STEPNEY

:''For the place in Adelaide, South Australia, see Stepney, South Australia. See also Stepney a place in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''
'Stepney' is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east north-east of Charing Cross and forms part of the East End of London.
The area consists of mostly post-war high density housing and a few streets of terraced housing that escaped slum-clearance. There is light industry and a few warehouses although this is mostly in decline.
Commercial Road, part of the A13, passes through the area east to west. Stepney is served by Stepney Green tube station which takes its name from the open space Stepney Green.
The area has thus far mostly escaped mass gentrification although the nearby areas of Whitechapel, Wapping, Limehouse and Mile End, which surround Stepney, are becoming increasingly redeveloped.

Contents

History

Education

Transport and locale

Nearest places

Nearest stations

Notable residents

Notable fictional appearances

See also

References

History

In 1085 Stepney was listed in the Domesday Book survey of England which was recorded in Old French, and whose translation includes:

'III. The land of the Bishop of London'

In 'Ossulstone' hundred the Bishop of London holds Stepney 32 hides. There is land for 25 ploughs. To the demesne belong 14 hides, and there are 3 ploughs; and 22 ploughs among the villeins. There are 44 villans each on 1 virgate, and 7 villans each on half a hide, and 9 villeins each on half a virgate, and 46 cottars on 1 hide: they pay 30s a year. There are 4 mills rendering £4.16s less 4d, meadow for 25 ploughs, pasture for the livestock of the vill and 15s, woodland for 500 pigs and 40s. In all it is worth £48: and when received, the same: £50. This manor belonged and belongs to the bishopric.

Bishop William held this land in demesne, in the manor of Stepney, on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead.

In the same vill Ranulph Flambard holds 3½ hides of the bishop.^[1]

St Dunstan's is Stepney's oldest church, founded in 923, but the present building dates principally from the 1400s. St Dunstan's has a long association with the sea, being responsible for registration of British maritime births, deaths and marriages until the 19th century.
In the early 1900s, Stepney was one of the most Jewish neighborhoods in England; it was eventually replaced by Stamford Hill.^[2]

Education

:''For details of education in Stepney see the Tower Hamlets article''

Transport and locale

Nearest places

★ Limehouse

★ Mile End

★ Shadwell

★ Whitechapel

Nearest stations

★ Mile End tube station

★ Stepney Green tube station

★ Limehouse station (Docklands Light Railway and c2c) Previously known as Stepney East

Notable residents

★ Des O'Connor was born in Stepney^[3].

★ Steven Berkoff was born in Vallance Road^[4]

★ Terence Stamp was born in Stepney

★ Craig Fairbrass was born in Stepney

★ Roy Shaw was born in Stepney

★ Ledley King was born in Stepney

★ John Sentamu, formerly Bishop of Stepney, and now the (97th) Archbishop of York as well as the Church of England's first black Archbishop

★ Kenney Jones drummer with The Small Faces and The Who was born in Stepney 16 September 1948 and attended St. George's In The Green School.^[5]

★ Roland Hazell , butcher , cricket legend , was born in Stepney

Notable fictional appearances

The BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart was set in Stepney.

The Rolling Stones' song "Play with Fire" references Stepney: "Now she gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore."
In Blackadder II Episode 6, Lord Percy explains the disappearance of his Uncle Bertram's old oak table thus: "'twas on the night of the great Stepney fire. And on that same, terrible night, his house and all his other things completely vanished too. So did he, in fact. It was a most perplexing mystery."
The English Nursery Rhyme Oranges and Lemons refers to the "...bells of Stepney."

See also

★ Metropolitan Borough of Stepney

★ Battle of Stepney

★ ''Stepney'' is the name of a steam locomotive on the Bluebell Railway, which has also featured as a character of the same name in The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry^[6].

★ ''Stepney'' is also the name of an episcopal area in the Anglican Diocese of London, which covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets, and has its own suffragan bishop ^[7].

★ The word ''stepney'' is used in India, as well as in Egyptian Arabic^[8] (in which it is pronounced إسْتِبْن), to refer the spare tyre of a car, after the Stepney Spare Motor Wheel which was invented by Walter Davies in 1904, named after Stepney Street, Llanelli, Wales.^[9]

References

1. ''Domesday Book - A Complete Translation'' Folio 127V: MIDDLESEX. Penguin Books. Nov 2002. ISBN 0-14-100523-8
2. ''Kosher in the country'' ''The Economist'' 01 Jun 2006 accessed 14 August 2007
3.
4. ''Steven Berkoff: The real East Enders'' The Independent 04 Jan 2007 accessed 10 May 2007
5. small faces the young mods' forgotten story Acid Jazz ISBN0952393506 p.58
6. Stepney the "Bluebell" Engine (vol 18 of The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry
7. Stepney Episcopal Areaaccessed 10 May 2007
8. Martin Hinds and El Said-Badawi, ''A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic''. Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1986
9. BBC Wales Bio of Walter Daies accessed 10 May 2007