23 Whitechapel Road

early 19th-century shophouse on the site of the Green Dragon Inn | Part of 21 and 23 Whitechapel Road

21 and 23 Whitechapel Road
Contributed by Survey of London on March 28, 2017

This was the site of the Green Dragon Inn, next to the Nag's Head Inn, like which it was both a coaching establishment and of early and obscure origins. The Green Dragon was a post-chaise house for journeys to Essex by 1760, and with the Nag's Head was run by ThomasWhitehead around 1770. Along with stables its yard acommodated one-room plan two-storey houses, which increased in number from five to fifteen in the 1780s, all along the west side up to Old Montague Street. Access from the south was on the inn’s west side.1 Around 1810 the inn was wound up and at least part rebuilt to form two three-storey houses. These appear to have been further rebuilt and raised around 1840 to make the two subsequently altered shop-houses presently at Nos 21 and 23. No. 21 was a baker’s premises and then dining rooms from the 1860s to 1912 and was much altered in 1922. Green Dragon Court or Yard, now entered from under No. 23 and in divided ownership, gained five more somewhat larger houses at the north end of its east side; there were 26 in total in 1838. Abraham Davis put up another eight further south in 1889–90 when occupancy was poor and Jewish.2


  1. London Evening Post, 26 Aug 1760: Land Tax: Horwood's maps 

  2. London Metropolitan Archives, THCS/202–464: Ordnance Survey maps: District Surveyors Returns: Land Tax: London School of Economics Archives, Booth/B/351, p.133: Post Office Directories