*all about “Sugar House Island” & the “Eastside Community Heritage” – Stratford-London E15

*”SUGAR HOUSE ISLAND”* & the *”EASTSIDE COMMUNITY HERITAGE”*

 

Since its creation upon my retirement, way back in 2017 – my London Shoes have taken me on some extremely interesting, enjoyable and totally unpredicted and unexpected ‘journeys’ that have had me exploring some of London’s lesser known, more unusual snippets or places of interest – all of which has been great fun and has certainly kept me busy.

This particular blog article relates to yet another ‘experience’ for London Shoes – and an interesting little story it is too.

It is also of a subject matter that saw the return of my London Shoes (after quite a long time ‘blog topic’ wise) to my beloved East London – an area of London that I grew up around, worked and socialised in – most of my life

So here’s the story ……a couple of weeks back I received an email via my London Shoes website – from a young lady called Naz who is currently on placement as a ‘Project Officer’ with an organisation called ‘The Eastside Community Heritage’ one of Britain’s leading community heritage organisations – whose mission is to uncover the hidden histories of East London by engaging with and persuading ordinary people that their personal stories are worth telling.

The ’Eastside Community Heritage’ office is located at a place called ‘Sugar House Island’ – a location in Stratford –East London that in itself, has a really interesting history about it.

Now – like most people of my age who grew up, socialised and worked in areas to the east of London throughout the 1950’s/60’s & 70’s – the scenery of the immediate land and waterways surrounding Stratford overground/tube station was always a dismal and grim sight. Once an area of heavy industry dating way back to the industrial revolution, a place where hundreds of manufacturing businesses were crammed together in the land surrounding the canals and waterways that connected themselves to the River Lee and down to the River Thames – and were vital to London’s economic growth.

Post WW2 and beyond, saw these heavy industries slowly die off – leaving abandoned old run down factory buildings scattered about all over the place – along with neglected, filthy dirty surrounding waterways/canals and towpaths.

However – significant events like the 2012 London Olympics changed all that, and the grim derelict landmarks you’d travel past every day on the train, bus or car – suddenly started to disappear, as the area underwent a massive programme of regeneration and development.

That programme of extensive regeneration and development has continued –and still continues to this day, and although I was fully aware of the areas historic industrial past and the way that it has been transformed to now accommodate landmarks such as the Olympic Park, (a site I now visit regularly, to watch my beloved West Ham United FC play their home games at the London Stadium) – I was completely oblivious to the massive ‘Sugar House Island’ development project taking place in front of my eyes – even though, every time travelling on the Elizabeth Line between Stratford and its next stop Whitechapel –  I could see this building with a prominently displayed ‘Sugar House’ spelt out in giant letters on its rooftop.

So – Sugar House Island is a new development that has sprung up in Stratford-London E15 and it’s a regenerated area that deliberately mixes business and residential buildings together.

The actual site that makes up today’s Sugar House Island area of East London is mentioned as far back as the Doomsday Book of 1086, where it refers to the 8 ‘tidal’ mills located within its waterways that made the River Lee mills the oldest recorded (documented) mills in Britain.

The mills that were once scattered throughout the area at that time, created loads of employment for trades such as carpenters / coopers and mill operators to name just a few – jobs which naturally attracted people to the area.

These mills provided flour to all the local bakers plus those operating further afield serving the population of the City of London.

The area was also renowned for its textile dying and its silk weaving businesses, particularly ‘Calico’ printing – in fact, the very first calico printer operating in England was a William Sherwin, who ran his business in East Ham, just down the road from Stratford.

Fast forward to the 1700’s and area’s industries had diversified a little bit and it was now one of the top locations for distilling Gin – as gin was by far the most affordable and popular ‘tipple’ of the working and poorer classes at that time. In fact, J & W Nicholson & Co Gin Distillery was based in the Stratford area and they were one of London’s largest distilleries.

The gin distillery process itself had a knock-on effect that it created diversity in terms of local industry and trading, as the ‘slop’ left over from the distilling process, was fed to pigs – which saw more livestock introduced into to the area. The bones of the pigs were supplied to ‘china’ making factories operating in nearby Bow – the ‘fat’ from the pigs was sold on to local soap makers…creating a proper business chain.

The man who ‘named’ cloud formations (ie cumulus / stratus/cirrus….and all that stuff) ‘Luke Howard’ (1772-1864) a successful pharmacist by profession – moved to Stratford in the early 1800’s and started manufacturing pharmaceuticals and chemicals from a factory there, and did a lot of his cloud studying looking up at the Stratford skies – and Cloud Street in Sugar House Island, commemorates him.

Luke Howard eventually moved out to the Bruce Grove district of Tottenham – and today, a blue plaque is displayed on the house where he lived and died aged 91 in 1864. Not only that, to commemorate the importance of Luke Howard to the ‘science of clouds’ – when Spurs (Tottenham Hotspur FC) opened their new stadium in 2019, they named viewing areas within its stands ‘Stratus East’ and ‘Stratus West’ in recognition of London’s famous ‘Cloud Namer’ – how good is that!!!

By the 1800’s a large brick ‘sugar’ warehouse was operating in the area – a building that is still in situ today. Hence the reason why this area is known as ‘Sugar House Island’.

By the mid 1800’s ink/ paint manufacturing businesses started to operate out of the Sugar House Island district. The Dane Group, leading manufacturers of paint, had a factory there.

In 2010, the regeneration of this small water surrounded area of East London began when the 26 acre site was purchased, and the majority of its existing old industrial buildings demolished for the specific purpose of providing a better quality of life around the London Borough of Newham’s waterways – creating a mixed use development to be creative and successful in business as well as a place to live.

Different designers and architects were brought in to create:-

*1,200 new homes to rent – 40% of them being 3 x bed or larger

*625k sq ft of office space

*40 sq ft of of retail space

*1 x new Primary School

*3 x new Bridges

*3 x acres of outdoor space

*the regeneration of some of the existing buildings

*new streets – created around all the new buildings – all of which are named to reflect the industries/jobs that were once undertaken there and were so critical to economic success of the area.

A lot of the above regeneration/redevelopment is already complete – a sort of a little town within a town – and in a few years I can fully imagine that the entire Sugar House Island site will be fully up and running and proper  buzzing.

However – forgetting the above for a minute – and getting back to what actually prompted my London Shoes to venture down to Sugar House Island – namely the email received from Naz at the ‘Eastside Community Heritage’ one of Britain’s leading community heritage organisations.

In her email Naz explained that she had stumbled upon my London Shoes website and was particularly interested in a collection of blog articles I had published, that focused on “London’s Lost Music Venues” especially those that were based in East London.

The Eastside Community Heritage’s mission is to uncover the hidden histories of East London by engaging with ordinary people and encouraging them to tell ‘their’ stories of the everyday life that they had/have experienced – because their stories matter.

Now – the capturing/documenting aspects of ‘social history’ has always been paramount to my London Shoes and the stuff I publish – because, if everyday life and experiences are NOT captured/documented, then there is a massive risk that they will be lost forever, and not there for future generations to read about – learn about, understand and appreciate.

Founded in 1998, the Eastside Community Heritage have (to date) a collection of over 4,000 ‘oral histories’ plus over 35k accompanying photos – sourced from ordinary folk, mainly working-class communities – the economically disadvantaged – the physically disadvantaged – and those folk that may feel marginalised in some way, and those who may feel that they don’t have a voice, or feel that they don’t matter.

The Heritage organisation works in partnership with local community groups – delivering workshops and events like that to schools (of all ages) / youth groups / community groups – teaching them skills on all sorts of aspects including film making / exhibition design / video production / film editing / archiving / transcribing / website training in building and maintenance etc….plus many many more topics.

Its collection of ‘oral histories’ are probably best described as a sort of digital storytelling library – which it collates by working with people, mainly the more senior folk, but not always – getting them to reminisce and reflect on their lives and experiences growing up / living and working in East London.

So – the fact that Naz from Eastside Heritage Community, had not only read my London Shoes stuff – but my blogs had actually inspired her to take the time and trouble to contact me, enquiring as to whether I would be happy in providing an ‘oral history’ of my experiences of ‘live’ music / bands and venues from my youth and beyond – I have to say, it made me feel well chuffed.

I thoroughly enjoy doing my London Shoes stuff, even though trying to ‘hit’ and publish at least 1 article per week for what has now been 8 years – can at times, be very exhausting, especially as I am getting older – but the fact that other people enjoy and get a buzz out of my material….makes the time and effort I put into production – all worthwhile!!!

Naz invited London Shoes up to the Eastside Community Heritage office in Sugar House Island where she would ‘record’ a conversation between us about my experiences of attending ‘live’ music events in East London (& beyond) throughout the late 60’s and the 1970’s/80’s – and ask me to explain what the ‘vibe’ was like at the time.

These oral recordings were completed over 2 sessions – with myself and Naz tucked away in the quiet of one of Eastside’s offices – Naz would start off by asking me some general questions – and I found that from that point, I felt that I could ramble on for ever (which, for those that know me well – will not come as any surprise!!)

Bearing in mind the considerable age gap between myself and my interviewer (I would estimate probably near on 50yrs) I was amazed at the interest and knowledge Naz had of the music from my generation – and her overall passion for music in general, took me totally by surprise. She had obviously read my London Shoes music related blogs in depth, and was able to quote aspects from them, better than I could remember them!! The questions she asked were sensible and were positioned in such a way as to enable me to elaborate on the ‘detail’ of the music and the social ‘world’ of its time.

The experience was a ‘learn’ for me too, coz during our recording sessions Naz told me about tracks by specific artists from my generation (70’s/80’s) that has been ‘sampled’ on modern day r&b /indie/hip-hop/rap/grime tracks – every day’s a school day eh’

The Eastside Community Heritage library of ‘hidden histories’ are currently being archived and the plan is for them to be on-line from September 2025 – but in the meantime, listening sessions can always be arranged and organised via ECH.

I’ve provided below, a link to the ‘Eastside Community Heritage’ website where more info about this excellent initiative, and its store of ‘hidden histories’ – can be found. They can also be followed on Facebook and Instagram:-

Eastside Community Heritage – hiddenhistories

I have to say t, it was a real honour to be asked to contribute to the Eastside Community Heritage library of oral histories, and it was also an absolute pleasure meeting Naz – she showed me total respect throughout-was totally focused on the delivery of the task at hand-and she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. I wish her the very best for the future.

Following the conclusion of the 2^nd recording session my London Shoes needed  a little light refreshment as so made their way to the ‘Jim & Tonic’ bar and restaurant situated within the Sugar House Island complex.

As you will see from the accompanying photos – there was a complete contrast in weather for the 2 visits – both days were bitterly cold, but for the 1^st recording session, the London skies were gloriously blue – but for the 2^nd visit, they were grey dark and bleak – so I didn’t have the customary ‘cheeky’ beer on this occasion – instead I warmed myself up with a hot cuppa ‘rosie’ – and very much enjoyed it was too.

So – another great experience for my London Shoes – where I learnt all about the new ‘Sugar House Island’ development, and its past history – and I also had the pleasure of undertaking oral history recording for the impressive ‘Eastside Community Heritage’ organisation – I now look forward to listening to the end product.

Hope you enjoyed this story and its accompanying photos.

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Below is the entire gallery of photos taken to accompany and support this blog article