Being on this project has got me taking a closer look at architectural details whenever I am out and about. My way to the shops takes me down Derbyshire Street running parallel immediately south of Bethnal Green Road. I noticed some of the two- and the four-storey terraces still had ‘bootscrapers’ beside their front doors. Seems the original arrangement is of two different styles set alternately in the dwellings along each terrace.
An elderly resident, curious as to my purpose crouching down camera at the ready, explained they were for the dockers coming back from unloading ships. The men were under strict orders from their women-folk to scrape off all the mud and muck off their footwear before being allowed in.
I thought it would be ‘fun’ to go back and check out what other terraces on our previous walks had to offer in the way of bootscrapers. Imagine my surprise! Just the same two styles, similarly arranged, along the terraces of Jesus Green Estate, as well as Kirkwall and Cyprus streets off Globe Road. Clearly someone had a ‘nice little earner’ going for them in Victorian Bethnal Green!
A closer look at all these bootscrapers took me back to traditional Sundays ‘down the Lane’. Times have changed and with them the character of markets. No longer are there piles of ‘any old iron’ scattered on and around various stalls in Brick Lane. Maybe the ‘gentrifiers’ have already cleared all the ‘Victoriana’ that was dumped out on the streets during slum clearances and ‘improvement’ works.
The bootscrapers I saw vary greatly in condition – like much architectural heritage still with us by virtue of neglect as by loving and in some cases lavish but dubious attention.
Terraces, Tenements and Tower Blocks 