Columbia Market was built upon an area known as
Nova Scotia Gardens. This had been a brick field, north-east of
St Leonard's, Shoreditch; the brick clay had been exhausted and the area begun to be filled in with waste (
leystall (excrement)). Cottages (probably evolving from sheds, serving the gardens), came to be built here, but were undesirable as they remained below ground level, and so were prone to flooding. ;London Burkers In July 1830, John Bishop and Thomas Williams rented no. 3 Nova Scotia Garden, from a Sarah Trueby. Together with Michael Shields, a Covent Garden porter, and James May, also known as
Jack Stirabout and
Black Eyed Jack, they formed a notorious gang of
Resurrection men, stealing freshly buried bodies for sale to anatomists. On 7 November 1831 the suspiciously fresh corpse of a 14-year-old boy was delivered, by these men, to the
King's College School of Anatomy, in the
Strand. Joseph Sadler Thomas, a superintendent of police, searched the cottages at Nova Scotia Gardens, and found items of clothing in a well in one of the gardens, and also in one of the privies, suggesting multiple murders. The
Resurrection men were arrested, and by an extraordinary arrangement, the police opened the premises for viewing, charging 5
shillings. The public carried away the dwelling, piece by piece, as souvenirs. Bishop and Williams were hanged at
Newgate on 5 December 1831 for the murder. The police had tentatively identified the body as that of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy, from Piedmont, but at their trial Bishop and Williams admitted it to be that of a Lincolnshire cattle drover, on his way to
Smithfield. By 1840, the area had degenerated into a notorious
slum. It is for this reason that the philanthropist
Angela Burdett-Coutts purchased the land, and established Columbia Market. ;Origins of Columbia Market
Angela Burdett-Coutts established Columbia Market in 1869 as a covered food market with 400 stalls. Her secretary and future husband
William Burdett-Coutts came to own the market, and built up a considerable fishing fleet in the North Sea. He was involved in a planned railway line for the delivery of the fish to the market; but competition from
Billingsgate Fish Market meant that it was never built, and traders preferred selling outdoors. The market closed in 1886, after use as warehouses and small workshops. Prompted by
Charles Dickens, Angela Burdett-Coutts also built the separate U-shaped Columbia Dwellings, of several storeys, with a three-storey Gothic arch built into the brickwork of the central section. The building was demolished in 1958, although the remains of railings can be seen in front of the Nursery School.
Sivill House and the Dorset Estate replaced the Coutts buildings. '', 1869 ==Recent history ==