Bow Road

Bow takes its name from the Bow-shaped Bridge built over the River Lea in the 12th century.  It linked the City of London with Stratford.  This stretch of the north-side of Bow Road goes from Bow Road Station to just left of Fairfield Road.   In 1905, the occupants were from left to right: 

North London Railway Station, Bow Road-tall building

147 Miss Ethel Lamport

149-151 Bow and Bromley Conservative Association

153 Joseph Carroll, veterinary surgeon

157 William Clarkson, auctioneer

159 Public Health Department, formally the old Bow Vestry Hall

On the corner of Bow Road and Fairfield Road was the old Bow Vestry Hall.  This became the Public Heath Department of the Poplar Borough Council that merged with Bow in the 1890s.  In the early 1930s the Poplar Borough Council decided to build a new Town Hall to replace the one in Vestry Road, Poplar.  They chose this site and acquired properties adjoining the old Bow Vestry Hall.  The foundation stone of the Town Hall was laid in May 1937.  

It was the Town Hall from 1938 to 1965, when Tower Hamlets Borough Council was formed.   This was a merger of Stepney, Bethnal Green and Poplar Borough Councils with Tower Hamlets Town Hall at Bethnal Green.  However, to generations growing up after the Second World War, the Poplar Town Hall was the “Poplar Civic”, where dancing was held most Saturday nights.

All the above premises have been swept away and although the Poplar Town Hall still stands, with a new name the Bow Business Centre, it is a sad reflection of its former days.