JOIN THE GANG!
The Kray twins’ East End has now become a hotspot for young, trendy professionals
there’s nothing like a glossy movie to add lustre to a once down-at-heel part of town. so stand by as London ’s east end glows just a little bit brighter with the release next week of Legend, the biopic about the notorious Kray twins.
In the 1960s — the Krays’ heyday — the east end was a place apart from the rest of London. renowned for its community spirit, it was also riddled with crime and violence.
If you didn’t work in the docks — enjoying a sideline selling ‘spillage’ or stolen cargo — the chances are you made a living ducking and diving in the markets.
A place of dark canals and gasworks, the quality of housing was poor — a mix of 1880s terraces, 1920s estates and lowrise flats filling the gaps where bombs had flattened homes during the war.
Now those same streets are buzzing with media-types, designers, architects, IT-professionals and other ‘creatives’. Prices have risen accordingly . The film, starring Tom hardy and emily Brown - ing, centres around the villains’ old stamping ground but anyone today hoping to find the gangsters’ ‘manor’ — their territory — as it appears in the film will be disappointed. The total value of homes in hackney has risen by 864 per cent since 1987 — the fastest of any London borough, according to London agents stirling Ackroyd. In Vallance road, Bethnal Green, where the Krays grew up, they would doubtless be sad to see that their old home, a small terrace house, has been demolished and is now a housing association property.
Identical neighbouring houses, which like theirs were worth £3,000 in 1969, now sell for £700,000.
A few landmarks from Kray mythology still stand. The Blind Beggar pub on Whitechapel road, for example, was where ronnie Kray murdered rival, George Cornell, for inferring that ronnie was overweight and homosexual.
A two -bedroom flat in O’Leary square, a five - minute walk from the pub recently sold for £350,000.
The greasy spoon cafes, markets and rough pubs have been replaced by popup cinemas, farmers’ markets and trendy bars.
One of the few reminders of the Krays’ era is P ellicci’s cafe on Bethnal Green road, where the brothers and members of their ‘firm ’ met for breakfast. A one - bedroom flat in a church conversion opposite Pellicci’s recently sold for £365,000.
evering road in stoke Newington was where the Krays carried out their most vicious murder. They tricked Jack the hat McVitie into coming to the basement flat of Number 97, belonging to one Blonde Carol. When McV itie arrived, reggie stabbed him to death. A four -bedroom house near to Blonde Carol’s today would set you back at least £1,200,000.
Churches also feature in the Krays’ story . st Mat - thew’s, e2, was the scene of their funerals, attended by thousands. reggie was married to Frances shea in east end church st James.
‘It’s true that everyone trusted one another and left their doors open in those days but there was poverty too,’ says James Barton, a partner at Knight Frank, whose family have lived in the east end for generations. ‘ The area today is a far more exciting, fashionable place to live.’