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Abstract
This paper explores the history of 59 Brick Lane (presently Brick Lane Jamme Masjid) in Spitalfields, East London through the lens of adaptive reuse. 59 Brick Lane was initially built in 1743 as a French Calvinist Protestant church. It later transitioned to use by an ecumenical missionary organization (1809–1816), was used as a Wesleyan Methodist chapel (1819–1897), then as a synagogue (1897–1975), and is currently in use as a mosque (1975–present). This discussion will trace different communities’ use of a single religious building and resulting material alterations as a manifestation of shared tangible and intangible heritage, a process referred to by the author as the “sacred shift.”Footnote1 This will also demonstrate religious denominations’ multi-layered considerations as they negotiated self-identification and demarcation amidst existing physical, social, and legal constructs, making clear the challenges of marrying heritage buildings with sustainable community use.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Dr. Sarah Dowding, Prof. Mosette Broderick, Dr. Jon Ritter, and Shahed Saleem for their comments on this research; Megan Bredeson and two anonymous peer reviewers for their review of an earlier draft; and Dr. Kate Jordan and Shahed Saleem for their invitation to contribute to this special edition journal. This article is adapted from portions of the author's Masters Thesis completed 2018-2019.
Notes
1. Rebekah Coffman, “The Sacred Shift: Architectural Conservation through Ritual Reuse” (Master’s thesis, New York University, 2019).
2. Anne J. Kershen, Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1660-2000 (London: Routledge, 2005), 32; Christopher Wakeling, Chapels of England: Buildings of Protestant Nonconformity (Swindon: Historic England, 2017), 17. Kershen cites the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day in 1572 as a turning point event.
3. Wakeling, Chapels of England, 17.
4. Ibid., 17, 26.
5. Ibid., 34; Owen Hopkins, From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), 69.
6. Discussions of Christ Church Spitalfields in Kerry Downes, Hawksmoor (London: A. Zwemmer Ltd., 1959); Dan Cruickshank, Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets (London: RH Books, 2016); John Summerson, Georgian London (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978); Francis H.W. Sheppard, ed., Survey of London: Volume 27, Spitalfields and Mile End New Town (London: London County Council, 1957), British History Online. Available online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol27 (accessed January 2, 2019); Bridget Cherry, Charles O’Brien, and Nikolaus Pevsner, London 5: East (London: Yale University Press, 2005); Hopkins, From the Shadows.
7. Wakeling, Chapels of England, 34
8. “No. 39 Fournier Street; Spitalfields Great Synagogue, Fournier Street; the London Talmud Torah Classes for Jewish Children (No. 59 Brick Lane),” Sheppard, ed., Survey of London, 1957.
9. “No. 39 Fournier Street.”
10. Ibid. See also London Metropolitan Archive, 1743, “New Church at a Site in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Stepney at the Upper End of Church Street: Agreement for Erecting a Pulpit, Pews, Altar in the New Church and Adjoining House,” A/SGS/005; London Metropolitan Archive, 1743, “Site in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Stepney at the Upper End of Church Street: Agreement for Building Vestry and Schoolhouse,” A/SGS/004.
11. Andrew Westman, Jamme Masjid 35 Fournier Street and 59-64 Brick Lane, London E1: Historical Appraisal (London: Museum of London Archaeology Service, 2004); Wakeling, Chapels of England, 50–52. Further architectural description in Christopher Stell, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in Eastern England (Swindon: English Heritage, 2002) 116–117.
12. “No. 39 Fournier Street.”
13. London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Wesleyan Chapel-Minute Book,” N/M/042/010; “No. 39 Fournier Street.”
14. Kershen, Strangers, Aliens and Asians, 57–58.
15. Ibid., 83
16. Ibid., 58.
17. “No. 39 Fournier Street”; Rev. W. Thomas Gidney, The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews from 1809-1908 (London: London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, 1908), xi. Hathi Trust, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015025027296;view=1up;seq=8 (accessed March 1, 2019); London Metropolitan Archive. 1809. “French Church in Church Street and House in Brick Lane: Counterpart Lease for 99 Years,” A/SGS/012.
18. Gidney, The History of the London Society, 37–39.
19. Ibid., 41–42.
20. Ibid., 46, 47 and Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, Narrative of the Rev. Joseph Samuel C.F. Frey (New York: D. Fanshaw, 1834), 131. Archive, https://archive.org/details/narrativeofrevjo00frey (accessed April 1, 2019).
21. Gidney, The History of the London Society, 57.
22. Wakeling, Chapels of England, 50–52.
23. Ibid., 268.
24. Brian E. Beck, Methodist Heritage and Identity (London: Routledge, 2018), 37.
25. Geoffrey E. Milburn, “Early Methodism and the Huguenots,” Wesley Historical Society Proceedings 45 (1985): 69–79; Geoffrey E. Milburn, “Huguenots,” A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, https://dmbi.online/index.php?do = app.entry&id = 1428 (accessed April 1, 2019).
26. Peter W. Sutcliffe, “London,” in A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, https://dmbi.online/index.php?do = app.entry&id = 1734 (accessed March 17, 2019).
27. Wakeling, Chapels of England, 67.
28. Ibid., 73.
29. Wesley F. Swift, “Survey of London, Volume XXVII (Spitalfields and Mile End New Town,” Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 45 (1957–1958): 196. https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/whs/31-8.pdf; London Metropolitan Archive. 1817. “French Church in Church Street and House in Brick Lane: Assignment of Lease,” A/SGS/013; London Metropolitan Archive, 1819, “French Church in Church Street and House in Brick Lane: Assignment of Lease,” A/SGS/014.
30. Entry dated 3 September 1864, London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Wesleyan Chapel- Minute Book,” N/M/042/010.
31. Beck, Methodist Heritage and Identity, 36.
32. Entry dated 24 February 1862, London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Wesleyan Chapel- Minute Book,” N/M/042/010; Wakeling, Chapels of England, 136; Ruth Slatter, “Materiality and the Extended Geographies of Religion: The Institutional Design and Everyday Experiences of London’s Wesleyan Methodist Circuits, 1851-1932,” Journal of Historical Geography 64 (2019): 60-71; Ruth Mason, “The Design of Nineteenth-Century Wesleyan Space: Re-reading F.J. Jobson’s Chapel and School Architecture.” Wesley and Methodist Studies 7, no. 1 (2015): 78–99. doi:10.5325/wesl-methstud.7.1.0078; “Methodist Church Architecture,” National Magazine (1 Feb. 1856): 121–125.
33. Entries dated 26 January 1863 and 28 September 1863, N/M/042/010.
34. Entry dated 23 December 1864, N/M/042/010.
35. Entry dated 22 December 1865 and 23 March 1866, N/M/042/010.
36. Entry dated 3 January 1867[8], N/M/042/010.
37. Entry dated 31 March 1868, N/M/042/010.
38. Entries dated 31 March 1868 and 22 August 1870, N/M/042/010.
39. Sutcliffe, “London.”
40. Beck, Methodist Heritage and Identity, 39; Angela Connelly, “Central Halls,” in A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, https://dmbi.online/index.php?do = app.entry&id = 564 (accessed April 5, 2019); John D. Beasley, “Thompson, Peter,” in A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, https://dmbi.online/index.php?do = app.entry&id = 2723 (accessed April 1, 2019); City of London, “East End Mission,” (27 September 2018), https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/the-collections/Pages/east-end-mission.aspx (accessed April 1, 2019); Slatter, “Materiality and the Extended Geographies of Religion.”
41. “No. 39 Fournier Street”; Bernard Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry: The Story of the Machzike Hadath (London: Shapiro, Vallentine & Co., 1953), 54.
42. Sharman Kadish, Building Jerusalem: Jewish Architecture in Britain (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996), 14.
43. Carol Herselle Krinsky, “Between Europe and the New World: Britain’s Place in Synagogue Architecture,” in Kadish, Building Jerusalem, 18.
44. Kadish, Building Jerusalem, 1; Peter Renton, The Lost Synagogues of London (London: Tymsder Publishing, 2000), 17, 24.
45. Sharman Kadish, “Anglo-Jewry and Synagogue Architecture,” Architectural History, 45 (2002), 398.
46. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 6.
47. Ibid., 7.
48. Ibid., 9–11.
49. “No. 39 Fournier Street”; Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 35–54.
50. London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Chapel, Brick Lane: Surrender of Lease,” 1897, A/SGS/025; London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Great Synagogue, Brick Lane: Lease with Plan,” 1898, A/SGS/026; London Metropolitan Archive, “39 Fournier Street, Spitalfields: counterpart lease with plan,” A/SGS/031.
51. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 54.
52. Ibid., 54 and “Historic East End Organ,” East London Observer, November 26, 1932 in London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Archive, “Huguenot Church,” 222.8.
53. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 79.
54. As described in GLC, “Statement on the grounds on which the Greater London Council considers that the Greater London (The Great Synagogue and No. 39 Fournier Street and No. 59 Brick Lane, London Borough of Tower Hamlets) Building Preservation Order 1968 should be confirmed by the Minister of Housing and Local Government,” Greater London Council memorandum, 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607. Mention of the reuse of reredos is in “Spitalfields Great Synagogue: Woodwork Enclosing Ark on East Wall Incorporates 3 of the 5 Bays of the Original Reredos to Ministers Desk Formerly on North Wall,” 1968; London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Great Synagogue.” SC/PHL/02/1219-77.
55. Correspondence dated 3 November 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
56. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 54.
57. Renton, The Lost Synagogues of London, 171; Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 56
58. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 60.
59. Ibid., 60, 75.
60. Ibid., 71.
61. Renton, The Lost Synagogues of London, 24–26.
62. London Metropolitan Archive, “Spitalfields Great Synagogue, Brick Lane and Adjoining Land: Abstract of Title” (1922) A/SGS/034; Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 76, 111–112.
63. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 91.
64. Correspondence dated 24 May 1951 and 31 May 1951, LMA/4441.01.4607.
65. Homa, A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry, 98–99. Homa explains these are all symbols associated with Tabernacle worship.
66. Ibid., 98–99.
67. Ibid., 97–98; Renton, The Lost Synagogues of London, 25–26. Other popular areas Jewish communities moved to include: Maida Vale, Kilburn, Brondesbury, Willesden, Cricklewood, and Dollis Hill.
68. Ibid., 26.
69. Paul Chitlik, “Fallen Temples,” Jewish Chronicle (7 March 1975), London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Archive, “Spitalfields Great Synagogue: Jewish Free Thinkers,” 222.7, Folder 3.
70. Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, section 30, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, Borough of Stepney, B5286, (London: Historic England, 29 December 1950).
71. Sheppard, ed., Survey of London, 1957.
72. Memo dated 24 May 1951, LMA/4441.01.4607; see also Charlie Forman, Spitalfields: A Battle for Land (London: Shipman, 1989); Ian Christopher Bristow, The Saving of Spitalfields (London: Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, 1989); Raphael Samuel, “Ch. 8: The Pathos of Conservation,” in Bristow, The Saving of Spitalfields, 134–171.
73. Memo dated 2 April 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607.
74. Memo dated 2 April 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607.
75. Memo dated 5 April 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607.
76. LMA/4441.01.4607. The Mercury Theatre Trust Limited sent a letter of interest dated 12 June 1968; The Western Theatre Ballet expressed interest 27 June 1968; a memo dated 8 July 1968 discusses interest from the Royal Anthropological society.
77. “East London to Lose Its Mosque,” Hackney Gazette (14 September 1971), in London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Archive, “Mosques,” 222.13, memo dated 11 and 26 July 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607.
78. Correspondence dated 7 and 26 August 1968, LMA/4441.01.4607.
79. Memo dated 14 February 1969 and correspondence dated 30 April 1970, LMA/4441.01.4607.
80. Correspondence dated 29 January 1971, 8 January 1971 and 27 May 1971, LMA/4441.01.4607.
81. Correspondence dated 4 November and 16 November 1971, LMA/4441.01.4607.
82. Town and Country Planning Act, Citation1971, Section 54. 13th List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest as of 27th September 1973, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London: Historic England (27 September 1973).
83. Entry TQ 3381 NE 14A/357, “Great Synagogue,” Fournier Street E1 (North Side), in Town and Country Planning Act, Citation1971, Section 54. 13th List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest as at 27th September 1973, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London: Historic England, 27 September 1973, 108.
84. London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Brick Lane and Fournier Street Conservation Area (4 November 2009), 4, https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/Documents/Planning-and-building-control/Development- control/Conservation-areas/Brick-Lane- &-Fournier-StreetV1.pdf (accessed March 1, 2019).
85. Correspondence dated 21 March and 27 March 1974, LMA/4441.01.4607.
86. Correspondence dated 14 March 1975, LMA/4441.01.4607.
87. Chitlik, “Fallen Temples.”
88. Ibid.
89. Correspondence dated 5 September 1975, LMA/4441.01.4607. Also discussed in Jewish Chronicle Reporter, “Synagogue to Become Mosque,” Jewish Chronicle (26 September 1975), in LBTHLHA 222.7, Folder 3.
90. Gerald Smith, “Machkize Milestone,” Jewish Chronicle (22 January 1982), in LBTHLHA 222.7, Folder 3.
91. Jewish Chronicle Reporter, “Synagogue to Become Mosque,” correspondence dated 9 December 1975, LMA/4441.01.4607.
92. Kershen, Strangers, Aliens and Asians, 44; Eleanor Hubbard, “Sailors and the Early Modern British Empire and Identity at Sea,” History Compass 14, no. 8 (2016): 348–358; Maria Fusaro et al, eds., Law, Labour, and Empire: Comparing Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500-1800 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Aaron Jaffer, Lascars and Indian Ocean Seafaring 1780-1860: Shipboard Life, Unrest, and Mutiny (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2015).
93. C.T.R. Hewer, Understanding Islam: The First Ten Steps (London: SCM Press, 2006), 191–193; Rahmudur Rahman, The Political History of Muslim Bengal: An Unfinished Battle of Faith (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019).
94. Shahed Saleem, The British Mosque: An Architectural and Social History (Swindon: Historic England, 2018), 71; Sajjad Miah, personal interview by Shahed Saleem and the author, April 25, 2019; A.B. Levy, “That Sun-Dial in Spitalfields,” Jewish Chronicle (16 Oct. 1970), London Borough of Tower Hamlets Local History Archive, “Spitalfields Great Synagogue: Jewish Free Thinkers,” 222.7, Folder 3.
95. Further discussion in Claire Alexander, “Contested Memories: The Shahid Minar and the Struggle for Diasporic Space,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36, no. 4 (2013): 590–610 (601–603).
96. Photos dated c. 1976–1985 in LMA/4441.01.4607.
97. Correspondence dated 20 September 1976, 30 September 1976 and 3 November 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
98. Correspondence dated 21 February 1985, October 1986, and 3 November 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
99. Correspondence dated 21 February 1985, LMA/4441.01.4607.
100. Correspondence dated October 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
101. Meeting dates are cited on 15 April, 29 April, 10 June, and 20 August. Correspondence dated October 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
102. Correspondence dated October 1986, LMA/4441.01.4607.
103. Tower Hamlets Development Sub., A) Listed Building Consent B) Planning Permission, 59 Brick Lane Spitalfields, Spitalfields, 13 March 1995, Report No. D5315/495, LBTHLHA, “Mosques,” 222.13.
104. Tower Hamlets Development Sub., Report No. D5315/495. p6.3, LBTHLHA, “Mosques,” 222.13; Mark Overington, “You Mosque Not Ruin Historic Old Building,” East London Advertiser (20 Apr.1995), in LBTHLHA, “Mosques,” 222.13.
105. Tower Hamlets Development Sub., Report No. D5315/495, p2.1, p6.1; 6. LBTHLHA, “Mosques,” 222.13.
106. Tower Hamlets Development Sub., A) Listed Building B) Planning Permission, 59 Brick Lane, The Mosque, Spitalfields, 2 August 1995, Report No. D5056.596, p3.2. LBTHLHA, “Mosques,” 222.13; Overington, “You Mosque Not Ruin Historic Old Building.”
107. Aminul Hoque, “Third-Generation British-Bangladeshis from East London: Complex Identities and a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy,” British Journal of Sociology of Education 39, no. 2 (2018): 182.
108. Further discussion in Timothy Hellwig and Abdulkader Sinn, “Different Groups, Different Threats: Public Attitudes Toward Immigrants,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43, no. 3 (2017): 339–358.
109. Clair Alexander, “Contested Memories,” 591; Claire Alexander, “The ‘Public Life’ of the Bengal Diaspora: Performing Religion, Gender and Generation in the Boishakhi Mela,” Sociology 53, no. 2 (April 2019): 229–245.
110. Alexander, “Contested Memories,” 600; London Borough of Tower Hamlets. “The Cultural Trail.” https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisure_and_culture/local_attractions/cultural_trail/cultural_trail.aspx.
111. David Gallagher Associates Architects, “Brick Lane Cultural Trail, London,” DGA Architects, http://www.dga-architects.co.uk/brick-lane-cultural-trail (accessed March 1, 2019); London Borough of Tower Hamlets, 2009–2010, Planning Application PA/09/02069. https://development.towerhamlets.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=DCAPR_93284; London Borough of Tower Hamlets, “Brick Lane Just North of Fournier Street, Location 4,” https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisure_and_culture/local_attractions/cultural_trail/brick_lanelocation_4.aspx.
112. Ibid.
113. Correspondence dated 29 April 2004, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Planning Application PA/04/00672.
114. Listed Building Consent Decision Notice and Full Planning Permission Decision Notice, PA/04/00672.
115. The Brick Lane Jamme Masjid Trust, Annual Report: 2013 (London: The Brick Lane Jamme Masjid Trust (London) Ltd., 2013).
116. Saleem, The British Mosque, 75.
117. Full Planning Permission Decision Notice, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Planning Application PA/04/00672.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rebekah Coffman
Rebekah Coffman is a historian, preservationist, and curator currently serving as curator of religion and community history for the Chicago History Museum. Her research is at the intersection of religious identity and the built environment and explores representations of tangible and intangible heritages through visual and material culture. She holds an M.A. in Historical and Sustainable Architecture from New York University and a B.A. in Art History and Religion from Hamline University. She is a recipient of the Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum’s 2023 Lindsey Jones Memorial Research Award and received a 2020 Commendation from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for the James Morris Prize