Description

Route Developer: RD  Route Checker: GB Start Point: Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street, London E8 1EA [1] From outside Hackney Town Hall, stand on the steps and look at the formal gardens in front of you.  (A) Hackney Town Hall was built in 1934/6 to replace the old Town Hall which stood where the gardens are now.  It is one of the few examples of 1930s Town Hall designs in which walls, gardens, lighting and tree planting were built into the original design and which are still, in large measure, intact. This design is possibly unique in the London.  Walk forward onto Mare Street and turn left and go past The Hackney Empire. (B) The Hackney Empire opened in 1901 as a music hall/variety theatre. It was built on a grand scale and with its electric lights, central heating, in-built projection box and a ceiling with a section that could be slid back for ventilation, it was a technological wonder of its time. Charlie Chaplin, WC Fields, Stanley Holloway, Stan Laurel and Marie Lloyd all performed there as did later stars such as Louis Armstrong Charlie Chester, Issy Bonn, Tony Hancock and Liberace. In 1956 the theatre was sold to ATV to become the first commercial television studio in the country. There were live broadcasts of shows such as Take Your Pick and Oh, Boy! and scenes from Emergency - Ward 10 were also filmed here. In 1963 it was sold to Mecca and converted into a bingo hall but in 1984 it was listed as Grade II and sold again. After restoration it re-opened as a theatre in 1986. Successful variety nights there were headlined by a new breed of alternative comedy acts, such as Ben Elton, Dawn French, and Jennifer Saunders. More restoration was carried out in 2001 and was completed in 2004. Continue north on Mare Street, under the railway bridge; go round the corner to the left and use the crossing to cross Amhurst Road. Continue along Mare Street (the road with the church tower). As you walk up the street, look to your right and you will see ‘The Old Town Hall’. (C) The Old Town Hall building dates from 1802 but was re-fronted in the present baroque style in 1900. This building served as a town hall until a larger one was built in the mid 19th century on a site under the  present Town Hall Square. This part of Mare Street was known locally as The Narroway and is the historic high street of the ancient village of Hackney. Behind the buildings to the left was the New Mermaid pleasure garden, a destination in 18th and early 19th century for visiting Londoners. As you walk north, before you reach Kenmure Road, carefully cross the right hand pavement and look up at the upper halves of the shop buildings on the side you have just left. Above Shoe Zone, a bakery and a slot machine arcade is a building know as Hackney Manor House (built mid 19th century). [2] Now turn and go back down Mare Street keeping to the left pavement. Go past the driveway into St John at Hackney and turn left along the footpath immediately in front of The Old Town Hall. Immediately behind the Old Town Hall is St Augustine’s Tower.  [D] St Augustine's Tower is all that remains of the early 16th century parish church of Hackney of St Augustine, which replaced the 13th century medieval church founded by the Knights Templar. When the new church was built there was not enough money for a bell tower, so this one was kept. The stones from the rest of the church were sold off to raise funds in late 18th century. The clock on the third floor has been in place since at least 1608. Turn right between the two buildings then left past the tower into the churchyard along the tarmac path. Walk along until you get to the information centre (and toilets on your left) and turn left immediately past the information centre. As you walk towards St John’s at Hackney (the very large church ahead to your right) there is a playground on the right. Continue along this path (opposite the end of the church on your left are The Mortuary Buildings erected by the Hackney district board of works in 1891).  Turn right in front of St John’s at Hackney church. (E) St John’s at Hackney was built when the growing congregation became too large for the old church. A bill passed in 1789 allowed the trustees of the church to buy Church Field for £875 (£1million today). Building began in 1792 and the church was consecrated in 1797. The vast, classical style building, on a Greek cross plan, can hold 2,000 people. The tower was eventually added in 1814 and the stained glass window in 1816. There was a serious fire in 1955 and the roof, many of the pews and the organ were all destroyed. The church was re-consecrated in June 1958. [3] Turn left through the gardens past the war memorial and exit the gardens.  Turn right to use the zebra crossing to cross to the far side of Lower Clapton Road then turn right and immediately left into Clapton Square. Use the gate on your left to enter the gardens. There is a children’s play area here. (F)Clapton Square is protected by Acts of Parliament as a London Square. The late Georgian houses laid out in 1816 on the north and west sides provide fine Georgian examples of leaded fanlights above the doors, pilasters and roof cornicing, sash windows, ornamental cast-iron balconies, six panelled doors, columns and porches. The uniformity of Georgian streets is due to the regulations of the London Building Act of 1774. Known as the Black Act because of its impositions.  It was passed in response to the Great Fire and stipulated amongst other things that houses should be brick, windows recessed and that roofs should be slate and should not overhang. The east side of the square was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War but has now been rebuilt in Georgian style. The central gardens contain a finely restored drinking fountain donated to Hackney residents by Howard Morley in 1894.  Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin was known to visit his friend and comrade Theodore Rothstein around 1905. In the 1790s, Joseph Priestley one of England’s greatest scientists lived at a house (demolished in 1880) on the corner of the Passage and Lower Clapton Road.  In the closing years of the 18th century,a Huguenot widow called Louisa Perina Courtauld, a designer of gold plate, lived in a cottage behind Priestley’s house. Her son, Samuel, founded the Courtauld dynasty of silk and artificial fibre manufacturers and a descendant of theirs founded the Courtauld Institute now in Somerset House. Keep to the right hand side of the park and exit through the gate in the top right side. As you exit the park, turn left and then right along Clapton Passage, a pedestrian only road with a fine terrace of bay-windowed Victorian villas of 1882. At the end turn left onto Lower Clapton Road. Continue along this road past the petrol station. [4] When you reach Maitland Place, a small road set back from the main road, turn into it and go through the arch signed ‘Leading to Mother’s Square and Maitland House’.  Carry straight on through the gateway to Mother’s Square. (G) As you come into the square look behind you to see the plaque on the building showing that HRH Prince of Wales opened the square in 1990. In 1884 this was the site of a hospital for unmarried mothers created by The Salvation Army. The large houses you walked past in Maitland Place were offices and quarters for the nurses and hospital staff. The hospital building was demolished in 1992 to make way for the Mother’s Square housing development you see today. Turn around and re-trace your footsteps back to Maitland Place and onto Lower Clapton Road. Turn left and use the pedestrian traffic lights to cross to the far side and then turn right back along the other side of the road. After a short way turn left into Linscott Road to look at the classic colonnades at the end. (H)The Greek-looking colonnades at the end of the road behind the gates to Clapton Girls’ Technology College were part of The London Orphan’s Asylum, built in 1825 on the site of the once famous Hackney School. The Hackney School educated 50+ Members of Parliament in the 18th century. By the 1860's, the orphanage asylum looked after 453 orphans from 'respectable’ families providing both boys’ and girls’ schools. It was abandoned in 1866 after a typhoid epidemic and was taken over by the Salvation Army in 1882. In 1937 it housed 400 Basque refugee children fleeing from the Spanish Civil War. Most of the building was demolished in the 1980s to extend Clapton Girl’s School. Return to Lower Clapton Road and turn left. As you cross Powerscroft Road you will see The Round Chapel. (I) This was built in 1869-71 as a congregational Church by Henry Fuller and became one of the most important nonconformist centres in East London. It is listed Grade II* with specific mention of the chapel interior which means it is in the top 4% of listed buildings in the country.  It has been described as ‘very grand like an opera house’. If open, go inside to see the restored interior. The church is now home to community and art groups from the surrounding area while the congregation meets in the old school buildings facing onto Powerscroft Road. Continue south along Lower Clapton Road. Stop at the junction where Lower Clapton Road turns sharp right and look ahead and right, across to The Strand building. (J) The Strand Building is an art deco building; formerly the Hackney Electric company showrooms and residential flats since 1995. Art Deco flourished through the 20s & 30s impelled by the Paris Exhibition of 1925 and was applied to all forms including architecture. Influences included Cubism (with zigzags & geometricals), Ancient Egypt and Aztec & Mayan art. It was a machine age style which utilised the innovations of the times such as plastics, chrome & aluminum. Use the traffic lights to cross to the right hand side of Urswick Road and continue ahead along Urswick Road past the back/side of the Strand Building. Continue along Urswick Road past Sutton Square, a 1980’s development, followed by Sutton Place, Georgian houses built in the early 1800s. On your right you will soon arrive at Sutton House. (K) Sutton House is Hackney’s oldest surviving house, built in 1535 by  Sir Ralph Sadleir, a prominent courtier of Henry VIII. With oak-panelled rooms, original carved fireplaces and a charming courtyard, it retains much of the atmosphere of a Tudor home, despite alterations by later occupants, including a succession of merchants, Huguenot silkweavers and squatters. It is now owned by The National Trust. You can visit the coffee shop and toilets without having to pay but it is well worth paying the entrance fee to tour the house.  [5] Immediately past Sutton House turn right into Isabella Road.  Stay on the right hand pavement and at the end turn right into Mehetabel Road and cross to the left pavement. At the end turn left along Churchwell path (bikes and pedestrians only) and go under the railway bridge. At the end of Churchwell Path, use the zebra crossing to cross Morning Lane directly into Chatham Place. As you walk along Chatham Place you can see the Burberry Factory. A tourist destination for all things Burberry thanks to the shop! It is the last clothing factory in Hackney and is still functioning. Continue along Chatham Place [6] Turn right into Paragon Road. The first building on your right is known as The Paragon buildings.   (L) The Paragon buildings are unusual semi-detached Georgian houses built in 1813 by the same builder that built Sutton Place. They have unusual glass fanlights above the doors and interesting Greek key pattern motifs above the windows. Continue to the end of Paragon Road and turn right onto Mare Street. Use the pedestrian lights to cross over the road and you will shortly find yourself back in front of the town hall. The road to the left of the town hall, Reading Lane, houses Hackney museum and library. The museum has many exhibits detailing local history. Public toilets are on the first floor near the entrance to the library.

Summary	Description	Start Location	Getting there
Photos	POI	Notes	Acknowledgements

From Hackney Town Hall - Historical Walk North

Difficulty Easy Access

Walking time 45 minutes

Length 3.4km / 2.1mi

Route developer: Elizabeth Mansbridge

Route checker: Terry Bettger

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