Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets

by Dan Cruickshank

Spitalfields

Genres: History, London, Nonfiction

784 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2015

About the author

Dan Cruickshank (1949 - ) is a British art historian and BBC television presenter, with a special interest in the history of architecture.

He holds a BA in Art, Design and Architecture and was formerly a Visiting Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Sheffield and a member of the London faculty of the University of Delaware. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a member of the Executive Committee of the Georgian Group and on the Architectural Panel of the National Trust.

Reviews

[Andi Gaywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a mighty volume of dates, references, people, history and a plethora of interesting information. Dan Cruickshank has done a monumental job of research and investigation into what is a masterpiece of writing. Being honest I struggled with the length and the detail and had to lay off for small breaks of a week or two. However it is brilliant and absorbing, finding out the history and dynamics of a small area of London and the amount of change and intrigue that it has dealt with over time. It has opened my eyes to understand pockets of communities and how they evolve and gange through migration, invention and progress.

I learnt a lot about the area from reading this book, and have always found Spitalfields to be an interesting place to visit. Dan has got me thinking and motivated to learn more about such places and the importance they play in our own lives today.

For the price of this paperback you are getting a shed load of information which is played for you so you do not have to do the laborious task of research. I have paid over a lady Godiva for a pint in this area and for the price of two Lady Godiva's you can read hundreds of years of history dripping with flavour, quenching you thirst for knowledge and wetting your appetite of history. Treat yourself to this book and let it guide you through some streets in London.

Thanks Dan Cruickshank for your dedication and research.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

[2017] This massive 800 page book is possibly too big for its paperback format as even on its first read you sense that it has a limited life; with the binding struggling to prevent the pages from escaping. However, that said, this is a wonderful book, extremely well written, in an engaging narrative style that is a joy to read. Dan Cruickshank has meticulously researched this area of London from pre-history to the modern period and he brings to life each period in vivid detail with rich illustration and warm detail about the people who inhabited these fields and streets. This area just outside the City of London was fields with isolated houses, a priory and then emerging streets in Stuart and Georgian times. It tracks the genteel folk, the workers and weavers, the waves of immigrants starting with the Huguenots, Jews, Irish and Bangladeshis. He charts the area's success and failure and maps its eventual decline with so many interesting characters popping-up along the way. Gangsters, crooks, murder victims and many others odd people.

It is generally a brilliant book. A very model of the genre of Studies of Places - the social history of people and the past centred around a particular defined place. It was an enjoyable read and easy to become absorbed in. However, for the purposes of balance there were several small niggles that I found. Firstly, I was never quite sure where the boundaries of Spitalfields actually are? The maps which I'm guessing were helpful in the original hardback, once minimised to fit a paperback were simply too small to read much detail. Then there was the unexpected single sentence questioning the motives of Dr Barnardo, which I thought was unnecessary and unpleasant - unless there was evidence presented to the contrary, which there wasn't. Then the use of 'hectares' to quantify land-size, which might have been politically correct, but I'm imagining for most readers is completely meaningless and it was confusing when house numbers change and I was never quite sure why? Lastly I wasn't quite sure why he chose to stop the story quite when he did, as you get no sense of the massive influx of muslim immigration who have transformed the area and although mentioned no real feeling for the persistent attempts to destroy the whole area by British Land Limited and others by the demolition of row upon row of seventeenth and eighteenth century houses in order to build glass, steel and concrete sky-scrappers.

However, it is a remarkable achievement and well crafted, very informative and rewarding to read and Dan Cruickshank should be congratulated.

[Ben Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating book in many ways. It’s clearly a labour of love for the author and the incredible amount of research shines through in the writing. Reading through all the chapters in order gives a brilliant timeline of the development of Spitalfields.

That being said, at several points the book gets extremely bogged down in minute architectural details and lists of how many people lived in each house. Sometimes this serves the purpose of setting the scene but there’s a whole chapter dedicated to the houses that I found fairly tedious.

I was also slightly disappointed that the Jack The Ripper case got barely a couple of pages dedicated to it. I know other works have dealt with the Ripper murders quite extensively but, given the amount of space in this book dedicated to types of staircases, I felt a little more time could have been spent on these incredibly famous events.

All in all, a great history book with real pacing issues. If I were to revisit it (which I probably will do) I would read up on specific times rather than doing the whole thing.

[Taff Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is of enormous value and importance to London’s history generally but even more invaluable to anyone who has lived in the area and knows the streets described. I had an extraordinary time living almost rent free in the Vicarage of St Matthew’s church in the 1980s in a bedroom without a bed and a kitchen without a sink and where the vicar’s dog would come up to our floor to crap on the carpet. There were about twenty market barrows kept in the yard outside my window and these would clatter out for the Brick Lane and Cheshire Street market very early every Sunday. Cruikshank’s weighty tome had me feeling strongly that I was back both in the time that I lived and walked those streets but also part of the long long continuum of history and change in this intoxicating corner of London.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

My parents grew up in Spitalfields and I was born there so this was a must read for me. But it's a fascinating area with an amazing history especially if you also have a chance to visit what's left of it. The only slight downside of Dan Cruickshank's history is that, as an architectural historian, he goes into rather too much detail for me about individual houses and I found myself skipping through some sections.

[Rosalind · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid for the first time, in a long time, I couldn't finish this book. I quite enjoyed it, but the main problem is that it is too long. There isn't enough intriguing information to describe in >600 pages about this small area of London.

[Richard K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book but it could do with some editing . It’s just too long and the flow just doesn’t.... well, flow

Nonetheless, a well researched book

[Lorna Singleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting seeing how an area changes through time.

[Stephanie Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blimey it's a long one and occasionally hard going. The early chapters aren't that interesting, but once we'd got onto the 16th century, things perked up a bit. I now know more about Georgian architecture than I ever thought possible. And Victorian slum clearances. Not a bad one, but not for the faint hearted I must say.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive history of a fascinating area. It made me feel sad at how much has been destroyed.

[Laurence Tobin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally gave up half way through after struggling through masses of obviously well researched descriptions of the architecture of the area but I suspect that the only person who would find so much of it interesting would probably be an architect.