What is Brick Lane?
[[File:Brick Lane street signs.JPG|thumb|280px|Brick Lane street sign in English and Bengali]] [[File:Brick Lane 2005.jpg|thumb|280px|Brick Lane]] [[File:Brick Lane.JPG|thumb|right|280px|Curry restaurants in Brick Lane]] '''Brick Lane''' is a street in the [[London Borough of Tower Hamlets]], in the [[East End of London]]. It is part of an old area which includes [[Bethnal Green]], [[Whitechapel]], [[Spitalfields]] and [[Petticoat Lane]]. Today, it is the heart of the city's British [[Bangladesh]]i community and is known to some as ''Banglatown''.<ref>[http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover/data/spitalfields/index.cfm ''Spitalfields and Banglatown'' (London Borough of Tower Hamlets)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071025091829/http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover/data/spitalfields/index.cfm |date=2007-10-25 }} accessed 1 Nov 2007</ref> It is famous for its many [[curry]] houses. == History == Brick Lane gets its name from former [[brick]] and [[tile]] manufacture, using the local brick earth deposits, that began in the 15th century.<ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22735 'Stepney: economic history', a history of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 52-63] accessed: October 15, 2007</ref> Successive waves of immigration began with [[Huguenot]] refugees spreading from Spitalfields, where the master [[weaver]]s were based, in the 17th century.<ref name=Huguenot>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22743 ''Bethnal Green: settlement and building to 1836'', A history of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 91-5] Date accessed: 17 April 2007</ref> This started a connection with [[clothing]] which lasted for over three centuries. The Huguenots were followed by [[Irish people|Irish]],<ref name=Irish>''Irish in Britain'' John A. Jackson, , 137-9, 150 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964)</ref> [[Ashkenazi Jews]]<ref name=Jews>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22113 ''The