London’s Lost Peak: What on Earth was Whitechapel Mount?
Whitechapel is one of the oldest districts of London. Near the old City of London, overlooked by the towering glass skyscrapers of the business and financial district, it is a maze of roads, parks and old buildings. Today it is perhaps best known for being the area Jack the Ripper prowled, murdering prostitutes amid the dark alleyways.
Much of the old Whitechapel has been lost to urban redevelopment in the century since the Ripper, but some of the old character survives. The churches still stand, dwarfed by the buildings that surround them. Pubs and parks are somewhat as they used to be, and behind Liverpool St Station there are still a few alleyways of Victorian London, now home to karaoke and wine bars.
But perhaps the most enigmatic feature of Whitechapel is one that most Londoners are not even aware of. A century before Jack the Ripper, in the 1700s, there was Whitechapel Mount, a huge mound taller than the nearby newly-built London Hospital. This great hill, although completely gone now, once dominated the surrounding landscape… and now nobody is sure what it was.
