Penny Squares, our events space, which design is influenced by the local history of sewing factories, industrial furniture and lighting and mechanism. One of the largest migrant groups to seek shelter here were the 17th century Huguenots fleeing persecution in Catholic France. Whilst they brought a range of skills from clock-working to fanmaking, it was their talents with wool and silk weaving that would go on to make the East End the very centre of London’s textile trade. Penny Square, once a quilting term known as redwork, was taught to young schoolgirls as an essential part of a young woman’s lifestyle in the 19th century. Our name remembers the embroidered mark left on the city by its talented inhabitants of the past, but the venue celebrates all of the vibrant cultures that came, stayed and made this area what it is today. Never the home of riches and royals, it has been the ordinary people who made the East End of London so extraordinary.