Although it is known primarily for its street art, nightclubs, and warehouse conversions, Shoreditch is really a self-sufficient hub for entrepreneurial city workers as well as trend-setting creatives. This neighbourhood area is roughly delineated by the boundaries of the Shoreditch triangle – Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street. The north-western corner, towards Old Street (or Silicon) Roundabout, is the home of London’s largest tech cluster. Amazon and Facebook, along with masses of fresh start-ups have either bought office space or invested in the area. Google’s Campus in London is a space for entrepreneurs to share ideas and meet investors. East of Great Eastern Street, the epicentre of Shoreditch – the playground of the city – boasts rows of bars, coffee shops and fashion outlets.

The arts and entertainment scene has been developing here since the Tudor times, when plays and concerts attracting large crowds were prohibited from taking place within city walls so as prevent the spread of the plague. In more recent times, the brickwork of the rugged east London buildings has been spray-painted by the likes of Banksy and David Walker, while indoor art is regularly exhibited at the London Drawing School, also within the area. Cargo, Queen of Hoxton and Village Underground, hosting world famous musicians and DJs, are popular destinations for partygoers. Of course, the proximity to the city has meant that an average property fetches £485 in weekly rent and it’s mainly professionals settling into the new-builds around here. Central Foundation is a comprehensive secondary school for boys, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Shoreditch, one can argue, has always been a fringe community. In 1576 James Burbage built one of the first permanent theatres in the area, branded “The Theatre”. Scorned upon by authorities for the anarchic and libertine crowd it would attract, the area was mostly a marshy collection of cottages and pubs where drunkards and playwrights like Shakespeare would reside. A brief spell during the seventeenth century brought employment opportunities as a result of a French silk weaver establishing a textile industry here. However, with the industrial revolution subjecting the area to increasing competition, by the end of the Victorian period Shoreditch was once again mired in poverty. Only the slum clearing initiatives of post-war governments alleviated the demographic pressures. Commerce like printing and clothing provided some economic activity and this, together with the remnants of the industrial aesthetic from the previous century, set up Shoreditch for its entrance into the arts scene it is known for today.

An icon of true Britishness and the bright face of decades of television, Dame Barbara Windsor was born in Shoreditch in 1937. Having broken into the world of theatre at a very young age, Windsor appeared in Joan Littlewood’s Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be which popularised her within the West End in the 60s. The rest of the country got a taste for the young comic actress when she played in nine of the thirty-one Carry On films, though she later had difficulty shedding her ‘good time girl’ image which the series had typecast her as. After some more theatre work, the actress became a regular in the EastEnders series which prolonged her career further. Windsor, who made the move from east to west London as her prominence rose, speaks of the area as practically unrecognisable since the time she lived there.

Though the origin of the name Shoreditch is disputed, one story goes that the mistress of King Edward IV, Jane Shore, was buried in a ditch around here. Plays like Romeo and Juliet and Richard III were premiered either in the nearby Curtain Theatre, after The Theatre was dismantled and rebuilt on Southbank to make The Globe. Shoreditch is also popular among contemporary actors and filmmakers – Contagion, starring Matt Damon and a host of other blockbuster names, was shot on Rivington Street.

Few first-time buyers can afford themselves the penthouses constituting the majority of the property market in and around this area. Many complain that, as a result, the real essence of Shoreditch has been priced out, having received much of its charm from the creatives to whom it offered cheap rent and studio space during the nineties. Today, more than forty percent of buyers are from overseas, whilst the rest are aided by old money.

A number of exciting developments are projected for the area in the coming years, with some already completed. The Elizabeth Line is already operational and the platform in Liverpool Street station opened in 2022. Trains can now take passengers to Heathrow via Paddington and to Abbey Wood or Shenfield via Whitechapel. A train journey to Canary Wharf has been cut down to six minutes from twelve. The Stage is a commercial and residential development completed in 2022 which brings 412 apartments and 275,000 sq ft of office space to the area. The 37-storey block is built around a plaza incorporating the excavations of the aforementioned Curtain Theatre, which itself will be regenerated into an amphitheatre for public use.