Great Eastern Railway to Chingford. South Hackney

Great Eastern Railway to Chingford
The railway line to Chingford continues north running from Cambridge Heath Station

Post to the south Cambridge Heath
Post to the north London Fields

This post covers only the north east corner of this square

Andrews Road
Before the Second World War the area to the north of the curve in Andrews Road was houses in residential streets.
43 London Borough of Hackney. Car pound.


Ash Grove
Before 1900 Ash Grove was a residential street and there appear to have been a number of charitable religious institutions in them.
St Mary.  Franciscan convent also described as Franciscan Nunnery. Present in the 1870s
Orphanage. This was for boys orphaned by cholera and opened in 1866 by the Revd. R. Tuke of St. Anne's, Soho. He set up the order of St. Joseph, which adopted the Franciscan habit but which was disbanded on his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1867. It appears that some of the sisters working at the orphanage also converted with him.
Orphanage and guild for working girls opened by the Sisters of St. Margaret, East Grinstead as a centre for their work in South Hackney, Haggerston, and Shoreditch.
St Augustine’s Convent, with chapel by Harold Gibbons, noted by Pevsner as existing in 1925. Demolished
British Penitent Female Refuge.  This large institution moved here in 1842 having originated in Hackney. It is also said to have originated in Welclose Square at the Maritime Penitent Female Refuge.  The frontage on St. Andrews Road survives in the Firmback Works.
King Edward Industrial School for Girls. This had begun in Mile End in 1872 and seems to have moved, or set up a branch, here in 1875 using the Female Refuge premises. .
Firmback Works. This was the works of Messrs. Cinnamon. Makers of Cintique furniture. They were established in 1908 to produce high grade chairs and settees when Jack Cinnamon started the firm in a former House of Correction for women alongside the Regents Canal as frame-makers to the furniture trade. By the 1920s Cintique were making complete chairs.
Bush chemical works. William Bush had set up a chemical works in Bishopsgate in 1851, making tinctures, extracts, flavours and essential oils. W.J. Bush & Co. is credited with being England's first maker of flavourings and essences. He later moved to Liverpool Street and then here, to Ash Grove. The firm expanded enormously to become an international concern and eventually in the 1960s merged with Stafford Allen and are now part of International Flavours and Fragrances
Bus Garage. The garage was built on the site of the Bush chemical works. It was opened in 1981 by London Buses. It had space for 140 buses undercover and 30 in the yard. The roof is carried by ten 35-ton triangular trusses, said to be the largest in the UK. When London Buses was split into separate companies Ash Grove became part of London Forest but closed in 1991 when they were wound up. The garage re-opened in 1994 for Kentish Bus and renamed it Cambridge Heath garage. It re-opened again in 2000 for East Thames Buses but they then moved to other new premises.amd it is used as a depot by Arriva.
Bridge over the Bethnal Green and Hackney Downs railway. Built in 1885 on brick arches to minimise expense because of property prices.

Beck Road
The street was due for demolition and many properties were squatted by artists, musicians – many subsequently famous – and so on.  The Council handed to Acme Properties who let houses to artists and others. At one time forty-two artists lived in the street.

Bocking Street
This was previously Essex Street
46 Westgate Centre, small business and trading area.
48 Bocking Street Warehouse, centre for events, gallery, etc. -
Broadway Market
This lies between Mare Street and Kingsland Road and survivals of the 1840s are interspersed with 20th buildings.  The road is said to be part of a route called the ‘Market Porters’ or Porters’ Route, a way to London markets for produce and livestock from Essex. From 1811 the road was called Duncan Place, and a market was held here by 1835. It was called the Broadway in 1881 and was Broadway Market from 1937.
2 La Vie en Rose restaurant. This was the Sir Walter Scott pub and the name is still on the frontage. It was open by 1851 and rebuilt in its present form in 1909. It closed as a pub in 1999.
24 Dove free house.  Pub
30-32 The Market House. Old pub now used as a restaurant. This was there by 1871 and was a Watney’s House. In 1990 it was sold to Belhaven and was closed in 1999. 
75-77 retains a shop front of 1830 but may be older behind.  . It is now an art gallery.
76 Cat and Mutton.  Very old pub on the site and a wide range of theories about how it got its name – was it about barges called cats, or is it about cattle passing with drovers. Nearby are fields called Shoulder of Mutton from the shape. There are also stories of a poltergeist in the cellar.  Dates back to 1731, and it is shown on Roque’s Map of 1769. By 1790, the Public House was at the end of a row of buildings in what was then Mutton Lane with Shoulder of Mutton Field to the west. The area attracted City people and apparently once a week a pig’s tail was greased and the clientele attempted to it round their heads.
79-81 early 19th terraced houses with shops on the ground floor.
Hackney Bun House., This is said to have stood on the east side of the road at the canal end of the market and sold spicy buns.

Canal
Gerver’s Basin or North Street or Northiam Basin. This was on the north bank east of Mare Street Bridge, dating from 1827 it was privately owned and square.  Gerver was a timber merchant based in Mare Street.  The tiny Basin was used to unload timber and stone from barges.  Once disused the iron basin entrance was blocked with sheets of corrugated iron. It was infilled in 1976 and the bridge over entrance removed but the corner coping stones of the basin are still visible on the towpath.  In the 1970s and early 1980s housing was built on the site.
Cunningham Timber Wharf.  The north bank of the canal here between Victoria Park and Mare Street was largely taken up by Cunningham’s Timber Wharf
Stone wharf. This lay to the west of Northiam Basin.
Horse ramp. These installations occur at intervals along the canal and were to help horses which had fallen into the canal to be got out.

Croston Street
In the early 19th this was George Street, and later Hamburg Street –changed again during the Great War. The houses date from the 1830s.
5 This was the offices for the City of Dublin Bottling Co. – a sign for which ran across the fascia – with a manager’s flat above.   In the 1890s the owner, a Mr. Quin, retained one room where he slept once a week.  A corner entrance is now a window.  It appears to date from 1909 but the company was on this site in the 1890s. It is now housing and the rear yard appears to be in separate use.

Dericote Street
In the early 19th this was John Street, and later Bremen Street – which changed again in the Great War. A development of 1830-40.

Jackman Street
This was previously Goring Street
Broadway Market Green. This is a small park on a site which was once housing

King Edward Road
3 St. John the Baptist. Roman Catholic church.   Services are said to have begun in an old brewery in Elsdale Street. A church was built here in ragstone by W. W. Wardell in 1847. It was damaged in the Second World War and services were held elsewhere until the current church was built in 1956: by Peter Lamprell-Jarrett and consecrated in 1972 
St. Johns the Baptist Church School. This opened in 1849 as Triangle or Hackney Triangle Roman Catholic School in a rented building. A new school was built adjoining the presbytery in 1851. It occupied part of London Fields School from 1951 to 1968, when it moved to Bonner Road.
4 Ayahs home. In 1900 the London City Mission took over the organization of the Home and it moved from Aldgate to 26 King Edward's Road. In 1921, it moved to no 4 The Home dealt with about ninety ayahs a year and also nurse-maids from other countries who were brought over by families and required assistance in returning.
45-65 Durigo house. This was Horne Brothers factory from 1922 until  1987. Menswear manufacturers who began in 1886 and dissolved in 1993.

Lansdowne Drive
This is ex Mutton Lane

London Fields
This square covers only a small section on the park at the southern end.  London Field was common land in Hackney with Lammas Rights. By the mid 19th the area was under development pressure and rights were passed to the Metropolitan Board of Works.
Pebble sculpture of flower sellers and sheep by Freeform Artworks (1988-9) at the southeast corner of the Fields.

London Fields East
This was once called London Place
Darcy House - originally Darcy Buildings which were built on the site of Pacifico’s almshouses by the London County Council as their first housing in Hackney
Pacifico's Almshouses.  These were for Sephardic Jews with funds given in 1851 by Emanuel Pacifico. They were supported after 1880 by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' congregation of London, but were demolished by 1900. The congregation offered accommodation at new almshouses which it had built for Barrow's charity in Mile End
Jubilee Chapel. This was a Primitive Methodists' chapel built in from 1863. By 1873 it was called the Jubilee chapel. It closed before 1938.

Mare Street
12-20 This is an early 19th terraceat the southern end of the street. It was originally called Clifton Place and  built on the site of some brick kilns. They may predate the canal.
13-15 The Rose and Crown. The pub may date from as early as the 17th and it was said to be the first building over the canal bridge in Hackney in the 19th. The plaque above the door shows a previous name of the pub as The Cambridge. By 1905 it was a Whitbread house, and some Whitbread signage remains of the building. In 1977 it passed to Young’s Brewery and then returned to Whitbread.
51 Home for deaf and dumb children opened here in 1900 by Barnardo.  Originally it was for girls but later took boys and blind children,
70 Salvation Army. London Central Division
125-127 Morley Hall.  This is now part of Hackney Community College. The hall was a cinema 1910-1919.  It had begun as a 'masonic' hall and was completed by Cambridge Heath Congregational church, with help from Samuel Morley. It had three storeys and it was used for recreation in 1920 and by clothiers Gerrish, Ames & Simpkins. It was damaged by Second World War bombing . It is now part of the City Edge, Business Training & Conference Centre, with a modern building in front.  At the back ‘Morley Hall’ is visible in the stonework, when viewed from the railway line.
129-131 Space. Charitable organisation finding cheap studio spaces for artists. This is in Triangle House which was for Hackney Technical College’s Building Department.
137 The London Fields. Pub. This was originally called the Warburton Arms and dates from the mid 19th.
St Joseph's Hospice. This was set up in 1905 on the estate of Cambridge Lodge, - a house, garden, and 6 houses by Marmaduke Matthews from 1856. They had been the homes of the Booth family, co-founders of the Salvation Army in 1865-7.  The Hospice was set up by Father Peter Gallwey, Rector of Farm Street Jesuit Mission who asked the Irish Sisters of Charity to come to work in the East End with funding in 1899 from a Grace Goldsmith. When Cambridge Lodge was sold the anonymous buyer gave it to the Sisters of Charity as a hospice for the dying. The hospice expanded and in 1936 the area of Cambridge Heath Congregational Church was added. In The Second World War it was requisitioned for war and badly bombed. The chapel built in 1932, is now the oldest part remaining. In the 1950s Dr Cicely Saunders developed pioneering methods here and in 1958, the first purpose-built hospice unit in the UK was built here. Modern buildings have since replaced this and also the 19th hospice buildings. Special care is taken of the garden and a garden room looks onto the main garden. A Centenary Garden which won a medal at Chelsea Flower Show in 2005 is now part of a Garden Restaurant and a water sculpture has been installed in the front courtyard. A new convent for the Sisters has also been built.
Cambridge Heath Congregational Chapel. This was an Iron chapel from 1861. It was replaced by a church in ragstone designed by Joseph James in 1865. It closed in the 1930s.

Mowlem Street
47 The Wayward Gallery

Sheep Lane
A renamed section of Mutton Lane

Triangle Road
Ann Taylor Childrens' Centre

Tudor Road
8-10 City and Hackney Mind. Mental Health Charity in old factory building, 8 was previously the site of Melbourne House, home of Thomas Bearman, local baker and confectioner and noted numismatist.

Vyner Street
This was previously called. It was renamed after the Vyner family in 1902
1 Ombra restaurant. This has mushrooms on the roof by Christian Naagel
3-7 Gallery – this has had various names
Lime Wharf. Cultural innovation hub and artistic laboratory.
Victoria wharf. This was to the west of Lime Wharf and was at one time used as a saw mill. Clearly saw mills would have been necessary for timber importers serving the large east end furniture manufacturing industry – before the artists moved in!
27 The Victory.  Pub which dates from before 1860
30 All Saints Mission. This is now the Empire Gallery with “Trapped in Freedom” as the logo on the outside.  All Saints Mission dates from 1896 with a clubroom and gymnasium.  It later became as shoe factory owned by M.Rubin and employing 300 people
63 Anchor of Hope. Christian fellowship. This was previously a warehouse

Warburton Road
The road replaced the gardens of Dr. Warburton's house - aka Pembroke House
365-366 London Fields Brewery. This opened in 2011.

Warburton Square

Westgate Street
1 Hackney Council Departments and Hackney Community College. Keltan House. This was an old commercial building which was taken over by the college in 1970. It had previously been Netil House and owned by North Eastern Timber Ltd. as the head office of a group of related companies. It has now been renamed Netil House and is let as studio space.
London Fields Primary School. The school was originally opened in 1874.


Sources
British History Online. Bethnal Green. Web site
Bush, Boake and Allen. Wikipedia. Web site
CAMRA. City and East London Beer Guide,
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clarke. Glimpses of Ancient Hackney and Stoke Newington
Closed Pubs. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Essex Lopresti. The Regents Canal
Glazier. London Transport Garages
London Borough of Hackney. Web site
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Web site
London Fields Brewery. We site
London Fields User Group. Web site
London Gardens Online. Web site
Lost Pubs. Web site
Morris. Archives of the Chemical Industry
Pevsner and Cherry.  London North
Sinclair. Hackney. That Rose Red Empire
St. Joseph’s Hospice. Web site
Watson. Gentlemen in the Building Line.
Watson. Hackney and Stoke Newington Past

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