The area that now makes up Jacob's island has changed greatly over
the last 200 years. From marshy, boggy wasteland, to a Den for
thieves, to an area of industry and now residential area. Below are a
few quotes from historic publications that show how the area has moved
on over the years.
"The striking peculiarity of Jacob's Island consists in the
wooden galleries and sleeping-rooms at the back of the houses, which
overhang the dark flood, and are built upon piles, so that the place
has positively the air of a Flemish street, flanking a sewer instead
of a canal; while the little rickety bridges that span the ditches and
connect court with court, give it the appearance of the Venice of
drains." Morning Chronicle, 1849
The same writer observes that "in the reign of Henry II. The
foul stagnant ditch, which now makes an island of this pestilential
spot, was a running stream, supplied with the waters which poured down
from the hills about Sydenham and Nunhead, and was used for the
working of the mills which then stood on its banks"
"To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a
maze of close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and
poorest of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be
supposed to occasion. The cheapest and least delicate provisions are
heaped in the shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing
apparel dangle at the salesman's door, and stream from the
house-parapet and windows. Jostling with unemployed labourers of the
lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged
children, and the raff and refuse of the river" Oliver Twist,
Charles Dickens
One of the missionaries of the London City Mission, in 1876,
furnished a report on the district as it was when he entered it
twenty-one years ago, and as it now exists. Many of the horrors, he
admits, have passed away "The foul ditch no longer pollutes the
air. It has long been filled up and along Mill Street, where ' the
crazy wooden galleries' once hung over it, stands Messrs. Peek, Frean,
and Co.'s splendid biscuit bakery. The ditch which intersected the
district along London Street served as a fine bathing place for the
resident juveniles in summer-time. I have seen," continues the
writer, "many of the boys rolling joyously in the thick liquid,
undeterred by the close proximity of the decomposing carcases of cats
and dogs". London City Mission 1876
At the turn of the century, you could pick up a property in Jacob's
Island for £5 as the quote below shows:
