Entrance to the park
Replica of the Shaheed Minar monument
Gravestones

Altab Ali Park is a small park on the Whitechapel Road, in Whitechapel, London.[1] Formerly known as St Mary's Park, it is the site of the old 14th-century, once whitewashed church, St Mary Matfelon, from which Whitechapel gets its name.[2]

St Mary's was badly damaged by enemy action in 1940, during The Blitz,[3] and subsequently demolished. Little remains of the old church, other than the floor plan and some graves. Those buried in former churchyard include Richard Parker, Richard Brandon, Sir John Cass, and "Sir" Jeffrey Dunstan, "Mayor of Garratt".

The park was renamed Altab Ali Park in 1998[4] in memory of Altab Ali, a 24-year-old British Bangladeshi leather clothing worker, who was murdered on 4 May 1978, in the adjacent Adler Street, by three teenage boys as he walked home from work.[5] Ali's murder was one of the many racist attacks that occurred in the area at that time.[6] At the entrance to the park is an arch created by David Petersen, developed as a memorial to Altab Ali and other victims of racist attacks. The arch incorporates a complex Bengali and European style pattern, meant to show the merging of different cultures in East London.[7][8][9]

Along the path down the centre of the park are letters spelling out "The shade of my tree is offered to those who come and go fleetingly", a fragment of a poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, which is no longer there.

The Shaheed Minar, which commemorates the Bengali Language Movement, stands in the southwest corner of Altab Ali Park. The monument is a smaller replica of the one in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and symbolises a mother and her martyred sons.[10] It was unveiled by the Speaker of the Bangladesh National Parliament, Humayun Rashid Choudhury, in February 1999.[11]

The nearest London Underground station is Aldgate East on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.

References

  1. ↑ "Parks and Open Spaces - Tower Hamlets". London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  2. ↑ "Whitechapel's Free Art & History". exploringeastlondon.co.uk. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  3. ↑ "St Mary Matfellon Whitechapel". Middlesex-heraldry.org.uk. 30 August 2009. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  4. ↑ "Aldgate". London-footprints.co.uk. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Brick Lane Tour". Worldwrite.org.uk. 4 May 1978. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  6. ↑ Keith, Michael (2005). After the Cosmopolitan?: Multicultural Cities and the Future of Racism. Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 9781134294534.
  7. ↑ "Altab Ali Arch". Whitechapel's Free Art and History. Archived from the original on 28 March 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
  8. ↑ "Altab Ali murdered in Whitechapel, London". An Oral History of the Runnymede Trust, 1968-1988. Runnymede Trust. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  9. ↑ "Gateway to Altab Ali Park". Public Monuments & Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 14 April 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
  10. ↑ Rafique, Ahmed (2012). "Shaheed Minar". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
  11. ↑ "Shaheed Minar". Survey of London. 27 June 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2023.

51°30′58″N 0°04′07″W / 51.5162°N 0.0685°W / 51.5162; -0.0685

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