The Jack the Ripper Location Photographs: Dutfield's Yard and the Whitby Collection (5 page)

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Totally blank, but probably Kodak Velox) Looking towards St James’s Passage from the colloquially named ‘Ripper’s Corner’. Ghosts of the lettering on the old Kearley & Tonge building, dating from before the murders, are still visible on the wall. Kearley & Tonge later became International Stores who, in turn, are now better known as Somerfield. It appears here that the alleyway was further into the corner of the Square than today, but this is simply because the buildings on the eastern side extended further in than the modern wall. Priory House, dating from 1980 and visible in the 2009 image, has – at the time of writing – been empty for some years. It will most likely be demolished.

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Kodak Velox) Looking up Church Passage from ‘Ripper’s Corner’. On the pilaster buttress right of the white doorway, you can see the blue plaque informing the reader that Mitre Square stands on the site of the Priory of the Holy Trinity. It is still on show to this day. Modern constructions, presumably in Middlesex Street, are just visible in the distance on the 1961 shot. The overpass in the top right corner was added to the Kearley & Tonge buildings in the middle of the twentieth century.

(Kodak Velox) Looking towards ‘Ripper’s Corner’ from St James’s Passage. None of these buildings, including those in Mitre Street beyond, survive. The spot where Catherine Eddowes died on 30th September 1888 is just where the low brick wall with the white band terminates. The buildings in this corner were demolished in the 1940s and the remaining walls were shortened. Prior to this demolition, the pavement here curved to the left to sweep around to the pavement with the dustbins but, by 1961, we see it has been changed. Likewise, a high wooden fence and gateway at the spot was removed. The lamp affixed to the building in the centre of the picture was added after the murder. By 2009, the corner had changed again, with nothing original remaining. Even the setts in the Square have been re-laid and may include only a small fraction of the original ones. The buildings to the left have been replaced with the playground of the Sir John Cass Foundation School. It was present at the time of the murders, although the current main building is Edwardian.

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Kodak Velox) The houses along the eastern side of Spital Square. This set of three were clearly taken at the same time because of the position of the single car in all the photographs. It is unknown why Whitby considered Spital Square to be important enough to warrant three photographs. Its sole connection to the Ripper case lies in the fact that the police surgeon, George Bagster Phillips, lived at 2 Spital Square, but this was demolished in 1929. Although the porch of the second building down has been recycled, the frontages there today are not the same ones visible in the 1961 photographs.

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Kodak Velox) Looking north towards Folgate Street. As the buildings in the middle distance have remained unchanged, this location is easy to identify although the buildings down the main body of Spital Square have all gone.

(Courtesy Margaret Whitby-Green)

(Kodak Velox) Looking south from Folgate Street towards Spitalfields Market, in the same position as the first image. The building on the right is recognisable for it is around here that the closing sequence of the ignored evangelist in the famed travelogue
The London Nobody Knows
was filmed in 1967.