Brick Lane

Brick Lane takes its name from medieval brick kilns and its character from waves of arrivals: Huguenot silk weavers from the 1680s, Irish, then Ashkenazi Jews from the 1880s, then Bengalis, mainly from Sylhet, from the 1970s. One building at the northern end carries the whole sequence, built as a Huguenot chapel in 1743, became a Methodist chapel, then the Machzike Hadath synagogue in 1898, and has been the Brick Lane Jama Masjid since 1976. The southern half is officially Banglatown and lined with curry houses whose touts work the pavement. Two twenty-four-hour beigel bakeries near the top survive from the Jewish period and sell salt beef beigels to a queue at any hour. The side streets carry a dense concentration of street art.

What you actually see

• The layered building - chapel, then synagogue, now mosque, in one structure.
• The beigel bakeries - two survivors selling salt beef around the clock.
• Banglatown - the curry house strip with its pavement touts.
• The street art - murals dense through the side streets and yards.

When to go

Year-round; Sunday is the biggest market day, with the Upmarket and Backyard Market running alongside the street. Evenings are when the curry houses work. Ramadan changes the rhythm of the southern half considerably.

Honest expectations

Curry house touting on the street is persistent and prices are quoted flexibly; the best Bengali food in the area is generally not on the main strip. The northern end has gentrified sharply and rents have pushed out long-standing businesses. Sunday crowds are heavy.

Nearby

Spitalfields Market and Old Spitalfields are west; Shoreditch and Columbia Road lie north.