Cheshire Street is a historic street in the East End of Spitalfields, running between Brick Lane and Bethnal Green. Once known as “Hare Street,” it developed during the rapid growth of Spitalfields in the 17th and 18th centuries. When I first arrived in the East End in 1982, it quickly became one of my favourite haunts — especially on Sundays, when the market was alive with second-hand goods, antiques, clothes, records, and all manner of hidden treasures.
Spitalfields became famous for successive waves of immigration: first the French Huguenot silk weavers in the late 1600s, then Jewish communities in the 19th century, followed by Bangladeshi families from the 1970s onward. Cheshire Street reflected this constantly evolving East End culture, with its small workshops, busy markets, old pubs, and working-class housing.
Back in the 1980s, wandering through Cheshire Street often felt like stepping onto a film set. Some of the faces and characters you encountered seemed as though they had walked straight out of a Dickens novel.
Unlike many parts of the East End, several streets around Cheshire Street survived wartime bombing and large-scale redevelopment. Their preserved Georgian houses, narrow lanes, and industrial backdrops made the area ideal for recreating old London on film, often requiring little more than careful camera angles rather than heavy special effects. This atmosphere led to Cheshire Street being used as a filming location in Michael Radford’s 1984 adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, starring John Hurt and Richard Burton.
I hardly recognise the Cheshire Street of today after the rapid gentrification that has transformed the area since the 1990s. Even so, one of my old favourites, the Carpenter’s Arms, is still standing. According to East End folklore, the pub was associated with the Kray twins during the mid-20th century. Nearby, the old public bath houses later became home to the historic Repton Boxing Club, which trained generations of notable British boxers. Today, many of those once-gritty buildings have been converted into luxury flats — a striking reminder of how dramatically the East End has changed.
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Exploring Isolation Through Urban Photography
I took this photograph from a rooftop overlooking Hanbury Street during a party celebrating the opening of the East End Film Festival in 2010. From that elevated vantage point I had an unusual bird’s-eye view of the street below. The image became, for me, a photograph about mobility, digital culture, and changing patterns of urban life.
A laptop is conventionally associated with desks, cafés, offices, or at least moments of pause. Here, however, it becomes integrated into movement itself — computing while walking through the street. In 2010 this looked especially strange and faintly futuristic, because mobile internet culture was still in transition. The woman had originally been sitting on the pavement using the laptop, and I was surprised to see her continue working on it when she suddenly stood up and hurried away. Smartphones already existed, but many people still depended on full laptops for serious connectivity, work, media, and communication.
I think the photograph now has a prophetic quality. Today, seeing people absorbed in devices while moving through cities is entirely normal — phones dominate attention everywhere. Yet the laptop makes the behaviour visible in a more exaggerated and theatrical way. It externalises something that has since become socially invisible: the demand for constant digital engagement. That engagement can isolate people from their immediate surroundings and dull observational awareness. In this photograph, the street itself has become an office.
Hanbury Street, Spitalfields 2014.
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Capturing Street Life in London: A Photo Essay
Although I’ve been photographing Brick Lane for decades, I now feel slightly detached from it — partly because I no longer live in London, but also because the area itself has changed so radically over the years. These days it is more often filled with tourists than with the communities and street life I once knew.
Because the subjects are looking away from the camera, the viewer becomes an observer of observers. The image feels cinematic, almost like a still from a street film, where something beyond the frame seems to matter as much as what is visible within it.
The white trainers and lighter clothing become visual focal points, standing out sharply against the darker surroundings. This subtly links the two figures while also separating them from the chaotic environment, one they appear, perhaps, slightly unfamiliar with.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here
Watch The Photographer – a short film about the photography of Phil Maxwell:
Timeless Photography of East London
Although this photograph was taken in 2024 it has a timeless feel. The rough brick wall, layered graffiti, and the pavement are common features of a place I’ve been photographing for over 40 years.
The wall dominates the right side, acting almost like a narrative surface. The painted cartoon figure is the key visual counterpoint. It introduces a playful, almost innocent element that contrasts with the more serious, introspective demeanor of the passerby.
You can buy a signed copy of my latest photo book here
Watch The Photographer – a short film about the photography of Phil Maxwell:
Bomber Starmer
Starmer’s Labour government stands accused of complicity in Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestinians, with critics pointing to its refusal to meaningfully challenge occupation, apartheid, genocide and mass civilian suffering. Meanwhile, U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bombers operating out of RAF Fairford underline the UK’s deep entanglement in U.S.-led military power and imperialism in the Middle East.
Keir Starmer has backed this alignment, echoing Washington’s framing of military action as “defensive,” even as critics argue it fuels escalation, including in relation to Iran. At home, his response to dissent raises further alarm: following a recent tragedy, Starmer floated the idea of restricting protests, amid pressure to curb pro-Palestinian demonstrations against genocide. This signals a willingness to trade away civil liberties to silence opposition.
By fusing Starmer’s image with the looming presence of a strategic bomber, this photomontage delivers a stark piece of visual satire. I hope it’s one that challenges viewers to confront the links between political leadership, militarism, and the growing suppression of protest in the UK.
