Jack The Ripper Walk - Things to do FREE in London
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Jack the Ripper as he may have looked?
British analysts have created a composite police drawing of Jack the Ripper, depicting the notorious Victorian serial killer with a mustache, a receding hairline and bushy eyebrows, |
Jack The Ripper Walk:
The Jack the Ripper murders occurred in the East End of London in 1888. Although the ripper was only a threat to a very small section of the community in a relatively small part of London, the murders had a huge impact on society as a whole. There is a general consensus that Jack the Ripper had five victims. All Jack the Ripper’s victims lived in the relatively small neighbourhood to the east and west of Commercial Street on which social reformers had been focussing their attentions for several years.
No-one was ever brought to justice or even charged for the crimes. There have, over the years, been more than a hundred named suspects who may or may not have been Jack the Ripper. Some of those suspects are fascinating.
Others are down right ridiculous. No matter how unlikely the names of those that appear on the ever expanding list of suspects might be, the on going challenge of "nailing" the ripper has helped keep this series of crimes at the forefront of criminal and social history for almost 120 years.
The walk starts and ends at Liverpool Street station.
Arrival Liverpool Street station, exit onto Bishopsgate. Turn left and then go along Brushfield Street. At the junction with Commercial Street, turn right, passing Fashion Street and Lolesworth Close on the left. (Many of the victims lived around this area, three in Lolesworth Close and two in Fashion Street.) Stop at the entrance to Thrawl Street.
Mary Jane Kelly : 25 year old Mary Jane Kelly became the ripper's fifth (and generally accepted final) victim near this area. She was murdered on 9th November 1888, and was the only victim to be killed indoors. For this murder there was a reliable witness.
George Hutchinson had been approached only a few moments earlier by the victim, trying to borrow money. Hutchinson saw Kelly pick up a client and followed the couple back to Miller's Court, where the body was later found. However a description circulated to all police produced no suspects.
She is buried in St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leyton. People still come from all over the world to lay flowers on her grave.
Take the next turning right (Wentworth Street) then turn left at a block of flats (on Goulston Street).
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Goulston Street:: In the doorway to these flats a fragment of a blood stained apron, matching that cut away from the fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, was found. An anti-semetic message had been written on the back of it.
Rather than preserve this vital evidence, the police commissioner - despite pleadings from officers at the scene - removed the message, saying he was concerned it might inflame anti-jewish feelings. No photograph or transcript was made of the message
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Turn right down New Goulston Street, cross Middlesex Street (known as Petticoat Lane until 1830) and go up Gravel Lane almost directly opposite. Follow it as it turns into Stoney Lane. At the end of the Lane turn left along Houndsditch.
Enter the underpass at Exit 2 and emerge at Exit 1. Turn right and walk a short distance into Mitre Square. |
Catherine Eddowes:The fourth victim was found on the pavement just inside Mitre Square. Catherine Eddowes was the second of the ripper's victims murdered on 30th September 1888. Her body was discovered at 1.45 am and she had been terribly mutilated.
She had been released from police custody only 45 minutes earlier.
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Go through the square, then turn left into Mitre Street and walk along it to the end, turning left along Aldgate High Street. Walk along Aldgate High Street, passing St. Botolph's Church on the left. Look out for the Hoop and Grapes pub on the opposite side of the road.
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Hoop and Grapes Pub : The Hoop and Grapes is London's oldest pubs. It was one of the few buildings to have survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. The fire stopped just short of the building, which was actually a private house at the time.
This pub is now the only surviving 17th-century timber-framed building in the City of London. At the time of the fire it was a private house and later became a wine shop. It was converted into a pub about 150 years ago.
The front part is original and has some interesting features. The blocked up cellar entrance is said to lead to the Tower. The front of the pub is original - notice how its front door leans to the left.
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Continue along Aldgate High Street until the underpass, then go through the underpass following the signs to Whitechapel High Street. Go along Whitechapel High Street and stop at the corner of Plumbers Row. |
Whitechapel Bell Foundry Company: An entry in the Guinness Book of Records lists the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as Britain's oldest manufacturing company, having been established in 1570 (during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I) and being in continuous business since that date.
The Foundry operates tours twice daily on alternate Saturdays.
The most famous bell made here is Big Ben, which celebrates its 150th birthday this year. It was cast in 1858, for the princely sum of £1,829.. After
two months its sound started cracking under the strain of the over-heavy hammer fitted. The crack remains to this day, giving Big Ben its familiar, slightly wonky, sound.
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Passing a mosque on the right continue until you get to London Hospital, opposite Whitechapel tube station.
The Royal London Hospital: The Royal London Hospital has been on this site since 1757.
Dr Barnardo trained here in 1866 and John Merrick (the Elephant Man) was treated and died here.
Walk along Whitechapel Road cross straight over Whitechapel Road from the hospital and turn left. After a few metres turn right, down Court Street. Stop at the junction with Durward Street.
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Mary Ann Nichols: The body of the first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, was found dead in front of a gated stable entrance in Buck's Row (since renamed Durward Street), a back street in Whitechapel about 150 yards from the London Hospital and 100 yards from Blackwall Buildings.
The body was likely to have been there only 15 minutes or so, its throat had been cut twice and its abdomen had also been slashed. Mary Ann "Polly" . Nichols was buried on Thursday, 6th September, 1888. That afternoon, Polly was transported in a polished elm coffin to Mr Henry Smith, Hanbury Street undertaker. In late 1996, the cemetery authorities decided to mark Polly's grave with a plaque.
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Turn left along Durward Street, right at Vallance Street, then left along Old Montague Street. When you reach the junction with Brick Lane, turn right and then left at Hanbury Street.
Annie Chapman: The body of the second victim, Annie Chapman, was found in a small yard at the back of 29 Hanbury Street (now part of Truman's Brewery) at approximately 6 am on Saturday 8th September 1888.
It is possible that the murderer could have been seen talking to the victim half an hour earlier. Witnesses reported seeing a man of about 40 years of age, dark, shabby and wearing a deerstalker.
Fournier Street and the Great Fire of London:
Fournier Street, formerly Church Street, is a street of 18th century houses in Spitalfields, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Fournier Street is probably one of the best preserved eighteenth century streets in London. The houses here were built in 1725.
Go to the end of Fournier Street and into the Ten Bells pub at the end opposite Spitalfields market. On the opposite western corner of Fournier Street is the Ten Bells public house.
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Ten Bells Pub: The Ten Bells is notorious for its connection with Jack the Ripper. It is here that the two of the Ripper victims were seen close to the times of their untimely deaths. Indeed all five victims lived in proximity to the pub.
Established in 1753, the Ten Bells pub was frequently visited by many of the ripper victims as it was near to where they lived. Mary Jane Kelly, the ripper's final victim, drank here on the night of her death.
The pub's exterior was re-built in the late 1990's, though up until 2002 the interior was still very much as it was during the days of the murders. For many years in the 1970’s and 1980’s the pub was renamed the Jack the Ripper, thanks to a landlord who was tastefully selling dark red "Ripper Tipple’s", the brewery decided to return it to its original name in 1989.
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In the late 1990’s staff whose bedrooms were on the upper floors of the building, complained of encounters with a ghost of an old man dressed in Victorian dress. In June 2000, a new landlord decided to clear out the cellar. He found an old metal box with the personal effects of a man named George Roberts - brown leather wallet, inside which was a press cutting that talked of his having been murdered with an axe in a Swansea Cinema. Further research revealed that a man named George Roberts had indeed kept the pub in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Continue ahead along Brushfield Street and turn left along Bishopsgate, back to Liverpool Street station. |
