Aldgate Pump: Where the East End Begins

Why is it significant?

You are standing at a fork in the road beside a slim stone pillar with a little hooded top and, sticking out of its side, a bronze wolf's head with a spout in its mouth.

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You are standing at a fork in the road beside a slim stone pillar with a little hooded top and, sticking out of its side, a bronze wolf's head with a spout in its mouth. Buses swing around it, office workers stride past it, and almost nobody notices that this modest object is one of the most famous landmarks in London's folklore. This is Aldgate Pump. For centuries Londoners said that the East End began right here, and that everything beyond the pump was a different world. Aldgate was one of the gates in the old Roman and medieval city wall, and the road that runs away to the east is the ancient highway to Essex and Colchester. Every newcomer who walked in from the east, and every cart of goods, passed within a few steps of this spot. There was even a saying: a worthless cheque was called a draft on Aldgate Pump, because it was about as likely to pay out as a stone pillar. Now look at that wolf. The story goes that the last wolf in the City of London was killed on this very spot. Nobody can prove it, and historians smile politely when you ask. The true story is darker. In the 1870s people noticed that the water from Aldgate Pump tasted wonderfully fresh and sparkling... and then many of those who drank it fell ill, and a number of them died. The water had been seeping through the crowded old churchyards of the City on its way underground. After that, the pump was connected to the ordinary mains supply. For the next couple of hours you are going to follow the waves of people who arrived just beyond this pump. French Protestant silk weavers fleeing persecution. Irish labourers escaping hunger. Jewish families from Poland and the Russian Empire running from poverty and pogroms. Sailors and garment workers from Sylhet, in what is now Bangladesh. Each wave was told it did not belong, and each one left its mark on the same few streets, sometimes on the very same building. And the first of those marks is only a couple of minutes away, hidden so well that thousands of people walk past it every day without knowing it is there. Walk north-west along Duke's Place to the street called Bevis Marks, and look for a gateway into a quiet courtyard on your left.