Cycling UK Forum

Does anybody on this forum live in Bethnal Green, if so, can they tell me if Columbia Square is still there, or has it been redeveloped.
Secondly. Who was the first person to cycle around the coastline of Britain, and was there a book written about it ?
Many thanks if anyone can help.

In answer to your first question take a look here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.52842 ... 312!8i6656
second NO idea sorry

whats so special about it?

My memory map A_Z ( 2015) only finds a columbia sq in south london, mortlake

mercalia wrote:whats so special about it?

Not a lot. Looks a fairly unpleasant area.

Mike Carter has written a book One Man and His Bike about his ride around the coast. No idea if he was the first or thousand and first but it's a good read.

Are you thinking of this?

It was built (I mean paid for) by Baroness Burdett Coutts. Completed in 1861 and demolished in 1958.
Maginificent!

There is still a flower market on Columbia Road.

More here and here.

why on earth was that knocked down? what a shame I would have thought there were less worthy places to demolish

mercalia wrote:why on earth was that knocked down? what a shame I would have thought there were less worthy places to demolish

According to Spitalfields Life,

As a market, it was a spectacular failure and the housing element hardly fared better. Purposely built with ill-fitting doors and no glass in the corridor windows, they were an icy, inhospitable series of dwellings. The basement and other parts of the structure were damaged by bombing in World War Two. It was certainly salvageable yet, despite protests at the time, the entire complex of buildings was demolished in the nineteen-sixties.

It would have been a perfect building to house the type of hipster enterprises that happen in that neighbourhood. No sarcasm intended.

mercalia wrote:whats so special about it?

My memory map A_Z ( 2015) only finds a columbia sq in south london, mortlake

Nothing per say
About two months ago, I bought a small book from a charity shop called "The London Nobody Knows" by Geoffrey Fletcher.
No photos in this book, just some quite nice pen and ink sketches, a medium I dabble in albeit not very successfully.
In said book was a sketch of Columbia Square. Don't ask me why cause I can't answer, this sketch intrigued me.
My son and myself are going to London in a couple of weeks, and we were going to go to Bethnal Green to see if the square was still there. No point now it's been pulled down.

bovlomov wrote:Are you thinking of this?. . . . [img]

Yes that looks like it.

mercalia wrote:why on earth was that knocked down? what a shame I would have thought there were less worthy places to demolish

I completely agree with you there. Historically alone, I would have thought this building and square were worth preserving. As I understand it, these buildings were an early social housing scheme, but I could be wrong there.
There did seem to be, in the 50's and 60's, a lot of buildings that were demolished that perhaps today would not be.

bovlomov wrote:

mercalia wrote:why on earth was that knocked down? what a shame I would have thought there were less worthy places to demolish

According to Spitalfields Life,

As a market, it was a spectacular failure and the housing element hardly fared better. Purposely built with ill-fitting doors and no glass in the corridor windows, they were an icy, inhospitable series of dwellings. The basement and other parts of the structure were damaged by bombing in World War Two. It was certainly salvageable yet, despite protests at the time, the entire complex of buildings was demolished in the nineteen-sixties.

It would have been a perfect building to house the type of hipster enterprises that happen in that neighbourhood. No sarcasm intended.

Your right. I believe in post war Britain there were a lot of buildings that could have been salvaged and put to other uses. Not to sure what style those buildings were, Gothic perhaps ?

pete75 wrote:

mercalia wrote:whats so special about it?

Not a lot. Looks a fairly unpleasant area.

Mike Carter has written a book One Man and His Bike about his ride around the coast. No idea if he was the first or thousand and first but it's a good read.

Many thanks. I will try and hunt that book down.

mercalia wrote:why on earth was that knocked down? what a shame I would have thought there were less worthy places to demolish

It would have been demolished because for much of the mid 20th century there was avery low regard for Victorian architecture. This started to change in the seventies but even as late as 1975 some were proposing demolition and replacement with something modern for Leeds Town Hall. Now it's regarded as the finest Victorian town hall in teh country.

Drake wrote:Secondly. Who was the first person to cycle around the coastline of Britain, and was there a book written about it ?
Many thanks if anyone can help.

Don't know who was the first but I know someone did it on a penny farthing in the early 20th century. One of my favourite books on going around the coast is: Postcards from the edge of Britain by Peter Mann. He gives a very good account of the ups and downs in such a journey.

Further along Columbia Road is a bit more scenic.

I first came across pictures of Columbia Market in Lost London - A Century of Demolition and Decay, by Hermione Hobhouse. As you can imagine, it's a depressing read. So depressing that the local public library sold it to me for a quid.