09 Spitalfields Christ Church

Just down the street from the market sits Christ Church Spitalfields, an Anglican church built between 1714 and 1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor.

Situated on Commercial Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, on the eastern border and facing the City of London, it was one of the first (and arguably one of the finest) of the so-called “Commissioners’ Churches” built for the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, which had been established by an Act of Parliament in 1711. The purpose of the Commission was to acquire sites and build fifty new churches

08 Old Spitalfields Market

We did a day trip to Spitalfields and then explored Petticoat Lane and some of The City. Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to several markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market.

But a bit of Wiki-history:

The first known human use of the area is a Roman cemetery.  In 1197 the site of the cemetery became a priory called St Mary Spital, and the name is thought to derive from this. The area that is now Spitalfields was mainly fields and nursery gardens until late in the 17th century when streets were laid out for Irish and Huguenot silk weavers.

07 Hampstead Heath

While we were in London we took a number of day trips. The first of those was to Hampstead Heath. Jane had arranged by email to meet up with a group of birders who walked Hampstead Heath every Tuesday. She thought it would be fun to see British birds and also to have the company and knowledge of British birders. To get there we took the bus about 45 minutes to the north. Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering 790 acres. The Heath first entered the history books in 986 when Ethelred the Unready (love the title) granted one of his servants five hides of land at “Hemstede”.