Following on from our recent post featuring the work of Ben Eine and his alphabet on Middlesex Street, this post features some of the other work to be seen in this often forgotten corner of the East End’s street art scene.
Petticoat Lane of course no longer actually exists as a thoroughfare, or at least it doesn’t in any official way, it was renamed to Middlesex Street in the 1830’s. The result of some puritan sensibilities which didn’t like the idea of having a street named after a woman’s undergarment. The name change didn’t affect the market though and the name ‘Petticoat Lane’ still lives on today in the regular market which takes place on the streets around the area.
The market itself stretches along the length of the modern day Middlesex Street and then up along Wentworth Street, taking in stretches of Leyden Street, Goulston Street, Bell Lane and Toynbee Street as they branch off. Don’t go looking for anything particularly salubrious though, where the market might once have been the place to be for cutting edge fashions in the 60’s it isn’t any more and is now full of cheap clothes, packs of batteries and off brand kitchen accessories.
So it is this area that we now class as Petticoat Lane, it takes in a number of different streets nestled in the central space between the main roads of Bishopsgate and Commercial Street. Look around the streets and you’ll find plenty of street art. It’s not necessarily a coveted area for new artists coming into the area but there are some good works and, because of the lack of turnover, a number of the current pieces have managed to survive for a number of years.
Given it’s proximity to Brick Lane and Shoreditch, the spot it doesn’t necessarily get the same sort of attention as it’s more salubrious neighbours, certainly it is off the route for the many street art tours that operate in this part of the World. However, in saying that it is well on the route for the many more ‘Jack the Ripper‘ tours which can often be seen. The streets are located bang in the middle of the area stalked by the ripper back in the late 1800’s and it would have been an area both he and his victims knew well.
So for this post we thought we’d take a look at what we could see. We’ve already covered the alphabet of Ben Eine on Middlesex Street here, so this post looks at the other works dotted around this forgotten street art hub of the East End.
Toynbee Street
Goulston Street
New Goulston Street
Leyden Street
Bell Lane
Wentworth Street
The streets of Wentworth Street, Goulston Street, New Goulston Street, Bell Lane , Toynbee Street and Leyden Street were visited on 10 December 2016 and 25 December 2017. For another post on the art of Petticoat Lane click here.
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