Across Burdett Road was St Anne's Rookery, "a vile quarter lying between Limehouse Church and Limehouse-cut".
 Marked black on Charles Booth's poverty maps — the colour coding denoted "Lowest class.
 Vicious, semi-criminal" — it was one of the few slums alongside the Cut; usually, the land was too valuable for housing.

This notorious enclave, into which a policeman might be dragged by a mob, continually featured in newspaper reports.
 It included St Anne Street, where a man starved his wife in "peculiarly horrible" circumstances (1872); and Merchant's Row, where a labourer kicked his mother to death (1897).
 Law enforcement could be dangerous.
Across Burdett Road was St Anne's Rookery, "a vile quarter lying between Limehouse Church and Limehouse-cut".  Marked black on Charles Booth's poverty maps — the colour coding denoted "Lowest class.  Vicious, semi-criminal" — it was one of the few slums alongside the Cut; usually, the land was too valuable for housing.
This notorious enclave, into which a policeman might be dragged by a mob, continually featured in newspaper reports.  It included St Anne Street, where a man starved his wife in "peculiarly horrible" circumstances (1872); and Merchant's Row, where a labourer kicked his mother to death (1897).  Law enforcement could be dangerous.
Limehouse Cut