Coborn Road, Mile End

The boundary between Stepney, on the left-hand side, and Poplar, on the right-hand side, runs down the centre of Coborn Road.   The roadway was built during the development of the Coborn Estate started in the 1820s: the east-side in the 1820s and west-side in the 1870s.  In the Census of 1851 the houses in Coborn Road were mainly occupied by the newly emerging urban middle class.  Many of them were employed in managerial positions in the East India Docks and related industries.

Soon after the development of the Coborn Estate the railway came to this part of Tower Hamlets.  In 1839 the Eastern County Railway built their line across the northern end of Coborn Road, thereby linking Essex to the City of London.  In 1883 Coborn Road Station was opened by its new owners, Great Eastern Railway, who had taken over Eastern County Railways.  Coborn Road Station closed in 1946.

Coborn Road did not suffer serious bomb damage during the Second World War.  However, after the War, the houses on the right-hand side were pulled down and a 1970s style block of flats was built near the railway line.  Other than that Coborn Road is much same.  This is because of a successful campaign mounted by a group of local residents in the 1970s.  They saved the Georgian and Victorian houses in the area from the dreaded house clearance mentality of the London County Council and Tower Hamlets Council.  We must be thankful that Mile End Old Town Residents’ Association won their campaign and we can still walk around these Georgian and Victorian Streets adjoining Coborn Road.