Qualla: Roman Road, London

Roman Road, London: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit M R Karim Reza, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sylvia Pankhurst lived at 400 Old Ford Road, and from there she ran an East London Federation of Suffragettes that did more than march. The Federation fed people. It found them work. It printed a newspaper called Women's Dreadnought out of 321 Roman Road, ran a co-operative toy factory at 45 Norman Grove, and held a market stall selling those toys alongside second-hand goods to fund the cause. When Mrs Savoy, a brushmaker and one of the East End women who marched on Downing Street in 1914, died, Pankhurst wrote that the streets of Old Ford were colder and greyer with her loss. Roman Road has been holding political meetings, feeding hungry families, and selling things at street stalls for at least 150 years, and possibly two thousand. Boudica is said to have come this way burning her path toward Londinium.

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Image: M R Karim Reza | CC BY-SA 4.0

Roman Road, London: An Ancient Driftway

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greater London UK location map.svg Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data derivative work: ויקיג'אנקי, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is some debate about whether Roman soldiers actually marched along what is now Roman Road. The genuine Roman highway connecting London to Colchester runs roughly parallel, and the street here was for centuries shown on maps simply as a Driftway, a footpath through rural lan...

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Image: Greater London UK location map.svg Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data derivative work: ויקיג'אנקי | CC BY-SA 3.0

Roman Road, London: The Battle of Bow

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Anstiss, CC BY-SA 2.0. Roman Road became a centre for political radicalism with the speed of all rapidly urbanising places. In 1887 the social researcher Charles Booth toured the area with a policeman and reported that Beale Road was a hotbed of socialists, who had a club in Ford Street with many of th...

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Image: David Anstiss | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roman Road, London: Bow Baths and the Library

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elisa.rolle, CC BY-SA 4.0. The baths themselves were used 176,000 times in 1896 by a public that mostly relied on the tin bath, Victoria Park lake, or the canal for a wash. There were queues outside every Saturday in 1921, first or second class cold, warm, and spray baths, plus vapour baths, a wash house, ...

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Image: Elisa.rolle | CC BY-SA 4.0

Roman Road, London: Grime in E3

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. By 2000 the bombs, the post-war slum clearance, and the brutalist housing estates designed by Lubetkin had remade the streetscape, but the market continued. So did a quieter kind of cultural production. A record shop at 391 Roman Road called Rhythm Division became the unofficial ...

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Image: Mx. Granger | CC0

Roman Road, London: Going Down the Roman

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit J.Salmon, CC BY-SA 2.0. The market runs Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and has done since at least 1843, when it was technically illegal but withstood several attempts to close it down. Going down the Roman has been an East End phrase for generations. Number 526 has sold pie and mash continuously s...

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Image: J.Salmon | CC BY-SA 2.0