Self-Guided Brick Lane Street Art Tour & Map, Shoreditch – 2024

For more Jimmy C murals, visit Hanbury Street and Whitby Street.

Princelet Street

This STIK mural named A Couple Holding Hands in the Street was voted the 17th best mural in the UK by the Guardian. In an area with a diverse population (and street names in English and Bengali), it celebrates inclusion and tolerance.

Just around the corner is a mosque which our guide told us a heartwarming story about. When French protestants fled to the UK, they were gifted the building to use as a house of worship. They later donated it to Jews arriving in the UK to escape persecution and in need of a synagogue.

The Jews later donated it to Muslims arriving in the UK. This wonderful story of racial harmony summarises the area perfectly.

STIK’s simplistic work is in harmony with the Quran’s ban on creating realistic images of humans. He explained this in a note to the local Muslim community before painting the mural.

Brick Lane street art secret alley

Brick Lane runs for miles so wander at your leisure. But there’s one place you shouldn’t miss!

The best street art in Brick Lane can be found down this secret alley, used mainly for car parking and bin storage. It doesn’t have a name but it’s on the left turning between Fashion Street and Fournier Street. The entrance is right by Saffron Restaurant.

We ended our tour of the Brick Lane street art at Truman Brewery. In the middle of the yard, you’ll see a 3D pink car protected by glass: one of Banky’s creations! It’s quite battered these days and the cause of controversy: many artists resent the council protecting Banky’s art over everyone else’s.

Behind the market, you can spy a space invader mural. Our guide explained that Invader Was Here has created these simple murals worldwide and has an app to track them all. He said he’d be very impressed if anyone has completed the trail, however, as one is actually in space after NASA took it to the International Space Station!

To get closer to the space invader, walk down Corbett Place (entrance located in front of Poppies Fish and Chip restaurant). This whole alley is covered in colourful graffiti.

Rivington Street

Less than five minutes on foot from Brick Lane is some more vibrant street art. If you walk along Rivington Street starting at the bridge underpass with the letters SCARY, you’ll see tons of murals – including another Banksy – before the street meets Curtain Road.

‘Scary’ letters by Ben Eine: our guide told us about this street artist who was poor and recently out of jail. He started painting letters with different calligraphy, eventually earning a place on the front of a book about street art in East London.

This book was given as a gift from David Cameron to Barack Obama who later commissioned Eines to do murals in Washington. What a step up!

Banksy’s ‘Designated Graffiti Area’: this London Banksy mural shows a policeman and poodle patrolling the designated street art area (in some other parts of London it’s illegal). Known also as Guard Dog, it aims to mock the police and authority. Like the other Banksy mural in Shoreditch, it’s under glass for protection.

Faces by Thierry Noir: these simple face murals were first seen on the Berlin Wall when the US would sponsor artists to create abstract murals to appear liberal. However, doing art on the Wall was dangerous so the murals had to be simple so Noir could do them quickly.

He’s since painted these expressive faces around the world!

Rain by Dan Kitchener: after seeing his Japanese girl mural on Brick Lane, I was excited to see another of Kitchener’s murals. He uses principles from classic art to bring a unique style to the streets. He’s known for his images of rainy cities, especially Tokyo. What could be more relatable for Londoners than rain?

New Inn Street

On the corner of Bateman’s Row and New Inn Street (beside the Amnesty International offices) is an enormous mural focused on connectivity.

We can see a woman dancing with a robot (questioning how we relate to tech), tree roots connecting underground, and hands holding one another (added during the events of 2020). Artists
Hunto, Mister Thoms and others were involved.

Our guide mentioned this mural may not be here forever as property developers want to buy the building!

Don’t miss this house a few steps away, across from a statue of Shakespeare who lived in East London. The house is adorned with images from Romeo & Juliet, first performed here before the theatre was moved to Bankside and became the Globe.