Ten Bells
The Ten Bells is a public house at the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is sometimes cited as being notable for its association with two victims of Jack the Ripper; Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly.
The Ten Bells pub has existed in one guise or other since at least the middle of the 18th century.
It originally stood on a site known as 12 Red Lion Street, just a few metres away. However, when this building was pulled down as part of the cutting of Commercial Street in 1851, the owners of the Ten Bells (Truman Hanbury Buxton & Co) were able to move the public house to its current position at 84 Commercial Street (at one time known as 33 Church Street).
The name of the pub has changed over time, but those names have generally derived from the number of bells in the "peal" housed in the Nicholas Hawksmoor-designed Christ Church, Spitalfields next door.
In 1755 it was known as the "Eight Bells Alehouse". The name is likely to have changed in 1788 when the church installed a new set of chimes, this time with ten bells; certainly, there are insurance records to show that the pub was registered as "the Ten Bells, Church Street, Spitalfields" from 1794. The number of bells in the church increased to twelve at one point and were subsequently reduced to its current number of eight after a fire in the steeple in 1836. However, save for a brief deviation from the theme (see below), the "Ten Bells" name has stuck.
The interior of the pub is decorated floor to ceiling with original Victorian tiling. Two of the walls feature a blue and white floral pattern tiling scheme and there is a colourful tiled dado going round the room. Of particular note is the mural of painted tiles on the wall on the north side of the building, entitled Spitalfields in ye Olden Time – visiting a Weaver's Shop, which commemorates the weaving heritage of the area. The mural was designed by the firm of W. B. Simpson and Sons and dates from the late 19th century.
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