Gibraltar Walk began its life in the mid eighteenth century as a tiny side street amidst fields. The named road then was at right-angles to its later alignment. In the early nineteenth century, the area built up and Gibraltar Walk spread north. The southernmost section was called Samuel Street by the 1830s but this lost its separate name by the 1860s.
Gibraltar Walk retains a terrace of nineteenth-century red brick. The terrace bends along Gibraltar Walk, turning a corner and extending the length of Padbury Court.
The buildings were historically occupied by small-scale labour intensive workshops, mostly furniture makers. The interior of each building was spread across four levels.
The Gibraltar Tavern was at 28 Gibraltar Walk (11 Gibraltar Walk prior to street renumbering at 1882). The pub was present before 1750 and a path beside it led to a street called Gibraltar Gardens.
The northern end of Gibraltar Walk was redesigned in the 1870s to provide improved road layouts. In 1869 the philanthropic Baroness Burdett-Coutts had funded the construction of Columbia Market and Columbia Road came into existence replacing the former Crab Tree Row.
Like many streets in bomb-ravaged East London, the former longer length of Gibraltar Walk was curtailed by post-war redevelopment. The remaining Gibraltar Walk section covers the length of what was Samuel Street.
