Front elevations of Providence Cottages, Poplar, looking south-west. In 1812–13 carpenters William and James Syer of Limehouse, built a row of eight brick-and-pantiled cottages of two-storeys with access via an alley from Bridge Road (renamed West Ferry Road in 1937). Originally Syers's Buildings, these became Rumsey Place and then Providence Cottages. One of the ground floor windows has wooden shutters. A man and woman stand in the doorway of a house with a small child. Washing is hanging high up on a washing line suspended overhead and there are several galvanised steel rubbish bins below. The walls of the cottages have been whitewashed presumably to get more reflected sunlight into what would have been a dark alley. Charles Booth's investigators in the late 1890s found these dwellings, which had stairs in the living rooms, to be good houses, respectably occupied, however in 1919 the dwellings were represented to the London County Council by the Poplar Borough’s Medical Officer of Health as unhealthy and needing clearance. The cottages were demolished shortly after this picture was taken and Providence House, a development of flats by Poplar Borough Council completed in 1935, was built on the empty site, flanked by Emmett Street to the west, Bowley Street to the north, and West Ferry Road to the east. Providence House was in turn demolished by Tower Hamlets Borough Council in 1981. [note that this image was originally dated 1934, however in 1934 construction of Providence House was already well underway]