Stepney Areas

The Commonwealth Fortifications

The Commonwealth saw the building of a ring of fortifications around London. Buildings, crops and gardens were destroyed as a trench was cleared and fortifications built. In Stepney it reached Gravel Lane, now Wapping Lane. 

A fort was built near the place where the London Hospital was later built and where the Whitechapel windmills stood. Eventually a mound of rubbish built up around it which remained into the next century. (For picture of mound see above link.)