This enormous building, now redeveloped as an apartment block, was once a hostel and then a dosshouse. Past residents include Joseph Stalin and authors Jack London and George Orwell. The latter describes it in detail in his Down and Out in Paris and London (1933).

Transportation

  • underground: Whitechapel

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. East London Mosque

0.06 MILES

This large mosque is capped with a dome and one large and two smaller minarets, each topped with a crescent moon. The exterior is relatively unadorned…

2. Whitechapel Road

0.14 MILES

The East End’s main thoroughfare hums with a constant cacophony of Asian, African, European and Middle Eastern languages, its busy shops and market stalls…

3. Whitechapel Gallery

0.28 MILES

A firm favourite of art students and the avant-garde cognoscenti, this ground-breaking gallery doesn't have a permanent collection but is devoted to…

4. Blind Beggar

0.36 MILES

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, preached his first streetside sermon outside this pub in 1865. It's also famous as the place where…

5. 19 Princelet St

0.41 MILES

This grand 1719 town house was originally occupied by a prosperous Huguenot family of weavers, before becoming home to waves of immigrants, including…

6. William Booth Statue

0.41 MILES

A statue of the Salvation Army founder, erected near the place where he gave his first streetside sermon.

7. Old Truman Brewery

0.42 MILES

Founded here in the 17th century, Truman's Black Eagle Brewery was, by the 1850s, the largest brewery in the world. Spread over a series of brick…

8. Christ Church Spitalfields

0.45 MILES

This imposing English baroque structure, with a tall spire sitting on a portico of four great Tuscan columns, was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and…

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