Writer and brand consultant Duncan Riches takes us on his personal walking tour of Shoreditch and Brick Lane, as featured in LONDON DESIGN GUIDE (the book). Starting off at Old Street and winding through the area’s streets to Aldgate East, a miscellaneous array of shops, sights and eateries await you.
“Alight at the spaghetti junction-inspired Old Stret tube via EXIT 3 and head to No.28 Cowper Street, where you’ll find Undercurrents, a treasure of a shop that sells second-hand 20th-century European design. It’s bursting at the seams with furniture, accessories, lighting and vintage oddities. (Please note: opening hours are incredibly varied. Check before you make a special trip there)
Cut back on to Rivington Street and visit Franco’s Cafe – great value, serving the finest in ciabattas, focaccias and freshly made pastas; the jovial staff are ruthlessly efficient and put on something of a performance too.
Franco’s Cafe, 67 Rivington Street
The health-conscious should hop across Shoreditch High Street onto Calvert Avenue, where Lennies Larder offers big salads and big smiles.
Lennies Larder, 16 Calvert Avenue
Calvert Avenue ends at Arnold Circus, with the Boundary Estate bandstand at its centre. The estate is noteworthy, being the world’s first council-housing project, built by London City Council in 1900 to replace the Friars Mount slum. You can take a moment to reflect here while sitting on a Michael Marriott-designed bench next to the bandstand. In truth, the place is somewhat dog-eared and improvements are scheduled for 2010 – though some graffiti on the notice asks: ‘What’s to improve?’
Boundary Estate Bandstand
Another architectural gem is just south on Chance Street. Dirty House (2002) is one of David Adjaye’s early architectural projects. The former timber factory is now a live/work space for artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. It’s a strange, inaccessible slab of a building covered in black anti-graffiti paint with blacked-out windows. The beautiful whitewashed cantilevered roof is actually best viewed from the rarefied air of Shoreditch House, but the building is impressive enough from street level in a showy, you’re-not-coming-in kind of way.
Dirty house, Chance Street
Walk south from here on to the ever-evolving Brick Lane. My choice would be to visit Ambala foods for the perfect Asian snack, then head down Fournier Street to the Hawksmoor-designed Christ Church Spitalfields for a piece of local architectural history.
Ambala Foods, 55 Brick Lane
Christ Church Spitalfields, Commercial Street
From here, a wander south on Commercial Street takes you to Whitechapel Gallery, still the best art gallery in the East End.
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street
Alternatively, walk north up Commercial Street and cut across to Bishopsgate via Folgate Street. Then get a well-deserved pint at The Water Poet, a cracking pub on the fringe of the city.”
The Water Poet, 9-11 Folgate Street
This extract was taken from page 127 of London Design Guide. To enjoy similar tours of other areas in London complete with maps, why not order a copy of the guide?
Tags Brick Lane | Duncan Riches | LDG extract | Page 127 | Shoreditch | Take a Walk
