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3 unusual facts about Bow Church


Bow Church

In 1556 at Bow, during the reign of Mary I of England, and under the authority of Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, many people were brought by cart from Newgate and burned at the stake in front of Bow Church in one of the many swings of the English Reformation.

The church (as a chapel of ease) was licensed by Bishop Ralph Baldock of London on 17 November 1311 for the people of Bow and Old Ford within the parish of Stepney.

Bow Church DLR station

The station takes its name from the nearby 14th century Bow Church.


London Buses route 8

The service is currently contracted to Stagecoach London and runs between Bow Church and Tottenham Court Road Station.

North London Railway

The Docklands Light Railway follows the path of the long-disused North London Railway from Bow Church to Poplar, and the northern section of the East Cross Route (A12) built in the late 1960s used the route between Old Ford and Victoria Park stations, demolished for the road's construction.

St Mary-le-Bow

According to tradition a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of Bow Bells (which refers to this church's bells rather than St Mary and Holy Trinity, Bow Road, in Bow, which until the 19th century was an outlying village).


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