Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SPITALFIELDS

SPITALFIELDS, a parish and a sub-district in Whitechapel district, Middlesex. The parish lies on the Great Eastern railway, and to the S of it, 1 mile ENE of St. Paul's, London; includes, at Lolesworth, the site of a Roman cemetery, where urns, stone coffins, lamps, pottery, and coins were found in 1576; had an Augustinian priory and hospital, founded in 1197 by Sheriff Brune; had also, in Spital-square, a preaching cross, where sermons on the Resurrection were delivered, called "Spital sermons,'' and which afterwards were delivered in Christchurch, Newgate-street; was mainly open unedificed ground, without the city walls, till 1685; began then to be extensively settled by French Protestants, mostly weavers, driven to England by the revocation of the edict of Nantes; became speedily a great seat of silk manufacture; continues still to be such, but after great fluctuations and with much decline; carries on other occupations akin to the silk manufacture, or connected with it; has also a great brewery and a soap factory; is now, and long has been, all compactly built; presents, on the whole, a crowded and poor appearance; has a market house, model lodging-Houses, three churches, a working-men's institute, a mechanics' institute, a school of design, parochialand national schools, industrial schools, a Dissenters' school, a Jews' free school, and alms houses; was part of Stepney parish till 1723; and is now ecclesiastically divided into S. Christchurch, S.-St. Stephen, and part of S.-St. Mary, the rest of which comprises the liberties of Old Artillery Ground and Norton-Folgate. Christ church was built in 1723-9, after designs by Hawksmoor; was restored, in 1866, at a cost of £6,680; and has a Doric portico, and a tower and spire 234 feet high. St. Stephen's church was built in 1862; and is in a peculiar Gothic style, with remarkable apse and curious tower. The working men's institute was built in 1865, at a cost of £3,500. Acres of the parish, 74. Real property, £49,526. Pop. in 1851, 20,960; in 1861, 20,593. Houses, 2,063. The living of Christ church is a rectory, and the livings of St. Stephen and St. Mary are p. curacies, in the diocese of London. Value of C., £400;* of St. S., £420;* of St. M., £500.* Patron, of C., T. F. Buxton, Esq.; of St. S., the Church Patronage Society; of St. M., Hyndman's Trustees.—The sub-district excludes part of the parish; and is bounded, on the E, by Brick-lane,-on the W, by Wheeler-street, Crispin-street, and Bell-lane. Acres, 53. Pop., 15,700. Houses, 1,533.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a parish and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "countries, 4th order divisions")
Administrative units: Spitalfields CP/AP       Spitalfields SubD       Whitechapel RegD/PLU/PLPar       Middlesex AncC
Place: Spitalfields

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