About this deal
The parish church of St Mary with St Leonard was among the buildings destroyed. Its churchyard is now a wilderness garden and adventure playground, entered via the How memorial gateway. Ruinous bomb damage in the Second World War brought further clearance after 1945 and municipal and social housing filled almost the entire area. As well as meeting the needs of local people, Kingsley Hall also gave space to a variety of groups and movements, including the suffragettes and the Jarrow marchers. A blue plaque records Mahatma Gandhi’s stay here. Later it was a base for the psychoanalyst RDLaing. Kingsley Hall, PowisRoad
A range of four tenements with a centre chapel, the Drapers’ Almshouses were built in 1706. The grade II listed group is shown in the photoabove.* Bromley’ is a corruption of Old English words meaning ‘woodland clearing with brambles’, and the extended name avoids confusion with its south London namesake. It was earlier known as Bromley St Leonard, after the Benedictine priory of St Leonard, once the oldest religious house in east London. A hunting lodge that stood on what is now St Leonard’s Street was said to have been built by JamesI. Later known as the Old Palace, the building was split into two residences in1750.
Fifty-six per cent of homes in the Bromley-by-Bow ward were rented from the council or a housing association at the 2011 census – sharply down from 72 per cent at the previous census but still a very high figure. A further 24 per cent of homes were privately rented. From the 1930s the London County Council began a massive slum clearance programme, erasing the old village green and its houses andinns. Muriel and Doris Lester established the original Kingsley Hall in 1915, as part of their work among the poor of Bow. Shown in the small photo below,* the present hall was built on Powis Road in 1927–8. From the 1820s, Bromley began to fill with noxious industries and workers’ housing, some built by charities, some by profiteering jerry builders.
Bromley public hall was built on Bow Road in 1880 as the vestry hall for St Leonard’s parish. It now serves as Tower Hamlets’ register office.
Much of Bromley was a slum by the late 19th century and it became an early target for civic improvement. After the dissolution of the monasteries the manor was granted to Sir Ralph Sadleir, principal secretary of state to Henry VIII. The British Museum holds his account of the estate’s properties, drawn up in 1540. By this time, Bow had gained ascendancy over Bromley but the latter became a popular place to build rural retreats from the early 17th century. The replacement of the Old Palace by a school in 1894 caused an outcry and played a pivotal role in promoting future (often unsuccessful) attempts to preserve east London’s heritage. The interior of the state room was salvaged and can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum.