The exhibition about Chinese Limehouse opened in St. Anne’s, Limehouse today (see below).

It’s a fascinating story, starting in the eighteenth century when the boats of the East India Company docked in Poplar and brought back examples of porcelain.

In the nineteenth century, China was both romanticised and demonised, as was Limehouse, written about by Sax Rohmer just before the First World War who popularised the idea of Limehouse as a haunt of opium dens.

The only thing I didn’t spot was any reference to Peter Ackroyd’s wonderful novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem which is a re-re-romanticisation of the Limehouse myth.

The exhibition is open Thursday to Saturday till July.  And it’s an opportunity to see a great Hawksmoor church.

In Chinese Limehouse | Spitalfields Life https://share.google/LYwEMP5J1VQF1Rdgf