1. The Shampan curry house is named after a canvas boat found in rural rivers in Bangladesh.

2. The Sheraz at 13 Brick Lane was formerly the notorious Frying Pan pub, where Jack The Ripper victim Mary Nichols was seen leaving shortly before her body was discovered in Bucks Row.

3. You can go on free tours of the former Black Eagle Brewery, established by Ben Truman, near Hanbury Street.

4. Chicksand Street is reputed to be where Dracula author Bram Stoker stayed on his return from Transylvania.

5. Monica Ali was voted one of the UK’s Top 20 Young Novelists even before her novel Brick Lane was published.

6. On Saturday April 24, 1999, Soho and Brixton bomber David Copeland left a bomb in Brick Lane. Despite containing more than 300 nails, the device caused no deaths or serious injuries - but only because Copeland wrongly thought that Saturday was the busy market day.

7. In 2005, former Today reporter Andrew Gilligan exposed alleged electoral roll fraud in Brick Lane. According to his story, a flat in 118 Brick Lane had 12 Bangladeshi voters registered, though none of them appeared to be resident at the address.

8. The head office of interiors store Habitat is off Brick Lane in Princelet Street.

9. In response to the London bombings of July 2005, the Bangladesh Welfare Association organised a peace march through Brick Lane.

10. Ninety-nine per cent of the Bangladeshis living in the East End originate from the district of Sylhet in the northeast of the country.