I was tipped off that there was a walking tour of E1 Community Gardens, including an orchard in Shadwell. I was intrigued. It turns out that people have colonised redundant spaces and turned them with volunteer help into small-scale community gardens, greening what would otherwise be bleak spaces, beginning as guerilla interventions, now supported by the local council:-

Oddest is Swedenborg Gardens, constructed on the site of Swedenborg Square, which was demolished after the Second World War for purposes of slum clearance. This is what it looked like in 1931:-

And now:-