Lynedoch Street, E2

Before an 1890s renaming this used to be Mary Street and connected Hoxton Steet with Kingsland Road.

The street came into existence when the new Shoreditch Workhouse was built in the 1860s.

In 1774, the authorities in Shoreditch raised money for a new workhouse. It was erected on a site known as the ’Land of Promise’ and the three-storey building including an infirmary and apothecary opened in 1777 with its main entrance on Kingsland Road. In 1784, a burial ground was consecrated at its southwest corner. The labour of the inmates was sold locally.

In 1813, James Parkinson was appointed as surgeon and apothecary. He established a separate fever block in the workhouse, which was the first in London. In 1817 he published an ’Essay on the Shaking Palsy’ in which he described the condition now known as Parkinson’s Disease.

In 1847, a Parliamentary sub-committee found the workhouse to be overcrowded. In 1849, the Trustees responded with a major modernisation.

A local Act in 1858 replaced the Trustees by a new body – the Board of Guardians of the Poor. In 1861, the Guardians set aside £47,750 to construct a new workhouse for 1200 inmates. Work on building began in 1863 and was completed in 1866.

At the same time, the workhouse land was reconfigured allowing for new streets to be constructed to the south, including Mary Street.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Mary Street was retitled Lynedoch Street, and otherwise Lynedock Street. As part of a redevelopment, the street went under the bulldozer in 1938.