Hackney: portrait of a community 1967 – 2017
Edited by Laurie Elks To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Hackney Society, we have produced a portrait of the community over the past half century. One portrait? What has emerged is a whole series of portraits which, like a kaleidoscope, makes up a whole Hackney is one of the London boroughs that has changed […]
Hackney: An Uncommon History in Five Parts
Edited by Margaret Willes The London Borough of Hackney was one of the five boroughs hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. Hundreds of thousands of people visited the site in the summer months: yet how much did they know of the history of the area? Indeed, how aware are Hackney residents of its rich past? In […]
Hackney – Modern, Restored, Forgotten, Ignored
Edited by Lisa Rigg 2nd Edition 2013 with updates Hackney – Modern, Restored, Forgotten, Ignored features 40 buildings to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Hackney Society. Written by 40 authors the book seeks to draw attention to good-quality modern architecture; recent restoration projects; buildings that have been lost; and buildings that are currently at risk […]
Twentieth century buildings in Hackney
Volumne 1
Famous Women of Hackney
Leaflet (out of print) This leaflet traces the histories of sixteen Hackney women, including Celia Fiennes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Maire Lloyd, Anna Sewell and Edith Cavell, and identifies the buildings in which they lived and worked. 1998 | 16pp | OUT OF PRINT | ISBN 0 9536734 0 5 This leaflet is now out of print […]
Plan of Hackney Church & Churchyard, 1794
Historical Map by Roger Root This fascinating document is one of the earliest surveys of Hackney’s buildings. The drawings show the old church of St. Augustine as rebuilt at the beginning of the 16th century, plus the buildings round the churchyard. The plan gives a flavour of village Hackney in the 18th century, together with […]
Loddiges of Hackney the largest hothouse in the world
By David Solman For one hundred years the most famous nursery garden in Europe stood near Mare Street close to today’s Town Hall. Here tropical plants grew and flowered for the first time outside their native rainforest. ‘I fancied myself in the Brazils’ wrote a visitor, in wonderment at the artificial tropical rainstorm inside the […]
Hoxton – Architecture And History Over Five CenturiesSouth Shoreditch (out of print)
Christopher Miele In his monumental Life and Labour of the People of London(1889-90), Charles Booth characterised Hoxton as one of the most ‘crime ridden and pestilential areas of the Metropolis’. Petty thieves and pickpockets were said to thrive in its airless courts, and infant mortality there was among the highest in the nation. These unpleasant […]
St John at Hackney: The story of a Church
(out of print) David Mander A sturdy brown temple with a tower floating over it – or ‘the ugliest church in Christendom, save one’, St John-at-Hackney was consecrated in 1797 and has attracted praise and criticism ever since. This book traces the history of the present church, and the original St ]ohn’s church which it […]
The German Hospital South Shoreditch
(out of print, download only) A social and architectural history 1845-1987 Elizabeth McKellar The German Hospital is little known today in Hackney. It lies concealed behind high walls in the heart of Dalston. Glimpses may be had of it from the North London Line railway, suggesting a large country mansion surrounded by wooded grounds. Its […]