Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to mention a gay cruising area). A
visitors' centre
is housed in one of the Egyptian-style
lodges at the main entrance, on busy Stoke Newington High Street.
Clissold Park
Stoke Newington Church St • Daily 7.30am-dusk • Free •
T
020 7923 3660,
W
hackney.gov.uk • Stoke Newington train station
Stoke Newington's two main churches, both dedicated to
St Mary
, stand either side of
Church Street and reflect the changes wrought on the area in the last couple of
centuries: the sixteenth-century village church firmly in the shadow of the more urbane
structure built by George Gilbert Scott in the 1850s, with a spire that outreached all
others in London in its day. This pair marks the entrance to
Clissold Park
, founded in
1889 and centred on a porticoed mansion built in the 1790s as a country house for the
Quaker Hoare banking family, now beautifully restored and housing the park café. The
duck and terrapin pond in front was once part of the New River; elsewhere are goats,
deer, a small aviary and a butterfly tunnel.
Stamford Hill
In the northern tip of Hackney,
Stamford Hill
is home to a tight-knit, mostly Yiddish-
speaking, community of Hasidic Jews, one of the borough's oldest immigrant
populations. The most visually striking aspect of this ultra-Orthodox community is the
men's attire - frock coats, white stockings and elaborate headgear - which derives from
that worn by the Polish nobility of the period. The shops on Stamford Hill and
Dunsmure Road, running west, are where the Hasidim buy their kosher goods.
20
Springfield Park
Springfield • Daily 7.30am-dusk • Free •
T
020 8356 8428,
W
hackney.gov.uk • Stamford Hill train station
On Sundays, large numbers of Hasidic families take the air at
Springfield Park
, opened
in 1905 “to change the habits of the people and to keep them out of the public
houses”. The park boasts an awesome view east across the Lee Valley to the adjacent
Walthamstow Marshes
, a valuable stretch of wetland that's alive with butterflies and
warblers in the summer. The park also has a decent
café
(
W
springfieldparkcafe.co.uk) in
the White Lodge Mansion by the pond.
To reach Springfield Park from Stamford Hill, walk across Clapton Common, and
down Spring Hill. En route, check out the four winged beasts (characters from the
Book of Revelation) at the base of the spire of the
Cathedral Church of the Good
Shepherd
on the corner of Rookwood Road, built for the sect of Spiritual Free Lovers,
the Agapemonites, in 1892. Six thousand gathered outside here in 1902 to throw
rotten tomatoes at the womanizing vicar, who had declared himself the Second
Messiah, and drive him into Clapton Pond to see if he could walk on water.
Middlesex Filter Beds
Sat & Sun: Easter-Sept 10am-6pm; Oct-Easter 10am-4pm; summer holidays also Mon-Fri 10am-5pm • Free • Clapton train station
If you follow the River Lee south of Walthamstow Marshes, you will eventually reach
the
Middlesex Filter Beds
, originally built in 1852 on the south side of Lea Bridge
Road.
Closed in 1969 and mostly drained, the filter beds now serve as a nature reserve
- in the spring check out the noisy frogs in the pond by the main culvert. To the south
of the filter beds lie the
Hackney Marshes
, best known as the venue for Sunday League
football matches, beyond which is the 2012 Olympic Park (see p.202).
Hackney Central
The old parish of Hackney was originally centred around the dumpy fifteenth-century
tower of the former parish church of
St Augustine
, and next to it, the Old Town Hall,
built in 1802 (now a betting shop). At this point, Mare Street is still discernably a
village high street, and is known, for obvious reasons, as the
Narroway
. he modern
borough has its headquarters further south on Mare Street around
Hackney Town Hall
,
