Hackney, London

Hackney is a mostly low-lying area in proximity to two rivers, the Lea and the Hackney Brook. This would have made the area attractive for pastoral and arable agriculture, meaning most of the area is likely to have been deforested at an early date. There is archaeological evidence for settlement and agriculture as far back as the Stone Age.[9]

During the late Iron Age, the area was part of the territory of the powerful Catuvellauni tribe.

There will have been a network of probably minor, local roads in Hackney before the Romans conquered southern Britain after 43AD, but the areas proximity to the provincial capital, Londinium, meant that it was soon crossed by two large long-distance routes. The first was Ermine Street (modern A10) which emerged from Bishopsgate and headed north to Lincoln and York. The second was a route which branched off Ermine Street just outside Bishopsgate and headed SW-NE across Hackney, across the Dalston, Hackney Central and Lower Clapton areas to cross to the Lea on its way to Great Dunmow in Essex.[9][10] This crossing appears to have crossed the Lea 168 metres south of the Bridge at Mandeville Street near Millfields Road (sometimes known as Pond Lane Bridge).[11] Three Roman sarcophagus burials have been found, two of stone and one of marble. These, particularly the marble example indicate a high status settlement of some sort. The stone examples had a coin hoard found nearby.

The area around Millfields Park, Lower Clapton is sometimes described as the site of a battle in which Aescwine, having rebelled against Octa, King of Kent, defeats him in battle and becomes the (reputed) first King of Essex.[12] The ford over the Lea is referred to in the (much later) accounts of the battle. Historical records describing this period are extremely sparse, so the historicity of the battle, and even Aescwine himself is disputed.

The place name Hackney is Old English, so was probably first applied in this era.

Hackney was part of the territory of the Middle Saxons, a people who seem to have formed a province of the East Saxons, albeit not part of their core territory. The area was a part of the huge manor of Stepney, an area owned by the Bishop of London, and its great size and proximity to the City means it may have been part of the grant of land made when the Diocese of London (The East Saxon Diocese), was re-established in 604 AD.

Later, the Middle and East Saxon area would become subject to various other Kingdoms, culminating in Wessex as it led a long process to unite England as it rolled back the partial Viking conquest of the country. A coin of Egbert of Wessex was found on Stamford Hill. The Kings of Wessex divided their kingdom into shires, with Hackney becoming part of the shire of Middlesex, an area named after the Middle Saxons.

After their victory at Hastings the Normans needed to secure London. To this end they burned Southwark, crossed the river upstream and harried much of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. The Manor of Stepney was less badly hit than much of the rest of Middlesex, though the area along Ermine Street (the A10), in Hackney, is believed to have been badly affected.[13]

The Domesday Book of 1086 covered England at manorial level, so Hackney is only assessed as part of Manor of Stepney, of which it was a sub-manor. The landscape at this time was largely agricultural, Domesday returns for Middlesex indicate that it was around 30% wooded (much of it wood-pasture), about double the English average.[14] Hackney would have had a lower proportion than the county as a whole, consisting of mostly lower land, close to rivers that made it more attractive for farming. The proportion of woodland in England decreased sharply between the Conquest and the Black Death[15] due to the pressure of a rapidly increasing population, and the same pressures would have been experienced here.

From the Tudor period onwards, the various settlements in Hackney grew as wealthy Londoners moved to what they saw as a pleasant rural alternative to living in London; but which was, nonetheless close to the capital - in some ways it was comparable to a modern commuter town. A number of royal courtiers lived in Homerton, while Henry VIII had a palace at Brooke House, Upper Clapton, where Queen Mary took the Oath of Supremacy. Sutton House, the oldest surviving residential building in the district was built in 1535.

Morris Dancers perform at Sutton House.

The main ‘Hackney Village’ grew much larger than the others, in 1605 having as many houses as Dalston, Newington (ie West Hackney), Kingsland and Shacklewell combined.[16]

In 1727 Daniel Defoe said of the hamlets of Hackney

All these, except the Wyck-house, are within a few years so encreas'd in buildings, and so fully inhabited, that there is no comparison to be made between their present and past state: Every separate hamlet is encreas'd, and some of them more than treble as big as formerly; Indeed as this whole town is included in the bills of mortality, tho' no where joining to London, it is in some respects to be call'd a part of it.

The growth of the East End of London was stimulated by the building of Regent's Canal between 1812 and 1816, with construction work on a new town at De Beauvoir beginning in 1823 and continuing through the 1830s. The arrival of the railways, around 1850, accelerated the spread of London and the expansion of the existing nuclei, so that Hackney was almost entirely built up by 1870.

Victorian housing stock at Cassland Road and Cassland Crescent, South Hackney

In 1907, the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held at the Brotherhood Church on the east side of Southgate Road. The conference was held in the UK after being banned in other countries.

The Christian Socialist Brotherhood Church, on Southgate Road, hosted a congress attended by Lenin, Stalin and other Russian radicals

Attendees included Lenin, Stalin, Maxim Gorky, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky. The congress debated strategy for a communist revolution in Russia and strengthened the position of Lenin's Bolshevik and debated strategy for a communist revolution in Russia.[17]

The first bomb of the first air raid on London, fell on 16 Alkham Road, West Hackney in May 1915 by the German Army airship LZ 38. No-one was seriously hurt at that address but the raid killed seven people elsewhere, including four children, causing great anger among the public.[18][19] East London was at particular risk at this time, due to the Kaiser's order, later rescinded, that the raiders limit their attacks to targets east of the Tower of London. [20]

Deaths among women, children and the elderly shocked the public. Daily Chronicle cartoon by Frank Brangwyn

Hackney raised two front-line infantry battalions for the London Regiment during the conflict:[21] the 1/10th (City of London) Battalion (Hackney) and the and 2/10th (City of London) Battalion (Hackney). The battalions had their own cap badge, depicting Hackney's emblem, St Augustine's Tower, together with the borough's motto Justitia Turris Nostra, Latin for Justice is our tower.[22]

The 1/10th was assigned to the 162nd (East Midland) Brigade in the 54th (East Anglian) Infantry Division, seeing service at Gallipoli and the Middle East, finishing the war in Beirut. The 2/10th was assigned to the 175th (2/3rd London) Brigade, in the 58th (2/1st London) Division, fighting on the western front and finishing the war in the Peruwelz area of Belgium. A third Hackney battalion, the 3/10th was based in the UK and used as a training unit, providing reinforcements to the two frontline battalions. [23]

Hackney was badly affected by wartime bombing that left the area with 749 civilian war dead,[24] with many more of its citizens injured or left homeless. Many other Hackney residents were also killed on active service around the world. The number of devices hitting Hackney was upwards of 613 high explosive bombs, 16 parachute mines, 37 V-1 'doodlebugs', 10 V-2 rockets and many thousands of 1kg incendiary devices.[25]

Notable buildings destroyed by bombing included Tudor-era Brooke House[26] in Upper Clapton and West Hackney church.

The post-war period saw extensive re-building, and the area became increasingly multi-cultural in character. During the 1930s, 1940s[27][28] and 1960s[29][30] the area's large Jewish and other minority populations made it a target for provocative rallies by Oswald Mosley and the far-right organisations he founded. These were actively opposed by many local people, together with organisations such as the 43 Group and this led to a number of violent confrontations, notably in the Ridley Road area of Dalston.

Hackney was one of the host areas when London staged the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, with three venues falling within its part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park:

• Copper Box Arena hosted events including Handball, Modern Pentathlon and Goalball. This 7,000 seat multi-sport venue is still used for community and elite sport.
• The Riverbank Arena was a temporary venue which hosted Field Hockey during the Olympics, and Football 7-a-side and Football 5-a-side during the Paralympics.
• London Olympics Media Centre. The facility is still in use and now known as Here East.

Hackney's solution to affordable housing has been able to put more affordable housing on the market by making use of inclusionary practices.[31] This district built a significant number of affordable units and subsidised them with market rate units.[31] In Hackney about half of the new units are affordable. In an effort to avoid displacing current residents, construction was completed in phases.[31]

Hackney is served by six stations, including by the London Overground at Hackney Central railway station, and it is named after the central area of Hackney, as well as Hackney Downs. Central was open by the North London Railway opened as Hackney on 26 September 1850, to the east of Mare Street. It closed on 1 December 1870 and was replaced the same day by a station to the west of Mare Street, designed by Edwin Henry Horne and also named Hackney. This station passed in due course to the London & North Western Railway and later on to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, which closed the entire North London Line east of Dalston Junction to passenger traffic in 1944.[34] Downs was opened on 27 May 1872 when the Great Eastern Railway opened the first part of its new line from Enfield Town to Stoke Newington.[35][36]

A pedestrian link between Hackney Downs and Hackney Central stations was opened in 2015 by London Overground Rail Operations. Until Hackney Central's closure in 1944, a passenger connection had linked the two stations. However, when Hackney Central re-opened in 1985, the footway was not reinstated and passengers transferring between the two stations were obliged to leave one and walk along the street to the other, until the link was rebuilt.[37]

Hackney Wick opened on 12 May 1980[38] by British Rail on the re-routed line which bypassed the site of the former Victoria Park station as part of the CrossTown Link line.

In 1872, London Fields railway station was opened by the Great Eastern Railway.[39] It closed in 1981 due to a fire, repairs were eventually carried out and the station reopened in 1986.[40]

In February 2006, a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) report called Horizon 2020 was commissioned, which suggested that the DLR be extended to Hackney Central from Bow Church via Old Ford and Homerton, taking over the old parts of the North London Line to link up with Poplar and Canary Wharf.[41]

Hackney is served by a large number of London Buses routes, 26, 30, 38, 55, 56, 106, 149, 236, 242, 253, 254, 276, 277, 388, 394, 339, 425 and 488 as well as the D6, and W15. Hackney is also served by the London night bus network with routes N26, N38, N55 and N253 all running in the area.[42] Route N277 also serves here when the 277 route was withdrawn between Dalston and Highbury Corner and the N277 was retained.[43]