The Old Bow Station and the Bow Palais

The old Bow Station was a grand affair. The type of building, which if it was still there, today would have been compared with the likes of St. Pancras and widely acclaimed as a great example of Victorian architecture.

Instead, the space once occupied by this formerly grand building is taken by the car park of an Enterprise car hire firm. The offices of the hire firm being an uninspiring prefab building, itself designed to be temporary in nature.

Photograph of Bow Station circa 1904 — The grand old Bow Station in a photograph from around 1904. The image is looking east towards the Bow Church

A modern day scene of Bow Road. The opticians building on the left is the building to the far left of the old picture. The old Bow station would have occupied the space where the Enterprise car rental is now. The building on the extreme right of this pic is also still there and can be seen on the right hand side of the 1905 pic.

History of Bow Station

So what happened to the old Bow Station? Built in 1850 but significantly expanded in 1870 to include a large concert hall. It was to become a key and well known part of the East End at the heart of the Bow Road. In 1881 the hall became the Bow and Bromley Institute. In 1887 it became the East London Technical College. In 1911 it became a Salvation Army Hall. Then in 1930 it became known as the Embassy Billiard Hall.

During the Second World War, like many places in the East End, the building and the rail track suffered a lot of bomb damage. This resulted in the stopping of passenger services with the former station becoming a depot. The hall however gained a new lease of life. This time becoming the Bow Palais, a dance hall famed for its ballroom and Irish dancing.

Pic 12. Bow Station c.1928 — Bow Station around 1928

The same scene today. The only buildings contemporary from the 1928 picture are the ones on the far left behind the Enterprise sign

Final Days of the Bow Station

The ballroom eventually became known as the Emerald Ballroom. However this was destroyed by fire in 1956. It led to the halls demolition the year later and the retention of only the lower half of the building. A clothing factory which had been operating above the hall at the time is believed to have been where the fire started.

The remnants of the building operated as a parcel depot until 1965. However that also closed and the remainder of the building was demolished in 1975. It left only a few small clues that it ever existed at all. One wall forming the northern boundary of the Enterprise car rental yard is the only real clue that something existed here. The wall contains remnants of what might have been some of the grand columns. It is often missed and not really noticeable to the masses of people who would pass it everyday.

1. Bow station c.1960 — Bow Station in 1960 after the top floors had been removed following a fire in 1956. The Double R club would have been located in one of the houses to the right

The Bow Palais and the Double R club

The formation of the Bow Palais after the war ended up being important in the terms of the culture of the East End. It became a kind of hub especially for young people growing up in the area. There are many reports of people meeting their future spouses there. The Palais, pronounced ‘Palace’ was the place to “meet and to be seen”.

Another building of note also existed for a while at the building next door to the Palais. At 145 Bow Road, this building is now also gone but it was for a time the Double R club, a venture established in 1957 by Reggie and Charlie Kray, Ronnie was in prison at the time. The club had live music, a gym and a boxing ring making is essentially a multi-purpose venue. It was also the second club owned by the Krays in this area of the East End as they already owned a billiard hall on Eric Street, just up the road in Mile End.

Pic 6. Bow station looking south c.1949 — Looking south into Bow Station circa 1949. The school building on the left is still there

bow station — Not quite the exact location of the shot above but this image shows the same stretch of line just from a different angle. The line has now been coverted for use by the DLR and you can see Bow Church DLR in the background. The school building is out of shot to the left

Bow Road Today

The area has changed beyond recognition from the days of the old Bow Palais. Some buildings remain but they are hidden now amongst the more modern constructions. The area did suffer a lot of bomb damage during the second world war but council initiatives to remove slum housing was also responsible for the removal of much of the architecture. Bow Station’s demise though can clearly be linked back to the war when bombs which hit the building at the line deprived it of its prime purpose, that of carrying passengers. The buildings fall was then dealt a fatal further blow by the devastating fire which happened in 1956.

There are some buildings which still remain though although much has disappeared. The house, which is now a dentist, on the corner of Kitkat Terrace is still there and the station would have stood on the other side of that small road next door. There is also a house on the corner of Fairfield Road and Bow Road which can often be seen in old pictures of the area and which aids the locating of the buildings in between. That became the Westminster and later the Natwest Bank and would have been familiar to people of the area.

The modern photographs in this post were taken on 25 March 2018. This post forms the second part of our historical series looking at old Bow. The first part looked at the old building and locations used by the East London Federation of the Suffragettes.

For more articles about the history of Bow, take a look at: