Bow underwent extensive urban regeneration including the replacement or improvement of council homes, with the impetus given by the staging of the 2012 Olympic Games at nearby Stratford.

In 1110 Matilda, wife of Henry I, reputedly fell into the water at the ford on her way to Barking Abbey, and consequently ordered a distinctively bow-shaped, three-arched bridge to be built over the River Lea, The like of which had not been seen before.

In 1967 that bridge was replaced by a new modern bridge by the Greater London Council who also installed a two-lane flyover above it (designed by Andrei Tchernavin, son of Gulag escapee Vladimir V. Tchernavin[9]) spanning the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, the traffic interchange, the River Lea and some of the Bow Back Rivers.

In 1311 permission was granted to build St Mary's Church, Bow as a chapel of ease to allow the residents a more local and convenient place of worship.

There was a nearby Benedictine nunnery from the Norman era onwards, known as St Leonard's Priory and immortalized in Chaucer's description of the Nun Prioress in the General Prologue to his Canterbury Tales.

For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.The area was mentioned in the popular Tudor (or earlier) ballad, the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.

[11] In 1630, John Taylor, a poet, wrote At Bow, the Thursday after Pentecost, There is a fair of green geese ready rost, Where, as a goose is ever dog-cheap there, The sauce is over somewhat sharp and deare, taking advantage of the double entendre and continuing with other verses describing the drunken rowdy behaviour of the crowds.

Additionally the piggery which used the mash residue produced by the gin mills at Three Mills meant a ready supply of animal bones, and local entrepreneurs Thomas Frye and Edward Heylyn developed a means to mix this with clay and create a form of fine porcelain, said to rival the best from abroad, known as Bow Porcelain.

In November 1753, in Aris's Birmingham Gazette, the following advertisement appeared: This is to give notice to all painters in the blue and white potting way and enamellers on chinaware, that by applying at the counting-house at the china-house near Bow, they may meet with employment and proper encouragement according to their merit; likewise painters brought up in the snuff-box way, japanning, fan-painting, &c., may have an opportunity of trial, wherein if they succeed, they shall have due encouragement.

At the same house, a person is wanted who can model small figures in clay neatly.The Bow China Works prospered, employing some 300 artists and hands, until about 1770, when one of its founders died.

Chemical analysis of the firing remains showed them to contain high quantities of bone-ash, pre-dating the claim of Josiah Spode to have invented the bone china process.

It was replaced after it was shut and turned into Grove Hall Park was opened in 1909 following its purchase by the local authority in an auction in 1906.

[16] In 1843 the engineer William Bridges Adams founded the Fairfield Locomotive Works, where he specialized in light engines, steam railcars (or railmotors) and inspection trolleys, including the Fairfield steam carriage for the Bristol and Exeter Railway and the Enfield for the Eastern Counties Railway.

During World War 2 the North London Railway branch from Dalston to Poplar through Bow was so badly damaged that it was abandoned.

[17] The London E postcode area was formed in 1866, with the E3 sub-division in 1917:[18] A statue of William Ewart Gladstone stands outside Bow Church.

Sylvia became increasingly disillusioned with the Suffragette movement's inability to engage with the needs of working-class women like the match girls.

Sylvia formed a breakaway movement, the East London Federation of Suffragettes, and based at 198 Bow Road, by the church, in a baker's shop.

Sylvia refocused her efforts from Bow, and with the outbreak of World War I began a nursery, clinic and cost price canteen for the poor at the bakery.

The Builders, by sculptor David Evans is a frieze on the face of the building, unveiled by George Lansbury, MP for Bow and Bromley, on 10 December 1938: the Portland Stone panels commemorate the trades constructing the Town Hall and symbolise the borough's relationship with the River Thames and the youth of Poplar.

The concert was played by The Clash, Steel Pulse, X-Ray Spex, The Ruts, Sham 69, Generation X, and the Tom Robinson Band.

[33] Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast was broadcast live from a former lockkeeper's cottages located on Fish Island, in Old Ford,[34] from 28 September 1992 until 29 March 2002.

[35] Rachel Whiteread's temporary public sculpture "House" was created on Grove Road, being completed on 25 October 1993 and demolished eleven weeks later on 11 January 1994.

[37] An annual fête and music festival held on Wennington Green in Mile End Park initiated by the vicar of St Barnabas Bethnal Green and called the St Barnabas Community Fete (or Bowstock) ran from 2003 to 2010, with the 2007 fete being part of a case study in the 'Community' section of the Living Britain report published by Zurich and The Future Laboratory.

This grew to encompass dozens of events and hundreds of volunteers and led to the creation of the Roman Road Trust.

[48] In 2015, Roman Road was a top three finalist within the London category of for that year's Great British High Street awards.

[50] A street party was held on Roman Road to mark the Queen Official Birthday on 11 June 2016, all profits from the stalls sales being shared with Bow Foodbank.

There are two principal influences on perceptions of the extent of Bow: the historic hamlet which became an ancient parish, and the E3 postal area.

The first Idea Store, a chain of educational community centres initiated by the Tower Hamlets Council, opened in Bow in 2002.

[61] Roman Road LDN is a hyperlocal magazine covering Bow as well as Old Ford and Globe Town and launched as a full-time publication in 2018.

[79] The LPC wished to consolidate electricity generation in a small number of high output station including Bow.