The Blind Beggar

The Red Lion was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Whitechapel (part of the modern Borough of Tower Hamlets), just outside the City of London on the east side. Built in 1567 for John Brayne, citizen and Grocer, this was the first known attempt to provide a purpose-built playhouse in London for the many Tudor age touring theatrical companies - and perhaps the first purpose-built venue known to have been built in the city since Roman times. Its existence was short-lived.

Trinity Green Almshouses (formerly Trinity Hospital) are a series of Grade I listed almshouses on Mile End Road in Whitechapel in London. They were originally built in 1695 to provide housing for retired sailors, and are the oldest almshouses in Central London. The buildings were damaged during the Second World War, and were restored in the 1950s by London County Council.

The siege of Sidney Street of January 1911, also known as the Battle of Stepney, was a gunfight in the East End of London between a combined police and army force and two Latvian revolutionaries. The siege was the culmination of a series of events that began in December 1910, with an attempted jewellery robbery at Houndsditch in the City of London by a gang of Latvian immigrants which resulted in the murder of three policemen, the wounding of two others, and the death of George Gardstein, the leader of the Latvian gang. An investigation by the Metropolitan and City of London Police forces identified Gardstein's accomplices, most of whom were arrested within two weeks. The police were informed that the last two members of the gang were hiding at 100 Sidney Street in Stepney. The police evacuated local residents, and on the morning of 3 January a firefight broke out. Armed with inferior weapons, the police sought assistance from the army. The siege lasted for about six hours. Towards the end of the stand-off, the building caught fire; no single cause has been identified. One of the agitators in the building was shot before the fire spread. While the London Fire Brigade were damping down the ruins—in which they found the two bodies—the building collapsed, killing a fireman. The siege marked the first time the police had requested military assistance in London to deal with an armed stand-off. It was also the first siege in Britain to be caught on camera, as the events were filmed by Pathé News. Some of the footage included images of the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill. His presence caused a political row over the level of his operational involvement. At the trial in May 1911 of those arrested for the Houndsditch jewellery robbery, all but one of the accused were acquitted; the conviction was overturned on appeal. The events were fictionalised in film—in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and The Siege of Sidney Street (1960)—and novels. On the centenary of the events two tower blocks in Sidney Street were named after Peter the Painter, one of the minor members of the gang who was probably not present at either Houndsditch or Sidney Street. The murdered policemen and the fireman who died are commemorated with memorial plaques.

London's Air Ambulance Charity is a registered charity that operates a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) dedicated to responding to serious trauma emergencies in and around London. Using a helicopter from 08:00 to sunset and rapid response vehicles by night, the service performs advanced medical interventions at the scene of the incident in life-threatening, time-critical situations. The charity was founded in 1989 in response to a report by the Royal College of Surgeons, which documented cases of patients dying unnecessarily because of the delay in receiving prompt and appropriate medical care. The charity was the first in the UK to carry a senior doctor in addition to a paramedic at all times on a helicopter, introducing a system that reduces the death rate in severe trauma by 30–40%.The helicopters are hangared at RAF Northolt, but operate during the day from their base at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, East London, a helicopter can reach any patient inside the M25 London orbital motorway, which acts as the service's catchment area, within 15 minutes. Missions commonly involve serious road traffic collisions, falls from height, stabbings and shootings, industrial accidents and incidents on the rail network. The team can perform advanced life-saving medical interventions, including open heart surgery, blood transfusion and anaesthesia, at the scene. The charity operates 24 hours a day, serving the 10 million people who live, work and travel within the M25. The service treats an average of five patients every day.

Swanlea School is a coeducational secondary school in Whitechapel with approximately 1300 students on roll and a further 210 at Key Stage 5. It is situated in the heart of the historic east end of London and less than a mile away from the City of London; it serves the local community. Swanlea was one of the first schools in the country to be awarded Business and Enterprise specialist status by the DCFS in 2002, and in its recent inspection by OFSTED (2013) Swanlea was judged to be outstanding in all areas. The school holds the Healthy Schools Award, Investors in People Award, Artsmark Silver Award, are Stonewall School Champions and is a UCL Beacon School in Holocaust Education. There are over 60 permanent teaching staff and more than 100 support/administrative staff working here.Swanlea has only had two Headteachers, Linda Austin and currently, Brenda Landers. Linda Austin retired in January 2011 after 18 years of service, and was awarded an OBE for services to Education in the Queen's birthday honours list in 2011. Swanlea School was designed by Percy Thomas Partnership with Hampshire County Architects. It opened in 1993 and was the first secondary school built in London for over 10 years. The school was built around a central covered 'street' with a dramatic curved glass roof and was passively heated and ventilated.

The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and specialist tertiary care services for patients from across London and elsewhere. The current hospital building has 845 beds, 110 wards and 26 operating theatres, and opened in February 2012. The hospital was founded in September 1740 and was originally named the London Infirmary. The name changed to the London Hospital in 1748, and in 1990 to the Royal London Hospital. The first patients were treated at a house in Featherstone Street, Moorfields. In May 1741, the hospital moved to Prescot Street, and remained there until 1757 when it moved to its current location on the south side of Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The hospital's roof-top helipad is the London's Air Ambulance operating base. The helicopter is stored overnight at RAF Northolt.

Durward Street, formerly Buck's Row, is a street in Whitechapel, London. In the early morning of 31 August 1888, the body of Mary Ann Nichols ("Polly") was found on the pavement on the south side of Buck's Row. She is generally thought to have been the first victim of Jack the Ripper. As the case attracted much unwanted attention to the street, its name was changed that same year to Durward Street. The photograph shown here, taken in 2006, shows two features of Buck's Row that were present at the time of the murder. The tall building at the rear (west) is the former Buck's Row Board School, which can be seen in photographs of the street in 1888, now converted into residential flats and renamed "Trinity Hall". Extending east from it, along the south side of the street, is a low brick wall, also present in 1888. It was near the nearer corner of this wall that Polly Nichols's body was found. During the construction of Crossrail Durward Street has had a temporary entrance to the adjacent Whitechapel station.

Brady Street is a road located in Whitechapel, East London. It runs from Whitechapel Road in the south to Three Colts Lane, near Bethnal Green railway station, in the north. It was formerly known as North Street.

Whitechapel Civic Centre is a municipal facility under construction in Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, London. The new structure, which has been commissioned as the headquarters of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, incorporates the façade of the old Royal London Hospital which is a Grade II listed building.

The King Edward VII Jewish Memorial Drinking Fountain is a drinking fountain on the Whitechapel Road in the East End of London. A plaque on the fountain records that it was erected "from subscriptions raised from Jewish inhabitants of East London" in memory of Edward VII. The idea for the memorial was conceived by the writer Annie Gertrude Landa. It was unveiled on 15 March 1912 by Charles Rothschild. The figures are the work of the sculptor William Silver Frith.The fountain is made from white stone with a tapered central square pillar. The pillar is surmounted by a bronze angel, with bronze figures of the Angel of Peace, the Angel of Liberty and the figure of Justice and cherubs on the faces of the pillar. Each of the cherubs holds an object of significance to the Jewish community at the time of the memorial's unveiling. One cherub holds a ship; many members of the local Jewish community were recent immigrants. A cherub holding a needle and thread signifies the clothing industry which employed the majority of the East End Jewish community until the 1970s. A book is held by another cherub signifying the importance of education to the community both from the local secular Jewish schools and the schools of Talmudic study. A car held by a cherub shows the increasing pace of modernity and the shift away from the horse and cart in modern London. The remaining face bears a relief portrait of the King wearing the Order of the Garter.The fountain was listed at Grade II on the National Heritage List for England in September 1973.Michael McNay writing in the Hidden Treasures of London describes the memorial fountain as sitting "in the ethnic Asian community today as naturally as the exotic and overweening architecture of Mumbai, built on the high tide of the British Raj, suits the gateway of India".In August 2015 the memorial was covered with pieces of red meat and chicken in what the Evening Standard described as an "apparent anti-Semitic attack". The incident was reported to police who launched an investigation; workers from Tower Hamlets Council were sent to clean the memorial.

Bethnal Green is a London Overground station on the Lea Valley lines in the southern part of Bethnal Green, in East London. The station is 1 mile 10 chains (1.8 kilometres) down the line from London Liverpool Street; the next station is either Hackney Downs (on the Chingford branch) or Cambridge Heath (on the route to Cheshunt and Enfield Town). It is an interchange station between three services operated by London Overground. Its three-letter station code is BET and it is in Travelcard zone 2. The station was opened in 1872 and was formerly called Bethnal Green Junction until 1946; it was also formerly served by trains on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) via Stratford. The station is situated on Three Colts Lane and is within walking distance to Bethnal Green Road via Wilmot Street. It is some distance from the other Bethnal Green station on the London Underground's Central line.

Frank Dobson Square is a public square in Whitechapel, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It commemorates the life and work of British artist and sculptor Frank Owen Dobson. The square was constructed by the London County Council in 1963, the year of Dobson’s death, at the junction of Cambridge Heath Road and Cephas Street. Dobson had been born in Clerkenwell. The centrepiece of the square was the ‘Woman and Fish’ fountain, a sculpture designed and completed by Dobson in 1951. The sculpture had been purchased for the borough by London County Council in 1963.The ‘Woman and Fish’ had provided drinking water until 1977, when the fountain was seriously damaged in an act of vandalism. In 1979, the sculpture was temporarily removed from the square for restoration, following further vandalism when the head of the statue was removed. In 1983, the statue was again vandalised and subject to further repairs. In 2002, the fountain was removed from the square altogether, following another act of vandalism which left it damaged beyond repair. The piece is now on the list of lost pieces of public art in London. In December 2006, the artist Antonio Lopez Reche was given a grant by the Tower Hamlets Council Art Department to reproduce the 'Woman and Fish' statue, following Dobson’s original design. However, unlike the original statue the reproduction was cast in bronze, patinated and contains no fountain. Today, Frank Dobson Square stands empty, Reche's 'Woman and Fish' having been installed in Millwall Park, Tower Hamlets.