BBC Call the Midwife: What happened to the real Nonnatus House and where you can find it in London

Fans of Call The Midwife can visit the real life inspiration for Nonnatus House, in Poplar, East London. The real sisters were the Religious Sisters of Saint John the Divine and they lived and worked at St Frideswide’s Mission House in Lodore Street.

The hit BBC show is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who worked as a young midwife in the 1950s to 60s. The original Order of Sisters were were established in 1848 in Fitzroy Square near Euston and trained as nurses and midwives in Germany. They were also sent to Crimea to work with Florence Nightingale.

In the 1880s the nuns were invited to move to Poplar by the Church of All Saints Poplar where they started working for the East End community. The house where the sisters lived and worked still stands today and can be visited by fans of the show.

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During the 50s and 60s the sisters and the midwives became an integral part of the community in Poplar, helping out exactly as is portrayed in the show. Poplar London reports that residents who lived in the area during the period remember the midwives and nuns very fondly. Saying that just like the show, they used to ride their bikes around in their uniforms.

Fans of the show will be pleased to discover that the real life Nonnatus House was not condemned. However, the nuns did move in 1976 to Birmingham. Work in Poplar came to an end in 1978 due to increasing absorption of nursing work into the government.

Under the leadership of Mother Margaret Faith the nuns left Hastings and established their main house in the heart of Birmingham's Alum Rock. Back in 2012 some of the remaining sisters spoke to the Daily Mail about Call the Midwife. Sister Margaret-Angela, who joined the community in 1964 said: "The show is definitely a realistic look on how life used to be like for us. They have the costumes spot-on. One of the producers visited us here in Birmingham, and we showed her how we would dress ourselves using an old habit that we still have."

You can see St Frideswide’s Mission House in Lodore Street, East London.

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