| Poplar Town Hall | |
|---|---|
 The new Poplar Town Hall (2007) | |
| Location | Bow Road, Poplar |
| Coordinates | 51°31′42″N0°01′11″W / 51.5284°N 0.0198°W |
| Built | 1938 |
| Architect | Culpin and Son |
| Architectural style(s) | Modernist style |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Designated | 24 February 2009 |
| Reference no. | 1393151 |
  Shown in Tower Hamlets | |
Poplar Town Hall is a municipal building at the corner of Bow Road and Fairfield Road in Poplar, London. It is a Grade II listed building. [1]
The building was commissioned to replace an aging mid-19th century municipal building with a distinctive octagonal tower and dome and mosaic detail on Poplar High Street which had been built in 1870, and which is also a Grade II listed building. [2] [3] It had become the headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar in 1900. [4]
The old building on the High Street had been the scene of the Poplar Rates Rebellion, led by George Lansbury, which resulted in 19 councilors being put in prison in 1921. [5] The council sold the old town hall to a developer in 2011 and it was subsequently converted into a hotel. [5] [6] [7]
In the 1930s civic leaders decided the building was inadequate for their needs and that they would procure a new town hall: the site chosen for the new building had been occupied by a 19th century vestry hall. [4] The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the former mayor, Alderman Charles Key, on 8 May 1937. [8] It was designed by Culpin and Son in the Modernist style in a shape that took the form of a trapezoid. [1] The design involved a rounded frontage at the junction of Bow Road and Fairfield Road; there were layers of continuous stone facing panels above and below a continuous band of glazing on the first, second and third floors. [4] The Builders, a frieze by sculptor David Evans on the face of the building, was unveiled by Lansbury at the official opening of the building on 10 December 1938. [1] Made of Portland stone panels, it commemorated the trades constructing the town hall and symbolised the borough's relationship with the River Thames and the youth of Poplar. [9] The principal rooms were the council chamber, the mayor's parlour and an assembly hall which benefited from a sprung Canadian maple dance floor. [10]
The building was proclaimed by the council to be the first town hall to be erected in the modernist style [4] but ceased to function as the local seat of government when the enlarged London Borough of Tower Hamlets was formed in 1965. [11]
After being used as workspace by the council until the mid-1980s, the town hall was sold in the 1990s to a developer who added a roof extension and converted it for commercial use. [10] It was subsequently used as a business centre. [4]
Poplar is a district in East London, England, now part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Five miles (8 km) east of Charing Cross, it is part of the East End.
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a borough of London, England. Situated on the north bank of the River Thames and immediately east of the City of London, the borough spans much of the traditional East End of London and includes much of the regenerated London Docklands area. The 2019 mid-year population for the borough is estimated at 324,745.
The Poplar Rates Rebellion, or Poplar Rates Revolt, was a tax protest that took place in Poplar, London, England, in 1921. It was led by George Lansbury, the previous year's Labour Mayor of Poplar, with the support of the Poplar Borough Council, most of whom were industrial workers. The protest defied government, the courts, and the Labour Party leadership. George Lansbury would later go on to be the leader of the Labour Party.
Bromley, commonly known as Bromley-by-Bow, is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, located on the western banks of the River Lea, in the Lower Lea Valley in East London.
Poplar was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London, England. It was formed as a district of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a metropolitan borough in the County of London in 1900. It comprised Poplar, Millwall, Bromley-by-Bow and Bow as well as Old Ford, Fish Island and Cubitt Town.
The Lansbury Estate is a large, historic council housing estate in Poplar and Bromley-by-Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is named after George Lansbury, a Poplar councillor and Labour Party MP.
Chrisp Street Market is the central marketplace and town centre of Poplar and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was the first purpose-built pedestrian shopping area in the United Kingdom, rebuilt as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain and is directly connected onto the high street, East India Dock Road.
Limehouse Town Hall is a former town hall building on Commercial Road, in Limehouse, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a Grade II listed building.
Mile End is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, England, 4.2 miles (6.8 km) east-northeast of Charing Cross. It is situated on the part of the London-to-Colchester road called Mile End Road., it was one of the earliest suburbs of London.
Cubitt Town is a district on the eastern side of the Isle of Dogs in London, England. This part of the former Metropolitan Borough of Poplar was redeveloped as part of the Port of London in the 1840s and 1850s by William Cubitt, Lord Mayor of London (1860–1862), after whom it is named. It is on the east of the Isle, facing the Royal Borough of Greenwich across the River Thames. To the west is Millwall, to the east and south is Greenwich, to the northwest Canary Wharf, and to the north — across the Blue Bridge — is Blackwall. The district is situated within the Blackwall & Cubitt Town Ward of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council.
Bow is an area of East London within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is primarily a built-up and mostly residential area and is 4.6 miles (7.4 km) east of Charing Cross.
Bethnal Green and Bow is a constituency in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.
Poplar and Canning Town was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Old Ford is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets that is named after the natural ford which provided a crossing of the River Lea.
Poplar and Limehouse is a constituency created in 2010 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Apsana Begum of the Labour Party. From its creation until 2019, it was represented by Jim Fitzpatrick, also of Labour.
The Trinity Independent Chapel was an early Victorian church in Poplar. It was destroyed by a V-2 rocket hit during the Second World War, and later re-built in Modernist style. In the late 1990s the building was sold to the Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church, and since then has served as their Prayer Temple and international headquarters.
Minnie Lansbury was an English leading suffragette and an alderman on the first Labour-led council in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, England.
St George in the East, historically known as Wapping-Stepney, was an ancient parish, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England. The place name is no longer widely used.
Roman Road, is a road in East London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets entirely on the B119 on the B roads network, and lies on the old Roman road in the Roman Empire called the Pye Road running from the capital of the Iceni at Venta Icenorum to Londinium and today hosts a street market. Beginning in Old Ford at its eastern end, it passes into Globe Town and then enters into Bethnal Green to its western end.
Mulberry Place, formerly Tower Hamlets Town Hall, is a building in Nutmeg Lane, Blackwall, London. It was the headquarters of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council from 1992 to 2023, before their relocation to the new Tower Hamlets Town Hall in Whitechapel Road.