BOW, a parish and a subdistrict in Poplar district, Middlesex. The parish is called also Stratford-le-Bow; lies on the river Lea, and on the North London and Eastern Counties railways, within Tower Hamlets borough, in the eastern suburbs of London, 4 miles ENE of St. Pauls; includes the village of Stratford, the hamlet of Old Ford, and part of Victoria Park; and has a station of Bow on the North London railway, a station of Stratford on the Eastern Counties railway, and post offices of Bow,‡ Bow-Road,‡ and Old Ford, under London E. Acres, 809. Real property, £78,460. Pop., in 1841, 4,626; in 1861, 11,590. Houses, 1,848. The name Bow alludes to a bow-shaped, three-arched bridge across the Lea, built by Matilda, the queen of Henry I. and not taken down till 1834; and the name Stratford alludes to a ford in the Lea, on the line of the Roman road or "stratum" to Layton. A new bridge, in lieu of the ancient one, with one oblique arch of 70 feet, was erected in 1839, at a cost of £11,000. Bow was once famous for cream and cakes; it also carried on an extensive manufacture of porcelain; and it had a notable annual fair which became so great a nuisance, that it was suppressed by parliament. It now has dye-houses, large breweries, and the East London waterworks; and takes a character from the proximity of the India docks. The parish was formerly a chapelry to Stepney, and became parochial in 1717. The living is a rectory in the diocese of London. Value, £349.* Patron, the Bishop of London. The church was built in the time of Henry II.; presents a curious mixture of Norman and early English; and has a low tower and an eight-sided corner turret. The vicarage of Old Ford is a separate benefice. A Baptist chapel, in the Byzantine style, at a cost of nearly £7,000, was built in 1867. There are other dissenting chapels, two endowed schools with £27 and £254, and charities £170.-The subdistrict contains also the parish of Bromley St. Leonard. Pop., 35,667.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))