Bartlett Walks: The Royal London Hospital Estate in Whitechapel

Walking provides a novel perspective on issues, themes and artefacts within the built environment. Bartlett Walks is a series of PhD student led excursions around different corners of London. Covering diverse themes such as graffiti, regeneration and surveillance, the walks all assume different methodological or thematic approaches to the built environment. Come along, explore London, and get to know fellow Bartlett students from other departments.

Join Amy Smith for a guided walk of the eastern part of the Royal London Hospital estate in Whitechapel, navigating a rich assortment of purpose-built medical buildings. Explore the surviving rows of terraced houses laid out to generate an income for the hospital in the early nineteenth century. This orderly grid of wide streets includes buildings which testify to the area’s multifaceted history, such as an impressive Victorian church, former factories, a postal sorting office, and a synagogue. The estate is currently in the early stages of intense change, catalysed by the hospital’s recent transferral to modern tower blocks, the intended conversion of its old building into a civic centre for Tower Hamlets Council, and gentrification driven by the expected arrival of Crossrail. This walk is based on extensive research carried out as part of the Survey of London’s current study of Whitechapel.

Photographs by Derek Kendall for the Survey of London (© Derek Kendall)

This walk will be led by Amy Smith, The Bartlett School of Architecture.

To sign up for this event, please register via Eventbrite. Places are limited.