Geffrye Museum to Olympic Park

Public transport to start point.

London Overground trains to Hoxton (5 min walk).

Bus Numbers 67, 149, 242, 243, 394 all stop outside or close to the museum. See www.tfl.gov.uk

Tube lines. Old Street (northern Line) and 20 min walk or bus. Liverpool Street (Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines) and 20 minute walk or bus.

Enter the front gardens of the Geffrye Museum (A), 136 Kingsland Road, E2 8EA by the centre double gate and meet to the right of the chapel beneath the clock (see photo).  There is a large paved area with seats.

[1] With your back toward the museum, go along the left hand path of the garden and exit in the far left corner. Turn left along Kingsland Road past the telephone box.

Before exiting, look at the wall of the building adjacent to the garden with a wonderful old advert for a piano showroom – Blooms Pianos 134 Kingsland Road.

At the traffic lights, turn left into Cremer Street (B) and continue toward the bridge The modern circular extension to the Geffrye Museum can be seen through the railings on your left. Turn left before the bridge into Geffrye Street (pedestrianised and paved area) and continue ahead past the entrance to Hoxton station on your right. More gates on left looking into the gardens of the back of Geffrye museum.  Note the memorial on the right to the North London Railmen who fell in the Great War. Turn right into Dunloe Street and go under the railway. Cross to the left to stay on a wide pavement.

The road turns left and you continue ahead, crossing the road toward the church and past St Chad’s Haggerston Church (C) continuing along Dunloe St ahead,and past Haggerston school on your left until you reach the junction with Queensbridge Road.

[2] Turn left and use the pedestrian refuge cross to the far side of Queensbridge Road and right into Haggerston Park (D). Continue ahead with all-weather pitches on your left and then tennis courts on your right. At the T junction turn left on the main tarmac path.  For a visit to Hackney City Farm & café & toilets; divert to the right here. Go past a pond on your right and turn left in front of the wall. Turn right through the open gates signposted ‘Park Toilets’. 

Follow the path to the right of the white sundial  ahead of you, and then continue ahead along the tarmac path towards the pergola and gate in the wall at the top of the park. Exit the park and turn left along Whiston Road. At the traffic lights turn right along Queensbridge Road.

[3] Go over the canal bridge and turn immediate right onto the path leading down to the canal . Turn left on reaching the canal away from the bridge along the canal towpath (E).

Continue along the towpath for nearly a mile. Some points to note on the way……..

On a Saturday there is a street market in Broadway which can be found if you leave the canal towpath at the exit past the first lock and before the bridge. At the top of the slope turn right into Regents Row and left into Broadway Market – mainly food, but some bric a brac, clothing, books and eco products. Street food to be found at the far end. Others days of the week there are 2 or 3 cafes as well as a pub and assorted shops open

Continuing along the towpath – visitors may be interested to see the Gas Holders on the right hand side of the canal (F)

Under the railway bridge & Mare Street bridge – number 51.

If you exit here, up the steps, & walked for 10-15 mins north you would come to the famous Hackney Empire – Grade II* listed Music Hall built in 1901. Famous artists that performed here include - Charlie Chaplin, WC Fields, Stanley Holloway, Stan Laurel and Marie Lloyd  when the Hackney Empire was a music hall.

[4]  Continue along the towpath and at the end of the brick wall, you turn left into Victoria Park via The Canal Gate.  At the 1st crossroads, turn right keeping on the tarmac path. You are now on part of the Jubilee Greenway (G) (see signs set into pavement) .

Continue along the broad path through the park. Through the blue gates and continue ahead.

As you go through the blue gates – note the statues of two dogs to your left (Photo) Dogs of Alcibiades that have guarded this entrance since 1912 and have recently been returned here after being restored.  Pass the bridge & pagoda on an island on your left (H) . Follow the path round to the left along the edge of the pond.

[5] Pass the pavilion café and toilets on your left and follow the path to the right. Exit the park through Crown Gate West and turn left, use the zebra crossing to safely cross Grove Road and re-enter the park through Crown Gate East. At the Y junction take the right-hand fork. Victoria Park (I) 

Continue along this path for just over half a mile. You will pass Gun Makers Gate and Lockhouse Gate – both on your right and with bridges over the canal.

[6] You eventually come to a large crossroads in the paths – turn right here to exit the park through St Mark’s Gate. This will be the Victoria Park Gate entrance to the Olympic Park - this is the end of the walk. From this point you will be guided to the Olympic Park by 2012 Games volunteers.

(A) The Geffrye Museum depicts the style of English middle-class living rooms. Its collections of furniture, textiles, paintings and decorative arts are displayed in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day. The displays walk the visitor through time, from the 17th century with oak furniture and panelling, past the refined splendour of the Georgian period and the high style of the Victorians, to 20th century modernity as seen in a 1930s flat, a mid-century room in 'contemporary style' and a late-20th century living space in a converted warehouse. The museum is set in 18th century almshouses with a contemporary wing surrounded by attractive gardens, which include an award-winning walled herb garden and a series of period gardens. Open Tues-Sat and Sunday pm free entry to main museum, shop, restaurant and toilets + chargeable exhibitions.  www.geffrye-museum.org.uk

(B) Cremer Street is named after a local Liberal  MP – William Randal Cremer- who received one of the first Nobel peace prizes in 1903 & was later knighted in 1907. He was born into a working class family, trained as a carpenter and later in life became prominent in the trade union movement fighting to reduce working hours before entering parliament in 1885.

(C)The Anglo Catholic Church of St Chad's, Haggerston is a Grade 1 listed building and was designed in 1868 by James Brooks, a local architect from Stoke Newington. St Chad's Church was described by Sir John Betjeman as "One of the best examples of an East-End Anglo-Catholic Church. The Parish was founded in 1869 and was combined at that time with St Mary's Haggerston which was destroyed by a bomb during WWII. www.stchadhaggerston.org

(D) Haggerston Park. The park was originally created in the 1950s and extended in the 1980s. It was carved out of an area of derelict housing, a tile manufacturer, and the old Shoreditch gasworks, which had been hit by a V-2 rocket in 1944 and badly damaged. The long pergola walk on the north side of the park dates from the 1950’s. In the 1980s the park was extended to the south to include a Hackney City Farm, on the site of a former brewery. On 29 July 1992, Michael Jackson landed at the park in a helicopter with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse where he visited the children at the nearby then children's hospital Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children.

(E) The Regent's Canal was built to link the Grand Junction Canal's Paddington Arm, which opened in 1801, with the Thames at Limehouse. It was opened in two stages, from Paddington to Camden in 1816, and the rest of the canal in 1820. The cost of building the canal was £772,000, twice the original estimate – which equates to over £50m at today’s prices! By the 1840s the railways were taking traffic from the canals. In the latter part of the second world war (1939-45) traffic increased on the canal system as an alternative to the hard pressed railways. The last horse drawn commercial traffic was carried in 1956 following the introduction of motor tractors three years previously. By the late 1960s commercial traffic had all but vanished. www.canalmuseum.org.uk

(F) Gas Holders (commonly known as a gasometer) are large containers where natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressure coming from the weight of a movable cap. Typical volumes for large gasholders are about 50,000 cubic metres, with 60 metre diameter structures. Gasholders tend to be used nowadays for balancing purposes (making sure gas pipes can be operated within a safe range of pressures) rather than for actually storing gas for later use.

(G) The Jubilee Greenway Walk marks Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, being celebrated in 2012. This 37 mile walking and cycling route is exactly 60 kilometres long - one kilometre for each year of Her Majesty's reign. It will link many of London’s Olympic Games venues. It makes use of existing walking and cycling routes wherever possible and begins at Buckingham Palace and joining Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens Royal Parks with Paddington Station and the Grand Union Canal at Little Venice. It follows the Regents Canal through Camden & then connects to East London through Victoria Park to the River Thames where the Woolwich Foot Tunnel ties Greenwich and the South Bank to the Jubilee Walkway at Tower Bridge and back to St James’ via Westminster. www.walklondon.org.uk

 (H) The Chinese bridge or Pennethorne bridge has recently been built using the original designs produced in the 1840s. The dragons on the top of the pagoda were fitted on 20^th January 2012. The Pagoda is 12m tall and will replicate the original pagoda of 1847.

(I)  Work on Victoria Park was started in 1845 following a petition by 30,000 residents. Bishop Bonner (1550 – 1569)  was the last Lord of the Manor of Stepney and some of the Bishop’s Palace gardens were used to create this 218 acre park. It was completed in 1850 and since then has been an amenity for locals and others to get fresh air and exercise in a wonderful open space. It has also been used for concerts, firework displays, travelling fairs and more recently Olympic celebrations. In April 1873 Queen Victoria visited the park. A recent addition to the park in 2012 is a skateboard and BMX park – which boasts a ‘full cradle’ making it the only skatepark in London to have one! www.towehamlets.gov.uk

website acknowledgements in POI notes