Life on the hidden London street that looks like it is 1700 but is showing signs of gentrification
London is an ever-changing city with over a thousand years of history and often seems to take a life of its own. With this wealth of history at its disposal there are some areas which really feel like they can transport you back in time.
They have been missed by the steamrollers of change and serve as homages to the lives that once roamed the same streets we do now. Ezra Street, just off the famous Columbia Road, is one of these places.
And the East London location hasn't gone unnoticed by top film producers as it is regularly used in period films. Most recently, a very friendly Kate Winslet visited during the filming of Lee, according to local publican Grace Mpofu.
Grace has worked at The Royal Oak on the corner of Ezra Street for the last four years and was thrilled to see the global superstar during the two-day shoot on location. "She was really nice," Grace said, "There was a little bit of an issue with their production company but she came over and apologised. I was like 'that's very nice of you, you don't have to do that'. I thought that was very different."
Grace spoke about them filming the scene: "If you look at the movie, they put some CGI [computer generated images] on it, but it's the whole street. They came here with soil and stuff to try to make it like a war zone"
The cobbled street with beautiful Georgian townhouse architecture has been featured in plenty of other TV shows and films such as Call the Midwife, Goodnight Sweetheart and The Krays (1990). There have also been a lot of photoshoots along the street, Grace said, like GQ Magazine. Olive Alvarez, an employee of Italian restaurant Campania, said she remembers Call the Midwife bringing in fake snow to film.
"I was once watching some random Netflix show and I saw Ezra Street, and I thought 'that's so random' but it was filmed years ago," Grace said. Long before it became a hotspot for Hollywood stars, couple Valerie and Ted Digby called Ezra Street and the surrounding areas home and were visiting this week on a trip down memory lane.
Ted used to live with his aunt on the street itself but his building, No. 9 Ezra Street, along with an old wood factory, has since been knocked down. They haven't been rebuilt, and now a courtyard sits in their place.
Valerie told of what life was like in 1950s Bethnal Green street. She said: "My aunt used to live right next door to the wood factory; she used to get a lot of mice because they used to come in and chew the wood. They didn't have inside toilets either; they were outside."
Ted said: "I used to live in there with my aunt and my grandfather. There were quite a few people living in there in such a small house. A lot of people." He added: "It's a shame because they knocked these old houses down and haven't rebuilt them."
Campania now sits in the ancient building in the middle of the street, but Valerie and Ted remember it when it was S. Jone's Dairy. "A girl called Megan used to serve there," Valerie recalled. "She used to give us wonderful cakes and sterilised milk." Despite the area changing a lot, as well as part of the street, some things remain, like the primary school across the way.
Tom Bloom is another veteran of the area. He has been running his shop, Milagros, since the late 1990s, selling authentic Latin American wares. He, too, has seen the area change a lot.
He said: "It's all been gentrified; the West London Children bought homes in East London. There didn't use to be any restaurants, but there's been a whole foodie revolution."
Tom is aware that he was part of the gentrification move and "brought new ideas to the area and took advantage of the low rents at the time," he said. He originally grew up in Yorkshire but has lived in America and Bristol too. During his travels in South America he decided to bring back and sell the artisanal products they were making over there.
Like all the other members of the community, Tom has seen some odd things going on on Ezra Street set up by film crews. He said: "There was one thing where I saw real life Zebras walking out of the pub [the Royal Oak]".
He said lots of stars have come into his shop too like Russell Brand ("for good or ill", he added), Celeste and famous footballers too.
But it's not just famous people who frequent the area, Campania employee Oliva Alvarez said, but there is a real sense of community life. She said: "All of my friends went to the local primary school here and every generation of school kid from there has ended up working at Campania."
Anisur Choudhury, 37, is one of the newer additions to the community, bringing homemade Bengali food to Ezra Street. He opened his shop Corner Deli three months ago and business has been going well.
He said he had not seen any filming going on since he arrived and noted that most of the films happen at Campania in the middle of the street. He said: "I think this is a good location for a thriller, for suspense, especially with the trees coming out. It's a very nice place though."
Anisur spoke positively about the community on the street: "The community feel here is quite strong, especially on Columbia Road, there's a very unified community. I've met most of the traders and they're very friendly."
He spoke about the busy Sundays due to the flower market on adjoining Columbia Road. He said: "I personally don't want to just rely on busy Sundays for my business, we want to have a solid Monday to Friday too and so Sundays can become a bonus."
He noted that the ancient Smithfield Meat market was closing after 800s years of service but said he was not too worried that the flower market would shut down, unless developers "wanted to build houses in the middle of the street."
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