Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
built in a very restrained 1930s Art Deco style and set back from the high street. Close
by is the ornate terracotta
Hackney Empire
, one of the last surviving music halls in
London, built in typically extravagant style by Frank Matcham in 1899.
Hackney Museum
1 Reading Lane • Tues, Wed & Fri 9.30am-5.30pm, Thurs 9.30am-8pm, Sat 10am-5pm • Free •
T
020 8356 3500,
W
hackney.gov.uk •
Hackney Central Overground
Beside the town hall stands the borough's new library and the
Hackney Museum
. As
well as excellent temporary exhibitions, the museum has an interesting permanent
display with lots of personal accounts from local residents. Specific exhibits to look out
for include the “upside-down” map of the borough and the Saxon log boat found in
Springfield Park, thought to have been a ferry for taking folk across the River Lee.
Sutton House
2-4 Homerton High St • Feb to mid-Dec Thurs & Fri 10.30am-5pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm; daily during school Easter & summer holidays •
NT • £3.50 •
T
020 8986 2264,
W
nationaltrust.org.uk • Hackney Central Overground
Hidden away, at the east end of the Georgian terrace of Sutton Place, stands
Sutton
House
. Built in 1535 for Ralph Sadleir, a rising star at the court of Henry VIII, the
house takes its name from Thomas Sutton, founder of Charterhouse, who lived in an
adjacent building (he is buried at Charterhouse, minus his entrails, which you've
probably just walked over in the graveyard by Mare Street). The National Trust have
done their best to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings and have preserved not just the
exquisite Elizabethan “linenfold” wooden panelling, but also a mural left by squatters
in 1986. In addition to showing its rambling complex of period rooms, the house puts
on classical concerts, hosts contemporary art exhibitions and even runs a tearoom.
20
Walthamstow
East of the River Lee and the marshes, the chief reason to head out to
Walthamstow
is
to visit the William Morris Gallery, but there are one or two other points of interest in
the district.
Walthamstow Market
(Mon-Sat) stretches for almost a mile along the old
High Street, north of the tube station, and claims to be the country's longest street
market. For a traditional East End snack, head for
Manzes
, at no. 76, one of London's
finest pie-and-mash shops, with its traditional tiled walls and ceiling.
Vestry House Museum
2 Vestry Rd • Wed-Sun 10am-5pm • Free •
T
020 8496 4391,
W
walthamforest.gov.uk •
!
Walthamstow Central
At the peaceful heart of the old village of Walthamstow is the
Vestry House Museum
,
built in 1730 and at one time the village workhouse. Later on, it became the police
station, and a reconstructed police cell from 1861 is one of the museum's chief exhibits.
Pride of place, however, goes to the tiny Bremer car, Britain's first-ever petrol-driven
automobile, designed in 1892 by local engineer Fred Bremer, 20-year-old son of
German immigrants. Victorian times are comprehensively covered, while the temporary
exhibitions tend to focus on contemporary topics. The other point of interest nearby is
the fifteenth-century half-timbered
Ancient House
, a short walk up Church Lane.
Civic Centre
Walthamstow's
Civic Centre
is an arresting sight, set back from Forest Road around a huge
open courtyard. Designed in an unusual 1930s Scandinavian style, it is, without doubt,
London's grandest town-hall complex. Indeed, there's a touch of Stalinism about the
severe Neoclassical central portico and in the William Morris-inspired exhortation above
the adjacent Assembly Hall: “Fellowship is life and the lack of fellowship is death.” Sadly,
construction of the law courts that would have completed the ensemble was interrupted
by the war, but this remains one of the most startling public buildings in London.
