Haggerston

For other uses, see Haggerston (disambiguation).
Haggerston

Haggerston Pool. Closed in 2000. In the foreground is the southeast Asian refugee centre. Many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people have settled in Haggerston and nearby Shoreditch.
Haggerston
 Haggerston shown within Greater London
Population 10,376 
OS grid referenceTQ335835
   – Charing Cross 3.6 mi (5.8 km)  SW
London borough Hackney
Ceremonial county Greater London
RegionLondon
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town LONDON
Postcode district E2
Dialling code 020
Police Metropolitan
Fire London
Ambulance London
EU Parliament London
UK ParliamentHackney South & Shoreditch
London Assembly North East
List of places
UK
England
London

Coordinates: 51°32′05″N 0°04′36″W / 51.53463°N 0.07663°W

Haggerston is an area and an electoral ward in the London Borough of Hackney, in northeast London, UK. It is bounded by Hackney Road to the south, Kingsland Road to the west, Middleton Road to the north, with London Fields and Broadway Market to the east. In the 1990s a number of the area's more rundown housing estates were refurbished and some disused public buildings were privately converted into gated communities.

The area has the 9th highest crime rate in Hackney.

Origin

Urban decay: council blocks with boarded up windows

Haggerston is first recorded in the Domesday Book as Hergotestane, possibly of Viking origin, and an outlying hamlet of Shoreditch. On Rocque's 1745 map of Hackney, the village is shown as Agostone[1] but by the 19th century it had become Haggerstone,[2] and part of the growing urban sprawl, with factories and streets of workers' cottages lining the canal.

Today

The proximity to Hoxton and Shoreditch has made the area popular with students and workers in the creative industries, as these nearby areas have grown more expensive. In recent years, escalating property prices have driven commercial art galleries further into east London, which has exacerbated this effect.

A shortage of secondary school places has made the area less attractive to families but this is likely to change with the building of a City Academy on Laburnum Street.

Many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people have formed communities in Haggerston and nearby Shoreditch. Outside the area, the most visible sign of this is the profusion of Southeast Asian restaurants on nearby Kingsland Road in Shoreditch and on Mare Street in Hackney. There is also a notable Russian community focused on bars and cafés along Kingsland Road.

Amenities

Haggerston Park. (October 2005)

Besides the Regents Canal, Haggerston Park, on the site of a demolished gasworks on Hackney Road, provides much-needed open space in the area. Also in the area is the Hackney City Farm. The Regent Estate provides the Regent Estate Pensioners Club/Hall and the Regent Estate Community Center/Hall which together provide community services and spaces for hire. The Regent Estate Pensioners Hall is also used as a Polling Station.

The Grade II listed Haggerston Pool, designed by Alfred Cross and opened in 1904, was closed in 2000. In June 2009, after a long community campaign, a £5m grant was announced from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to refurbish and re-open the pool. The building would also contain community facilities and a GP surgery.[3]

Haggerston School is a Grade II listed building, designed by modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger and built in 1964–65.

This area of Hackney has a long association with clowning. Holy Trinity Church still hosts an annual clowns' service to commemorate Joseph Grimaldi and All Saints Centre at one time housed the Clowns Gallery and Museum, including props and a unique collection of painted eggs, serving as the 'registration' of clowns' make-up. Much of the collection is now on display at Wookey Hole.[4] Other Anglican churches in Haggerston are All Saints, Haggerston Road; St Columba, Kingsland Road; and Sts Mary and Chad, Nichols Square.[5]

Ward

The Haggerston electoral ward forms part of the Hackney South and Shoreditch constituency.

The ward returns three councillors to Hackney Council, with an election every four years. At the election on 6 May 2010, Ann Munn, Jonathan McShane, and Barry Buitekant, all Labour Party candidates, were returned. Turnout was 54%; with 5,006 votes cast.[6]

Education

Secondary schools in the area include Haggerston School and The Bridge Academy.

Transport

Neighbouring areas of Haggerston
De Beauvoir Town Dalston London Fields
Hoxton Cambridge Heath
   Haggerston  
Hoxton Shoreditch Bethnal Green

Railway stations

People of the book: Haggerston Library (foreground) and Suleymaniye Mosque (background, with minaret). Kingsland Road, September 2005
Gasometers at Haggerston Gasworks, view from the Regent's Canal, October 2005

Walking and cycling

The Regents Canal towpath is easily accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. It provides access to Victoria Park to the east and Islington to the west.

Public Art

The condemned Haggerston and Kingsland Estate was slated for demolition in the 1990s but the process did not get underway for another 20 years. In 2009 artists Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Lasse Johansson, who lived on the Haggerston Estate on Dunston Road, created the I AM HERE project, placing on the building large portrait photographs of the current estate residents who were about to be moved out so the building could be demolished. These faced the Regent's Canal and were popular with passersby.[7] The project came down in April 2014.

On the Kingsland Estate in Whiston Road, Egyptian painter Nazir Tanbouli created the "King's Land" project where, in the space of 4 months, he covered all of the buildings of the condemned estate with murals.[8][9][10] The Kingsland Estate was demolished in late 2013.

Notable residents

References

  1. ↑ 'The northern suburbs: Haggerston and Hackney', Old and New London: Volume 5 (1878), pp. 505-24 accessed: 6 December 2006
  2. ↑ Stanford's Map of London and its Suburbs, 1872
  3. ↑ Jun 2009 15%3A50%3A58%3A487 Cash for historic baths—what the Edwardians did for us Peter Sherlock 25 June 2009 (Hackney Gazette) accessed 27 June 2009
  4. ↑ Dangerfield, Andy (2013-02-04). "BBC News - Clowns in Joseph Grimaldi church tribute service". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-19.
  5. ↑ Blagdon-Gamlen, P. E. (1973) The Church Travellers Directory. London: Church Literature Association; p. 3
  6. ↑ Council Elections 2006 results for Haggerston (LB Hackney) accessed 11 May 2010
  7. ↑ http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2011/07/29/i-am-here-zimmerman-johansson-floating-cinema-review/
  8. ↑ http://distortedarts.com/the-kings-land-road-mural/
  9. ↑ http://blog.globalstreetart.com/post/26203981448/nazir-tanbouli-and-the-kingsland-mural-project
  10. ↑ http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/04/27/nazir-tanbouli-artist-the-kings-land/

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Haggerston.