Watch Spitalfields Night Code: take a stroll down Brick Lane and enjoy the nightlife in the postcode that rarely sleeps

Watch Spitalfields Culture Code: we take you on a tour of Spitalfields' cultural scene

PEOPLE who live in Spitalfields are too cool to be cool. The artists Gilbert & George, denizens of Fournier Street for more than 40 years, would crease their immaculate suits laughing at the suggestion. And the writer-turned-shop-keeper Jeanette Winterson would shy away from the vulgar popularity of it all. Tracey Emin would just raise those eyebrows.

Nevertheless, Spitalfields is . . . cool. Most visitors are dazzled by the market. The accessories label Tatty Devine is an established resident; its kitsch designs, incorporating everything from found fabrics to old toys, are sold from New York to Tokyo. Feast on proper Brit fare such as Welsh rarebit at Canteen, or grab some Thai-style street food. The market is facing closure again. The locals are fighting a proposed 750,000 sq ft monster by Norman Foster. Sadly, already gone is the Market Café, where Gilbert & George dined daily on boiled ham and cabbage. The duo now support Smut (Spitalfields Market Under Threat). Commercially the site is supposedly worth £1 billion. Culturally it’s priceless.

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Nobody here wants the City any closer. Shops such as White Stuff — weekend wear for people with more money than time — are a warning sign. “We don’t want to be ‘cool’,” says Marianna Kennedy, who has lived on Fournier Street for more than 20 years. “We’re doing what the Huguenots did — we’re living our work, we’re giving the area life. I don’t have the £1.5 million it would take to buy my house now.”

Successive waves of immigrants reinvent Spitalfields. The life of a Huguenot weaver is sensitively depicted in Dennis Severs’ House, an 18th-century property in Folgate Street that the American artist turned into a time capsule. Visitors tour its dimly lit rooms in silence.

Artists are the latest to seek sanctuary. What the Ivy is to showbiz, the Golden Heart pub is to art. Regulars include Sarah Lucas, Gillian Wearing and Gary Hume. Emin’s studio is a mere stagger away. Mothering all and pulling pints is the legendary landlady, Sandra Esquilant. Kennedy knows them all and they know her. She’s as much a fixture as Hawksmoor’s church.

In her workshop, Kennedy makes contemporary objects using old-fashioned crafts such as lacquering. These she sells in her shop out front. Upstairs her partner binds books. The doorbell rings constantly as I wander round their perfectly shabby Georgian house, with neighbours dropping by, clients checking up and tramps seeking work. “Oh, they come every day,” she says. “They’ve lived here longer than me. I pay them to take rubbish away and run errands. I trust them. Tracey uses them too.”

STOCKTAKING

The average property price in Smithfield (EC1) is £330,496 compared with £262,689 in Spitalfields (E1).

House prices have risen by 75.7 per cent in Spitalfields over the last five years. This just outperforms Smithfield, where prices have grown by 70 per cent over the same period.

The price-earnings ratio in both Spitalfields and Smithfield is 10.4. Source: www.mouseprice.com

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