wouldn't be too far off that price.

Anyone willing to shell out?

Groan......that's what I was intimating when I sadi (whose sadi?) there was money to be made in the seafood trade. anyone willing to fork out a thousand squid....er quid for a number plaice.....er plate can't be short of a few bob.

all the best

Observer

[Stephen Thomas]

I was not entirely jesting. It would seem that some money could be made showing the site after a bit of tidying.

Hi Stan

If it was in Spitalfields you'd be right. There must have been hundreds of thousands of people on Ripper tours over the years but this place is slightly too far away and only gets visited by hardcore enthusiasts.

[John Bennett]

Hi Stan

If it was in Spitalfields you'd be right. There must have been hundreds of thousands of people on Ripper tours over the years but this place is slightly too far away and only gets visited by hardcore enthusiasts.

Indeed. I have been visiting the East End since 1982 and the first time I went to Chamber Street (and Pinchin St for that matter) was 2006!

D minus - must try harder.

[kensei]

Hi Stan

If it was in Spitalfields you'd be right. There must have been hundreds of thousands of people on Ripper tours over the years but this place is slightly too far away and only gets visited by hardcore enthusiasts.

I don't know if this will resurrect this thread after more than seven months, but I visited Swallow Gardens last September while vacationing in London and taking a very thorough solo Ripper tour. I guess that makes me a hardcore enthusiast. I had Hutch & Clack's book with me, and its photos to use for reference, but I still had to ask around a bit once I got to the overhead railroad. I knew I was close, but it took some figuring out, and the whole time someone up on the railroad was jackhammering or something, plus there was the intermittent noise of the trains going by. Extremely noisy. I first asked for information in a rent-a-car place, and then a model-making shop, which were within a few yards of each other. It was in the model shop that a man thought he recognized one of the Swallow Gardens photos in the book and pointed me in the right direction, just a hop skip and a jump away. I found it. There were two trucks and a van parked very tightly in front of it. I stood videotaping it while narrating the story for a few minutes, and then went in to leave a rose quartz stone at the site, which I had been doing to commemorate every murder site on my tour. Only then, as I squeezed in between the vehicles, did I see that there was a man sitting inside the van. I just nodded at him and said hello, without any response from him, as I tossed my stone up against the closed metal door. That was my memorial to Frances Coles. Then I was off to Berner (Henriques) Street a few minutes later.

In Hutch & Clack's book they describe Swallow Gardens as being the creepiest feeling of all the Ripper sites. I didn't get that feeling at all, but I was there at midday. I'm sure a night time visit would be much different. To me, I think the Board School at the Polly Nicholls site was the creepiest.

[George Hutchinson]

^ It's actually Martin Fido who said it was his personal creepiest London murder site - we just concured with the view by saying that it is very dark and enclosed as you walk towards it (from Mansell Street) even today. I've not actually been in Durward Street at night - far too sensible!

If you think the Board School is scary now, have you seen photos of how it looked after the 1980s fire? That'll give you nightmares!

PHILIP

[kensei]

Hi Phil. I have not seen post-fire pics of the Board School. Where can they be found?

[George Hutchinson]

I think you may have to trawl through the EE pics thread! I don't have copies myself - quite probably John or Rob took shots when they were in the locale before it was all done up.

PHILIP

[John Bennett]

Kensei

Here's a link to the photo archive where you'll find a number of Board School shots taken by Rob Clack in the 1980s.

http://photos.casebook.org/thumbnails.php?album=1&page=2

[Andrew Firth]

With regards to the sinister nature of Swallow Gardens and Chamber Street, when approaching from Mansell Street, I have to agree that even in broad daylight, the covered areas under the railway have a certain atmosphere of their own.....





All the best

Andrew