Brick Lane Explained: The new London Society podcast

Researching and writing a 30-minute podcast script about Brick Lane in Spitalfields, a historic heartland of the East End, was a large and rather daunting challenge. The narrow street and its environs are variously celebrated as a place of refuge and opportunity for people escaping hardship and persecution, of fine architecture and important industries, of community resistance to ugly extremism and, in recent decades, of culture, creativity and leisure.

All of these past and present strands of the Brick Lane story and the often strong emotions they inspire inform a sometimes fraught debate about its unfolding future. In recent years, this has become focused on the plans of the Truman Brewery company to augment the jigsaw of old buildings on both sides of Brick Lane that previously housed one of the biggest beer-production operations in the world with some new ones, to be built on a car park and a yard.

Plenty of heat has been generated but not a huge amount of light. That is a shame, because the more you uncover the different forces of continuity and change that have shaped and re-shaped the Brick Lane neighbourhood down the years – indeed, the centuries – the more you see of the complex patterns they form and how these might guide what happens next.

In my script, I’ve sought to illuminate some of those patterns with the help of four excellent interviewees: Helal Abbas, Julie Begum, Jamal Khalique of Taj Stores and Tom Larsson of Grow Places. It has, once again, been my pleasure to work with top BBC radio producer Andrew McGibbon of Curtains for Radio on what is the latest edition of The London Society’s London Explained series.

You can listen to the Brick Lane podcast HERE and on other podcast platforms. And if you want to explore the Truman Brewery site in person, The London Society has organised a tour of it to take place on the morning of 1 May. Details here.

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