This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Walk through a “misty looking village of England”, discovering Stoke Newington’s story from before 1066 with its two churches (Tudor village and Victorian suburb), one of London’s most delightful parks, with natural and man-made rivers, to the quiet, urban woods of Abney Park Cemetery. How…
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Category: Walks
Upper Clapton
This walk will take place on on a date to be announced. Climb to Hackney’s highest point. Along the way we will take in Stoke Newington Common, Clapton Common, Hackney’s oldest surviving Church, see (if possible) inside the former Agapemonite Church, now London’s Georgian Cathedral, and finish by admiring the views from Springfield Park. What…
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NEW WALK – Hackney Churchyard
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Starting outside the remains of Hackney’s first church, this walk will stroll through the churchyard looking at various graves, telling the stories of some of the people buried there before ending up with a look around Hackney’s ‘new’ church of 1797. See Hackney’s surviving Tudor tombs…
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South Hackney
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. This walk follows the development of South Hackney, always the poshest part of Hackney. It will be co-led by Sean with Laurie Elks, champion of Hackney’s heritage for 40 years plus and long-term resident of South Hackney. From fields to suburbia in just 20 years home to…
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Haggerston
This walk was to take place on a date to be announced. This walk tells the history of Haggerston, the northern-most and once the most rural, undeveloped, part of the ancient parish of Shoreditch. The walk will also go along Columbia Road, in neighbouring Bethnal Green. What was Mr Fairchild’ Mule? How was Haggerston Park created?…
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Hoxton
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Take a walk through the Town Squares, Mad Houses and Music Halls of Hoxton. An old settlement, dating back to the 11th century, within the parish pf Shoreditch, which became one of the poorest and most overcrowded parts of Victorian London.
Kingsland to Newington Green
This walk will take place on on a date to be announced. Along the western fringes of Hackney, this walk takes you from Kingsland to Newington Green, going through four ancient parishes. Once the hunting ground of kings, we finish in an area that became a hive of ‘seditious’ radicals and a centre for Mission…
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Shacklewell
The walk will take place on a date to be announced. This walk starts off in Dalston and takes you through Shacklewell to end at West Hackney Church on Stoke Newington Road. Shacklewell, with its village green, is a forgotten village of Hackney. Hear about the part it played in the development of Hackney, growing…
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LESLEY WALKS – SHOREDITCH/FINSBURY BORDERS
LESLEY WALKS will be leading this walk on Sunday 2 October 2022 @ 11.00am – 1.15pm The walk weaves either side of the borders of the ancient parishes of Shoreditch and Finsbury, starting by the canal on today’s Hackney and Islington border, then ending in the old Shoreditch warehouse district near Old Street. On the way,…
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Homerton
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Stretching along a ridge sloping down to two rivers, Homerton was once the wealthiest and most populous part of Hackney. Home to dissenters and paupers, its social decline was brought about by the coming of industry, railways and hospitals. Who was Homerton named after?…
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De Beauvoir
This walk will take place on a date to be arranged. De Beauvoir is unique in Hackney, with its stuccoed 19th century villas more reminiscent of London’s West End. Typical of Hackney, the area offers a walk of contrasts, revealing a tale from medieval manor to today’s loft apartments and trendy eateries, taking in mad…
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Shoreditch
This walk will next take place on a date to be announced. Today, forming southern Hackney, bordering the City of London, Shoreditch was one of London’s first suburbs. Its theatres witnessed the first-nights of Shakespeare’s early plays, a theatrical tradition that continued into the 19th century. Another association was with the furniture industry. The borough became one…
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Stamford Hill
This walk will next take place on a date to be announced. A bit like the Duke of Yorks’s men, this longer walk will be taking us up Stamford Hill and down again, tracing its place in Hackney’s history and the different types of people who have lived and passed through there. How old is the Jewish community…
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Heart of Hackney
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Trace Hackney’s heritage from Saxon settlement to city borough, with its rich diversity forged by 400 years of immigration from all over Britain and various parts of the world. The walk will include a visit to Hackney Museum, locating 17th century Sutton House and climbing 135…
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London Fields
This walk take place on Wednesday, 20 July at 6.30pm. Follow an ancient trackway out of Hackney to hear about the ‘common land’ of London Fields, one of London’s few remaining Lidos, the first Jews in Hackney, 18th century asylums for the mentally sick, the Regent’s Canal and, enter St Michael’s and All Angels Church to…
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Lower Clapton
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Discover the history of Clapton, one of Hackney’s hamlets; visited by revolutionaries and royalty; home to writers; where Garrick performed; refuge for orphans. Take a look inside the Round Chapel. How many times did Lenin get to Clapton? Where was Hackney’s first synagogue? Duration : allow…
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Dalston
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. An ancient hamlet of Hackney, Dalston developed, east of the Roman’s Ermine Street, from farm settlement to market gardening to brick fields to built-up suburbia by the 1860s. While still rural, Dalston was home to smart big houses, refuges for destitute women and infant orphans…
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Tracing Loddiges
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. This walk takes you through the area east of Mare Street to trace where Conrad Loddiges and Sons’ Hackney Botanical Nursery was with its Grand Palm House, Camelia Houses and more, which attracted visitors to Hackney from all ove the world. We will also be taking in…
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Hoxton New Town
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. This longer walk will tell you about the westernmost part of today’s Hackney, where, from the beginning of the 19th century, open fields used by Londoners to practice their archery skill was built up as Hoxton New Town. Where industry attracted to the banks of…
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Rhodes Town
This will take place again on a date to be announced. This walk investigates how the Rhodes family developed their Dalston estate, west of London Fields, into Hackney suburbia from 1807 into the 1870s. The walk focuses on the building process, the Rhodes family, the domestic architecture, the careers of some of the builders and details of some…
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Hackney Downs
This walk will take place on a date to be announced. Bounded betwixt Clapton, Dalston and Shacklewell, Hackney Downs, the highest piece of open ground within 4 miles of central London, has, like other parts of Hackney, its own history to tell. Once ‘common land’, in its environs were founded Clapton F.C., schools, Hackney’s first Fire…
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