St Georges Estate Residents Portal

The purpose of this website is to provide information and to present a platform for discussion, exchange of ideas and to share good and bad experiences.

Cross over Dock Street and keep walking straight ahead. The street becomes Cable Street, which gave its name to the infamous battle. Cable Street started as a straight path along which hemp ropes were twisted into ships cables (ie ropes). These supplied the many ships that would anchor in the nearby Pool of London, between London Bridge and Wapping & Rotherhithe. The length of rope needed for the sails on the ships was a mile in length and this is why Cable Street is exactly one mile long. Many other "rope walks" can be seen on later maps, showing how demand for ropes grew as shipping increased.

The estate now called St Georges Estate emerged with the acquisition of 2.27 acres of land bounded by The Highway, Cannon Street Road, Cable Street and Crowder Street, in 1961. The Greater London Council initiated the construction of the new estate with a 6-storey block of 69 dwellings later to be named Brockmer House. The relevant drawings can be found at the London Metropolitan Archives, for a PDF copy click here. The original project name was 'Crowder Street' suggesting that the name ‘St Georges Estate’ was adopted at a later date. Up to the late 1960’s St Georges Estate was called Swedenborg Square Site, probably in an attempt to avoid confusion with St Georges-in-the-East Hospital Site, which was an early 1960’s residential development in neighbouring Wapping.

The Housing Committee Report, dated 14 July 1964, states:

“We have approved proposals for the development as part of the Stepney-Poplar comprehensive development of a site, about 2.7 acres in extent, bounded by Cable Street, Betts Street, The Highway and Swedenborg Square.