Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London, England. It is part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Originally home to fields and gardens, the Spitalfields area was laid out in the seventeenth century for Irish and Huguenot silk weavers. The area has long been associated with immigrant communities, beginning with the Huguenots—French Protestant refugees who had arrived after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In the mid-eighteenth century, Irish weavers settled in the area, and the nineteenth century saw a large influx of Jewish refugees. In the nineteenth-century, the decline of the silk industry lead to the area becoming a notorious slum, raising concerns about crowding, public health, and crime. The twentieth-century Spitalfields has seen an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants, who made Brick Lane the “curry capital” of London. Today it is home to several markets, including the Old Spitalfields Market (est. 1638), Brick Lane Market, and Petticoat Lane Market.