Cambridge Heath is an urban area of

Bethnal Green Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By ...

in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

, approximately north east of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City ...

. It is named after a former heath in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have univ ...

. The northern boundary is formed by the

Regent's Canal Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in e ...

and the area includes

Vyner Street Vyner Street is a cobblestone canal-side walkway in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, England. It was once called John Street in the 1830s. The street is known for its street art and for its galleries. History The warehouse buildings ro ...

, best known for its street art and galleries. The area is served by Cambridge Heath railway station, operated by

London Overground London Overground (also known simply as the Overground) is a suburban rail network serving London and its environs. Established in 2007 to take over Silverlink Metro routes, (via archive.org). it now serves a large part of Greater London as w ...

Toponymy

The earliest written use of the name was by a scribe in the era of great orthographic variety, as ''Camprichthesheth'', in 1275; other manifold variations soon followed. It could be unconnected with

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

instead from an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

plant (such as

comfrey ''Symphytum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae, known by the common name comfrey (pronounced ). There are 59 recognized species.WFO (2022): Symphytum L. Published on the Internet; http://www.worldfloraonline.org/ ...

) or unusual-form man's name. The area was once marshland and forest which, as Bishopswood, lingered in the east until the 16th century.

History

Cambridge Heath station entrance geograph-3296920-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The Bethnal Green gasworks in Cambridge Heath, named after the then-

Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green Bethnal Green was a civil parish and a metropolitan borough in the East End of London, England. It was formed as a civil parish in 1743 from the Bethnal Green hamlet in Stepney ancient parish, and the church of St Matthew, Bethnal Green, was ...

were built in 1866 and 1889 by designer, John Clark. Prior to the 1960s the sites were used to manufacture and store town gas made from coal. Following the discovery of natural gas in the North Sea in the 1960s, the gas holders continued to be used to store natural gas. The Wilkinson Gallery opened on Cambridge Heath Road in 1998 before moving to

in 2007. The gallery became known as one of the first in London to have exhibitions by major female artists such as

Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Dara Birnbaum and Laurie Simmons. However the Wilkinson Gallery closed in 2017. Area surrounding 244 Cambridge Heath Road, London 17

Area surrounding 244 Cambridge Heath Road, London 17

By around 2005,

had become a hub of the

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...

art scene. Between 2005 and 2008, the EEL established the Vyner Street Festival with the local Victory Pub as a family festival with local bands, artists and market traders, this has a different theme every year, with the

Red Arrows The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force based at RAF Waddington. The team was formed in late 1964 as an all-RAF team, replacing a number of unofficial team ...

performing flyover in 2008. By 2012, however, many artists had moved out due to the effects of the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

as well as the

2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. A documentary film was released in the same year titled ''Vyner Street'': this was a short observational piece about two different worlds living inconspicuously and side by side in the same place. Marco Canha and James Roach, established an academy in 2012 called the Fight Zone and it has the busiest martial arts schedule in Europe and internationally acclaimed coaches. In 2015, Tower Hamlets Council took the owners of Al Amin Tandoori Restaurant to court after a routine inspection, which found mouse droppings throughout the kitchen. The owner Abdul Noor, pleaded guilty at

Thames Magistrates Court The Thames Magistrates' Court is a magistrates' court in Bow, London, England. It is located near the Bow Road tube station Bow Road is a London Underground station located on Bow Road in Bow, London, England. It is on the District and ...

to six charges including inadequate control of pests, contamination of equipment and contamination of food.. Following an inspection on 28 March 2019 the Al Amin Tandoori Restaurant was given the highest Food Hygiene Rating of 5 (Very Good) . Cambridge Heath station was chosen in 2018 for a trial with a pay-by-face system that may end the need for station barriers, due to its low passenger volumes and having no gates.

Governance

Cambridge Heath is in the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow represented by the Labour Party's

Rushanara Ali Rushanara Ali ( bn, রুশনারা আলী; born 14 March 1975) is a British Labour Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green and Bow since 2010. She served as a Shadow Minister for International D ...

(since 2010) in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

. London overall has a directly elected, executive

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The current m ...

, currently

Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...

with strong powers in transport, construction planning and long-term strategies. The mayor is scrutinised, and can be steered by the

London Assembly The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds super-majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject ...

; both Mayor and Assembly face regular elections. Its

City and East City and East is a constituency represented in the London Assembly. Created in 2000 it was represented by John Biggs until 2016. Since the 2016 assembly elections the constituency has been represented by Unmesh Desai, of the Labour Party. Bo ...

seat is held by Labour's Unmesh Desai. ;Honorary figure for London London's Lord-Lieutenant Ken Olisa can be invited as personal representative for the monarch to key ceremonies but no has public policy or active operational role. Always consulting with the departmental office or local councils before opening buildings, the role is an honorary (titular) position.

Geography and Regents Canal Conservation Area

Cambridge Heath and Bethnal Green proper were unequal halves of the same manor, and in the 19th century both formed part of the

. This was incorporated into the newly created

in 1965. It is north and west of Bethnal Green, east of Haggerston, south-west of Hackney and west of Victoria Park. It is largely part of the wider Regents Canal Conservation Area, established in 2008, the streetside buildings seem neglected but form part of the industrial heritage and character of

and also Wadeson Street, which contains a row of three-storey Victorian workshops mostly converted to residential use. Both types contribute to the character of the area.

Filmography

*''

Gangster No. 1 ''Gangster No. 1'' is a 2000 British crime drama film directed by Paul McGuigan. It is based on the stage play ''Gangster No.1'' written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto. The film stars Paul Bettany in the title role and features Malcolm McDo ...

'' *'' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' *''

Fast & Furious 6 ''Fast & Furious 6'' (titled on-screen as ''Furious 6'') is a 2013 American action film directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to '' Fast Five'' (2011) and is the sixth installment in the ''Fast & Furious'' franc ...

'' *'' Kingsman: The Secret Service''

Public houses

The Hare is one of few

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

s of Cambridge Heath opened before 1900. An ex-Truman establishment, it is now a free house. The Hare was described as the epitome of a 'good, honest pub' by the ''Evening Standard'' and listed as one of the best 50 in London in 2019.

Festivals and events

The Oval Space hosted the London's first catfest in 2018. This featured photography with felines; street food and shelter kittens.

Religious buildings

St Casimir's is the earliest church for London's Lithuanian Catholics and masses are held in Lithuanian and English. It was opened by

Cardinal Bourne Francis Alphonsus Bourne (1861–1935) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the fourth Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911. Biography Early life Francis B ...

on 10 March 1912. In the Church of England, west of the Overground railway is the parish of St Peter; the church is on its so-named Close and one-limb, remnant

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

opposite Ion Square Gardens. East of the viaduct, west of Russia Lane, is the north part of the parish of St John on Bethnal Green; east of Russia Lane and Wadeson Street is St James The Less.

Education

Cambridge Heath has Mowlem Primary School,

Martial arts

Jiu jitsu and other martial arts have a large size, professionally-taught club.

Transport

The neighbourhood main arterial route for motor vehicles and cyclists is the A107 Cambridge Heath Road from Mile End Gate in

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...

and Mare Street from

Hackney Central Hackney Central is a sub-district of Hackney in the London Borough of Hackney in London, England and is four miles (6.4 km) northeast of Charing Cross. The Hackney Central area is focused on Mare Street and the retail areas to the north o ...

which runs north–south from the two borough boundaries over the

Regents Canal Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in ea ...

Hackney Road Hackney Road is a London arterial route running from Shoreditch Church in London Borough of Hackney to Cambridge Heath in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The route runs along the northern edge of Bethnal Green and southern edge of Hoxton ...

is the main arterial road for

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

. The Cat & Mutton Bridge spans over the Regents Canal, which still carries the name of a former alehouse which stood on the site at the extreme right, closed since at least 1919. The present pub on a new site was built in 1909 as the Sir Walter Scott but is now known as La Vie en Rose.

; Cambridge Heath railway station, opened on 27 May 1872 in the southern end of the neighbourhood, is served by Overground Enfield Town/Cheshunt-London Liverpool Street Line. A number of

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus s ...

contacted routes serve the area, the 26, 48, 55, N26, N55 on Hackney Road which in turn go towards Mare Street, while the 106,

254 Year 254 ( CCLIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Valerianus and Gallienus (or, less frequently, year 1007 ''Ab urbe ...

, 388, D6 and N253 run on Cambridge Heath Road and Mare Street. The D6 finishes and restarts near Ash Grove since 2014.

References

{{LB Tower Hamlets Geography of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Districts of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Areas of London Bethnal Green Places formerly in Middlesex