"The JTR 130 Tour " drabbles by Robbie Porter

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V. Miller's Court

The JTR 130 Tour #5

Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street is completely gone; you can get an idea of the rough location by standing in Commercial Street and looking across at the eponymous multi storey car park.

This was the only ‘job’ Jack did indoors; consequently there was no chance of being interrupted, and he took his time. There are two photographs of the scene, and it was pure butcher’s shambles.

Intriguingly, it’s likely that Mary Kelly’s on-off boyfriend actually saw her talking to the killer. There’s a good description.

Who Jack was will never be known. He left Miller’s Court, and entered history.

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IV. Mitre Square

The JTR 130 Tour #4

Mitre Square, just off Aldgate High Street, where Catherine Eddowes was slain, is the only site to have its own, albeit unofficial, memorial. This is ‘Ripper Corner’, and it's marked by a bench at roughly the spot Eddowes was found.

Today the square’s still an enclosed space of office buildings and a school.

Jack took his time and did a job on Eddowes, as the PM photographs show.
On the tour I attended the guide was describing Eddowes’ injuries when an American tourist turned green and had to be led away.

There’s collateral damage like this on every Ripper tour….

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III. Berner Street

The JTR 130 Tour #3

There’s not a great deal to see today in Berner Street, running off Commercial Road in Whitechapel. It was renamed Henriques Street in the wake of the murders. Like today’s nimbies, the Victorians didn’t take to crazed serial killers depreciating their property prices.

Dutfield’s Yard, the actual location of Elizabeth Stride’s murder, is now somewhere in a school playground.

'Long Liz' Stride was the first victim Jack ‘did’ that night. Her throat was cut, but the trademark mutilations weren’t as extensive. Perhaps Jack was interrupted and had to flee the scene.

Anyhow, the Ripper’s next date was in Mitre Square….

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II. Hanbury Street

The JTR 130 Tour #2

Compared to Durward Street, Hanbury Street is a thoroughfare of activity with its restaurants, tailors and numerous coffee shops.

It intersects Commercial Street with the old police station opposite, as it was in 1888.

It’s swings and roundabouts, though. JTR would recognise this as the same narrow street where he despatched Annie Chapman using his trademark combo of cut throat and ripped abdomen (he made off with the uterus), but the actual location of the deed, No. 29, is gone. Demolished.

Today it’s a brewery courtyard.

The buildings opposite are contemporary; squint and you can almost imagine Jack scurrying past....

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I. Buck's Row

The JTR 130 Tour #1

The locations associated with notorious happenings seem to exert a compelling pull, often for years afterwards.

The merely curious come and gawp. The genuinely interested join a tour.

Jack the Ripper is still pulling them in after 130 years. JTR has everything: narrow foggy gas lit streets, bloody mayhem and plenty of suspects.

First stop will be Durward Street, formerly Buck’s Row. It was here, in the shadow of the Board School (still extant), that Polly Nicholls was (yes, you guessed it!) disembowelled after having her throat cut.

Not much else to see here now, so let’s move swiftly on….