History of Commercial Street, London Middlesex England
History of
Published: 21st June 2010
The first plans for a new street in Spitalfields and Whitechapel was made by a Select Committee on Metropolitan Improvements in August 1836. This Committee recommended the construction of a street ’from Finsbury Square to Whitechapel Church and the Commercial Road’, to run in a straight line from the Bishopsgate end of Middlesex Street to near the southern end of Osborn Street.
The original name for the new road was Spital Street, but as a street of this name already existed nearby (in Mile End New Town), the name Commercial Street was agreed in September 1845 with building commencing in October.
An act of July 1846 authorised the extention of Commercial Street northwards (from Christ Church to Shoreditch High Street), though building did not start until 1851. By 1856 it had been paved as far as Fleur-de-lis Street and was finally completed in 1858.
Commercial Street presented a strange assortment of architechtural styles, but the most popular became known as 'warehouse gothic', examples of which are still extant today.
To the right is a picture of Commercial street taken in 1907.
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