Bow in 1839
Bow is on the main branch of the Norfolk and Suffolk roads, 2 miles from Whitechapel church. The parish is in the Tower division of Ossulston hundred, which is comprehended in the new metropolitan parliamentary borough of the Tower Hamlets. The name of the parish is Stratford-le-Bow, but we have given the colloquial abbreviation in order to distinguish it from Stratford Langthorn, or colloquially Stratford, which is just across the Lea in Essex. Between Bow and Stratford is an ancient bridge over the Lea. Bow church is an ancient structure, chiefly in the early English style, but there are some portions of Norman architecture. A yearly fair, much resorted to by the Londoners, has been of late years suppressed. The parish, which has an area of 630 acres, with a population, in 1831, of 3,371, was separated from that of Stepney in 1730. At the hamlet of Oldford, in the parish, are the East London waterworks. The living is a rectory, of the clear yearly value of £319, with a glebe-house. There were, in 1833, three dame-schools, with 48 children ; three boarding-schools, with 88 children ; five day-schools, two of them endowed, with 109 children, and three unendowed, with 42 children ; and two Sunday-schools, with 244 children.
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