The historic and beating civic heart of Bethnal Green is at the junction of Cambridge Heath Road and Bethnal Green Road, with a museum, a listed church, a library, a famous sports centre, and a memorial to the largest single civilian loss of life in the Second World War.

The Stairway to Heaven remembers when 84 women, 62 children and 27 men were crushed to death on the stairs leading to the air raid shelter at Bethnal Green Tube station on 3^rd March 1943. The memorial, in the form of an upturned staircase, holds the names of the individuals who lost their lives.

Bethnal Green Library opened in 1922 in the former Bethnal Green asylum, while York Hall in nearby Old Ford Road is a leading boxing venue with a gym and swimming pool.

The property scene

Bethnal Green has pockets of fine Victorian housing. Near Columbia Road Flower Market there are flat-fronted two- and three-bedroom straight-off the street cottages in the Jesus Hospital Estate conservation area.

The Old Bethnal Green Road conservation area around the Winkley Estate is an enclave of flats, houses and studios built at the beginning of the 20th century specifically for East End furniture traders and originally occupied by upholsterers, cabinet makers and French polishers.

Keeling House in nearby Claredale Street, a 16-storey block of flats designed by the architect of the National Theatre, Denys Lasdun, was sold by the local council to a developer who renovated the flats and sold them in turn.

The small Victorian/Edwardian houses in the Globe Road conservation area were built by the East End Dwellings Company between 1900 and 1906. Cyprus Street with its unusual external shutters is particularly pretty.

Lifestyle

Bethnal Green Road, the area’s main shopping street, starts its journey eastwards where Shoreditch runs into Bethnal Green and the shops and cafés are hip, with concept stores, trainer shops, vintage clothing, and vinyl record shops.

The road then enters its more everyday section with useful local shops and a densely packed market selling everything from luggage to clothes to fruit and vegetables.

Bethnal Green’s nightlife starts picking up towards Cambridge Heath Road. Paradise Row is a terrace of fine Georgian houses which leads to a row of bars and restaurants in the railway arches with large outside seating areas.

The railway arches tucked away along Gales Gardens on the south side of Bethnal Green close to the junction with Cambridge Heath Road, where Renegade is an urban winery that uses imported grapes, and the Old Street Brewery has its tap room.

Globe Town has a vegetarian café and in Roman Road, there is an independent coffee shop and an Italian delicatessen and wine bar.

Open space

Weavers Fields in Viaduct Street south of Bethnal Green Road is the area’s largest park.

Museum Gardens and Bethnal Green Gardens are close to each other in Cambridge Heath Road; the latter has sports facilities and children’s playgrounds and the Stairway to Heaven memorial.

There are walks along Regent’s Canal and to Victoria Park which is one on London’s most popular parks.

Schools

All Bethnal Green’s state primary schools are rated “good” or better by the Ofsted. The “outstanding” primary schools are Globe in Gawber Street; Mowlem in Bishops Way and Thomas Buxton in Buxton Street.

The “outstanding” comprehensive schools are: Morpeth in Portman Place; Swanlea in Brady Street; Green Spring Academy in Gosset Street (Shoreditch) and Mulberry School for Girls in Commercial Street in Whitechapel.

Travel

As well as being well connected on the Central line, Bethnal Green is also on the Overground and is only one stop from Liverpool Street.

Commuter buses include the No 8 to Tottenham Court Road; the No 388 to Elephant & Castle, and the D3 to Leamouth via Wapping and Canary Wharf.

Postcode

Bethnal Green falls under the E2 postcode which also includes Haggerston and parts of Hoxton and Shoreditch. The local borough is Tower Hamlets.