Tea Building

In-keeping with the surrounding area, the eight-storey Tea Building is home to media companies, art galleries, designers and marketing agencies, as well as a branch of the Soho House-owned Pizza East and Shoreditch House. In the noughties it also housed T-Bar, a nightclub with free entry where reputable underground dance music DJs played, leading to enormous queues outside. When the Tea Building was first conceived in the 1930s it was a bacon factory owned by Lipton. Here bacon was cured, and in later years it was also used as a warehouse for storing tea. During the Second World War it doubled up as a bomb shelter; in the 1970s Lipton moved out and security providers Securicor took over. Nowadays it’s divided into artist workspaces and offices, and remains one of the East End’s best-known buildings.