Brick Lane
Whitechapel, E1

The local community has recently renamed this area "Bangla Town"

The Bangladeshis came here as seamen in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, bringing their skills in cooking, practiced on the boats and in lodging houses, so to open the first Asian restaurants in Britain.

Brick Lane is an excellent place to find a good cheap curry restaurant where you can take your own beer or wine.
At the junction with Hanbury Street, there's a cluster of particularly excellent Bangladeshi restaurants.
Walk down towards Whitechapel High Street and there's more curry restaurants and shops selling foods, sweets, saris and fabrics.

Walk up towards Bethnal Green Road and at 159 Brick Lane you'll find the famous Beigel Bakery that is open 24 hours a day.

Don't miss the Sunday morning market.

In medieval times bricks and tiles were manufactured in Brick Lane.
Wealth was introduced by the arrival of Huguenot silk weavers.

In 1724 Ben Truman established the Black Eagle Brewery at the junction of Hanbury Street.
His own house was at 4 Princelet Street.
Brewing smells and the constant clatter of horses hooves dominated as teams pulled carts of hops, corn and hay to the brewery and then took away the full barrels of beer.
The brewery has closed down, but you can take a free conducted tour from Tuesday to Thursday at 10:30am.

By the middle of the 19th century the area was a slum of narrow alleways and courts, into which about one million people were crowded, the vast majority in single poorly-furnished rooms in decaying houses and tenements, which had neither adequate water supplies nor proper sewage facilities.

Today's Brick Lane is a busy narrow road.

Some of the street-names of the roads running off it have a kind of mythology to them.
Chicksand Street is reputed to be where Bram Stocker stayed on his return to Transylvania.
Flower and Dean Street was the address of most of Jack the Ripper's victims at some stage in their lives and Hanbury Street is where Annie Chapman was murdered by the Ripper.

Old Montague Street has hardly changed in the last two hundred years.

Halal butchers have replaced kosher ones and the synagogues have become mosques, the Jewish men who shuffled along Brick Lane are now shuffling Bengali men.

The rich, colourful, vibrant Brick Lane.
The tastiest Restaurants the most creative Artists and the biggest Festivals.

You'll be spoilt for choice when you come to eat in Brick Lane there is a variety of Indian food, each Restaurant has its own style, taste and atmosphere, ask anyone where a good place is to have a curry and you'll be sure to be directed to Brick Lane.

Every year Brick Lane holds two Festivals - Baishaki Mela and Curry Festival.
You will be entertained with all their great colour, excitement and culture.
Brick Lane has become popular for these annual events and now they are a common place every year.

To add to the richness and creativity of the Brick Lane, there are famous Artists who work and live in Brick Lane from the likes of Tracy Emin, Gilbert and George.
Sit outside a cafe in Brick Lane and spot as many famous Artists as possible.

The restaurants assail your senses with the smell of spices and Bengali cooking.

The bhangra music that flows out of the cafes is also Bengali but the Jewish bakery, Beigal Bake, is testament to the area’s Jewish history, and it buzzes with satisfied customers 24/7.

There's quite a buzz at the Old Truman Brewery too, an 11-acre site that is now jammed full of fashion designers, artists, photographic studios, gallery space and bars.

An East End institution, the Brick Lane Music Hall offers a great night's entertainment in the tradition of Victorian music hall, a great example of East End hospitality.

In September, the area's newest migrants, the Bangladeshis, lead the revelries at a recently established Curry Festival of food and culture.

---