The Ten Bells is a public house at the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is sometimes noted for its supposed association with at least two victims of Jack the Ripper: Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly.
The Ten Bells pub has existed in one guise or another since at least the middle of the 18th century. It originally stood on a site known as 12 Red Lion Street, just a few metres away. However, when this building was pulled down as part of the cutting of Commercial Street in 1851, the owners of the Ten Bells (Truman Hanbury Buxton & Co) were able to move the public house to its current position at 84 Commercial Street (at one time known as 33 Church Street).[ citation needed ]
The name of the pub has changed over time, but those names have generally derived from the number of bells in the "peal" housed in the Nicholas Hawksmoor-designed Christ Church, Spitalfields next door.
In 1755 it was known as the "Eight Bells Alehouse". [1] The name is likely to have changed in 1788 when the church installed a new set of chimes, this time with ten bells; certainly, there are insurance records to show that the pub was registered as "the Ten Bells, Church Street, Spitalfields" from 1794. [2] The number of bells in the church increased to twelve at one point and were subsequently reduced to its current number of eight after a fire in the steeple in 1836. However, save for a brief deviation from the theme (see below), the "Ten Bells" name has stuck. [3]
The interior of the pub is decorated floor to ceiling with original Victorian tiling. Two of the walls feature a blue and white floral pattern tiling scheme and there is a colourful tiled dado going round the room. Of particular note is the mural of painted tiles on the wall on the north side of the building, entitled Spitalfields in ye Olden Time – visiting a Weaver's Shop, which commemorates the weaving heritage of the area. The mural was designed by the firm of W. B. Simpson and Sons and dates from the late 19th century. [4]
The Ten Bells was renovated by landlord John Twomey in December 2010 to fully display the pub's Victorian heritage. [5] The renovation also included the addition of a new mural titled Spitalfields in Modern Times. This was painted by artist Ian Harper. Rather than feature the weavers of the 19th century, the painting features 21st century Spitalfields scenes and characters, such as Gilbert and George.
The building was designated a Grade II listed building in 1973. [6]
Some accounts of the Jack the Ripper story link two of his victims, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly, to the pub: Annie Chapman may have drunk at the pub shortly before she was murdered; and it has been suggested that the pavement outside of the pub was where Mary Kelly picked up clients as a prostitute. [7] Between 1976 and 1988, the public house was named "The Jack the Ripper", and memorabilia relating to the case were displayed in the bars. The brewery ordered the change back to its original name after a long campaign by Reclaim the Night demanded that a murderer of women should not be commemorated in such a fashion. The pub is mentioned in the graphic novel From Hell (1999), about Jack the Ripper, by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell. The film adaptation From Hell (2001), also features the pub, including a scene showing Johnny Depp (as Inspector Abberline) having a drink with Ripper victim Mary Kelly.
In October 2011, the Ten Bells was featured in the Jamie Oliver series Jamie's Great Britain. Oliver's great-great-grandfather was a landlord of the pub during the 1880s. Oliver is shown visiting the Ten Bells to discuss his East London roots, and to see how Londoners lived, drank and ate at the end of the 19th century.
Commercial Street is an arterial road in Tower Hamlets, east London that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street to Whitechapel High Street through the East End district of Spitalfields. The road is a section of the A1202 London Inner Ring Road and as such forms part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone.
Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church, Toynbee Hall and Commercial Tavern. It has several markets, including Spitalfields Market, the historic Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Petticoat Lane Market. It was part of the ancient parish of Stepney in the county of Middlesex and was split off as a separate parish in 1729. Just outside the City of London, the parish became part of the Metropolitan Board of Works area in 1855 as part of the Whitechapel District. It formed part of the County of London from 1889 and was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney from 1900. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1921.
Annie Chapman was the second canonical victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly Nichols, was the first canonical victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least five women in and around the Whitechapel district of London from late August to early November 1888.
Frederick George Abberline was a British chief inspector for the London Metropolitan Police. He is best known for being a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper serial killer murders of 1888.
Mary Jane Kelly, also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Ginger, Dark Mary and Black Mary, is widely believed to have been the final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888. At the time of Kelly's death, she was approximately 25 years old, working as a prostitute and living in relative poverty.
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is a book written by Stephen Knight first published in 1976. It proposed a solution to five murders in Victorian London that were blamed on an unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Martha Tabram was an English woman killed in a spate of violent murders in and around the Whitechapel district of East London between 1888 and 1891. She may have been the first victim of the unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski, better known under his pseudonym George Chapman, was a Polish serial killer known as the Borough Poisoner. Born in Congress Poland, Chapman moved to England as an adult, where he committed his crimes. He was convicted and executed after poisoning three women, but is remembered today mostly because some contemporary police officers suspected him of being the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Fournier Street, formerly Church Street, is a street of 18th-century houses in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and runs between Commercial Street and Brick Lane. The street is named after a man of Huguenot extraction, George Fournier.
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.
Hanbury Street is a street running from Spitalfields to Whitechapel, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It runs east from Commercial Street to the junction of Old Montague Street and Vallance Road at the east end. The eastern section is restricted to pedal cycles and pedestrians only.
George Bagster Phillips was, from 1865, the Police Surgeon for the Metropolitan Police's 'H' Division, which covered London's Whitechapel district. He came to prominence during the murders of Jack the Ripper when he conducted or attended autopsies on the bodies of four of the victims, namely Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. He was called by the police to the murder scenes of three of them: Chapman, Stride and Kelly.
The Whitechapel murders were committed in or near the largely impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points some or all of these eleven unsolved murders of women have been ascribed to the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Wynne Edwin Baxter FRMS FGS was an English lawyer, translator, antiquarian and botanist, but is best known as the coroner who conducted the inquests on most of the victims of the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 to 1891 including three of the victims of Jack the Ripper in 1888, as well as on Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man".
Flower and Dean Street was a road at the heart of the Spitalfields rookery in the East End of London. It was one of the most notorious slums of the Victorian era, being described in 1883 as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis", and was closely associated with the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Dorset Street was a street in Spitalfields, East London, once situated at the heart of the area's rookery. By repute it was "the worst street in London", and it was the scene of the brutal murder of Mary Jane Kelly by Jack the Ripper on 9 November 1888. The murder was committed at Kelly's lodgings which were situated at No. 13, Miller's Court, entered from a passageway between 26 and 27, Dorset Street.
Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold was a British policeman of the Victorian era best known for his involvement in the hunt for Jack the Ripper in 1888. It was his opinion that Mary Jane Kelly was not a victim of the Ripper.
The Pride of Spitalfields is a public house at 3 Heneage Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London, just off Brick Lane. It was associated with a Jack the Ripper suspect.
The Jack the Ripper Museum is a museum and tourist attraction that opened in August 2015 in Cable Street, London. It recreates the East end of London setting in which the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders took place in 1888, and exhibits some original artefacts from the period as well as waxwork recreations of crime scenes and sets. The museum was founded by Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, a former head of diversity for Google.
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