Shoreditch’s street art changes every week. Walls are painted over, posters are pasted on top of each other and shop shutters are repainted. So the useful guide is not a list of pieces but a list of streets where new work keeps appearing. This self-guided walk covers the main ones in about 90 minutes, starting and ending at Shoreditch High Street station.

Why Shoreditch has so much street art

Street art means painting, stencils, paste-ups and stickers made on public walls, sometimes with permission and sometimes without. Shoreditch has large blank walls left over from warehouses and railway arches, a long history of artists’ studios, and owners who often let walls be painted. Some walls are curated: an organiser chooses artists and repaints on a schedule, so they are never bare.

The graffiti artist Mr Cenz described the appeal to Made in Shoreditch in 2014: Shoreditch was “one of the few places in London where you can just rock up to a wall and paint, without permission and avoid getting arrested.” Read the Mr Cenz interview.

The route

Braithwaite Street and Bethnal Green Road, next to the station. The railway arches here carry large painted walls.
Holywell Lane and Great Eastern Street. The walls around Village Underground, the music venue at 54 Holywell Lane, are among the most regularly repainted in the area.
Rivington Street and the yards off it. Look into side passages as well as at the main walls.
Redchurch Street, heading east. Shop shutters are painted too, so go on an early Sunday morning, when they are down.
Brick Lane, north and south of the Old Truman Brewery, and the lanes running off it.
Hanbury Street, Princelet Street and Fashion Street, which have some of the largest single walls in the district.
Sclater Street, then back up to the station.

Tips

Go on a weekday morning or early Sunday, before the crowds and while shutters are closed.
Expect change. A piece photographed last month may be gone; that is how street art works.
Paid walking tours exist and add artists’ names and stories, but everything on this route is on public streets and free to see.
Don’t add to the walls without permission. Painting without the owner’s consent is criminal damage.

What the artists told Made in Shoreditch

Mr Cenz worried about quality as the scene grew: “its important that people like me keep the standards up or it would completely die.” He named TRP, Tizer One and Vibes as artists who had been painting East London for years.

The Brazilian artist Cranio, interviewed in Shoreditch in 2014, said he paints indigenous characters to show “the reality of Brasil”, covering “environment, politics, corruption and consumerism.” Read the Cranio interview.

The site has also covered the live painting battles of Secret Walls, the graffiti archivist John Carswell, and Lina Šlipavičiūtė-Černiauskienė’s Walls That Remember project in Vilnius.

Nearby

The walk passes the Brick Lane markets; times are in the Shoreditch markets guide. For more ideas, see things to do in Shoreditch.

Route based on streets with long-running street art. Individual works are not listed because they change.