'Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent'

Day 41

 

Hackney Central - Hackney Wick - Haggerston - Hainault - Hammersmith

 

The sun is shining once again as I set off on my journey this morning - could it finally be heralding the start of Spring I wonder?

 

On the other hand, we do still have April - with its traditional showers - ahead of us, so we're probably not (ahem) home and dry just yet.

 

It's also the first day of my foray into the H section, and oh boy there are a lot of them. Whereas the letter G had a mere 13 stations to visit, there are 36 Hs - the most for any letter so far. Admittedly a fair few of them - including the first couple on my list - are in little regional 'pockets', so perhaps it won't take me as long as I fear to visit them all.

 

***

We start off with Hackney Central, on the north-eastern stretch of the Overground line. This means a couple of changes - from Central to Victoria, and then onto the Overground - before I even get there.

 

The station is tucked away from the main street - Mare Street - and, like several on the Overground, is elevated.

 



Hackney Central



Hackney Central is - as the name suggests - the central area of Hackney Borough, which also includes areas like Stoke Newington, Hoxton, Shoreditch and Homerton. The original Hackney Village, from which it grew, was the area around the main road, then called Church Street, but which is now called Mare Street.

 

From Tudor times up until the early 1800s the area was apparently a fashionable rural retreat, and Henry VIII even had a palace here. Then as the industrial revolution took hold and the area became more and more built up, its fortunes declined and it's now seen, perhaps unfairly, as one of London's less salubrious areas.

 

On the other hand it still attracts a diverse range of visitors, particularly to one of its main landmarks - the Hackney Empire.

 



Hackney Empire - original entrance



A former music hall, where Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, WC Fields, Marie Lloyd and Stanley Holloway once trod the boards, it's now a Grade II Listed Building and following brief stints as a bingo hall and TV studios, these days it's a successful and respected theatre space. It was designed by a chap called Frank Matcham, who also designed many other London and regional theatres, including The Coliseum, The Palladium, The Hippodrome and Richmond Theatre.

 

The redeveloped Empire

 

Further south is the Town Hall, and council buildings, which contain the Hackney Museum.

 

Free to the public, and I would guess primarily aimed at children, it houses an eclectic collection of exhibits of everything from eel pie baking tins, to Hackney's first (hand-pumped) fire engine.

 



Hand-pumped fire engine

 



History of immigration

Daniel Defoe - who
lived in the area

Home Appliances



 

I enjoy the brief wander through the museum but since it's not very large it only takes me ten or fifteen minutes to make my way round it. Back outside, Hackney seems to be a relatively quiet place - at least today - and having seen what the area south of the station has to offer, it's not long before I'm heading northwards again to see another bit of local history, and Hackney's oldest building - St Augustine's Tower.

 

St Augustine's Tower

The tower which currently stands in the grounds of St John's Church dates from the 16th Century, although the original church which once stood here was built in the 13th Century.

 

The church was rebuilt and expanded over the years until in the late 18th Century it was pulled down (apart from the tower of course which still housed the church bells) to be rebuilt at a new site to the north - the current St John's Church.

 

Today it's all shut up, so after a pause to take a photo, I decide to move on from Hackney Central and have a look at Hackney Wick.

 

 

***

Hackney Central, as I have mentioned, was once called Hackney Village.

 

Hackney Wick, which lies some distance to the east, and is separated from it by the area known as Homerton, could theoretically also be called Hackney Village - since that's what Wick (or in some cases Wich) actually means. It's the same word that appears in such place names as Berwick, Chiswick, Keswick and so on, and in it's alternative form as Norwich and Greenwich.

 

Which seems a little odd when you think about it, as that would mean there were once two separate Hackney Villages, about 2km apart.

 

Of course, one of them was technically called the 'village', and the other the 'wick' - but isn't that rather splitting hairs? I mean, I might call it mashed potato and you might call it Pommes Purées - but it's still a load of brown lumpy things squashed up on a plate.

Or is it like North and South Korea? Are they all sat there planning to send large thermonuclear devices into each others' back yards...?

***



Hackney Wick

Hackney Wick sits between Victoria Park - a large area of open parkland - to the west, and the more recently developed Olympic Park (for the 2012 games) to the east. Since the latter is more readily associated with Stratford tube station (which thanks to the games is now Stratford International station), I'm going to leave my exploration of the Olympic Park until I get to the 'S's.

Instead I wander through the erstwhile industrialised streets of the Wick, marvelling at the quality and variety of graffiti (or perhaps it should be called 'street art') I see on practically every brick surface.

Some graffiti

The area seems to have become a bit of a haven for artists in recent years, as they take over derelict factories and turn them into studios of one kind or another.

Some more graffiti

Is it the same artists working inside the buildings as the ones decorating the outside, I wonder? Or are the ones inside on the phone to the council every day about the 'defacement' of their property?

Given the sheer scale of most of the artwork - which clearly took some time and not a little physical agility to complete - I have to assume that it's all been officially sanctioned. I can't really see the local bobby failing to notice the ladders, ropes and scaffolding which must have been employed to create these murals.

And some more graffiti

I head next into Victoria Park, which is a fairly standard - though nevertheless pleasant example of the sort of inner city park dotted around London. The landscape is mainly flat and open grassland - with a few games areas marked out - but there are trees enough around the perimeter and various points of interest to discover if you so wish - which of course I do.



London Bridge Alcoves

By the north-east gate, which is where I enter the park, there are two huge stone alcoves standing sentinel over the rest of the park.

 

These come from the original stone-built London Bridge (there had of course been previous wooden-built bridges) which was built over 33 years from 1176 and stood for over 600 years. As well as the alcoves (of which there were 14 along its length) the bridge was almost a small village, with houses and shops, often several storeys tall lining its length.

When the old bridge was demolished in 1831 the alcoves were saved, and donated 'for the use of the public' in 1860.

Alcove Interior

 

A notice by the alcoves gives their history and quotes a contemporary source, who suggested that their clever construction and positioning gave them a curiously useful acoustic property, as follows:

'So just are there proportions, and so complete and uniform their symmetry, that, if a person whispers against the wall on the one side of the way, he may be plainly heard on the opposite side; and parties may converse without being prevented by the interruption of the street or the noise of carriages.'

Since the two here face into the park, rather than toward each other, it's impossible to test the theory, but I like the idea of this early form of telephonic communication.

Rather like Hackney Central, however, I feel after only a short time that I've seen all there is to see here, and so make my way back to the station to begin the slightly convoluted journey to my next stop - Haggerston.

***

Haggerston, like both Hackney Central and Hackney Wick, is on the Overground Line. Unlike them however, it is on the branch heading south towards Crystal Palace and Croydon. This means I have to travel back west towards Highbury & Islington (although I actually change at Canonbury) and then swap lines to head south instead of east.

Haggerston

The station is relatively new - being opened in 2010 - but its vaguely familiar 'blocky' design is very definitely a nod to the work of Charles Holden.

Having already been mildly disappointed with the two places I've so far visited today - very pleasant and all that, but not much really going on - I'm sad to say Haggerston doesn't offer much more in the way of diversion.

In fact, other than being the birthplace of the astronomer Edmond Halley, the only thing the area seems to have going for it is the fact that it nestles on the Regent's Canal, and has a little mooring for narrow-boats called Kingsland Basin which does at least add a splash of colour to the area.



Regent's Canal

I wander down to the canal (ever wary, of course, after my towpath-based adventures in Bounds Green) and discover a quiet but pleasant stretch of waterway to stroll along.



Kingsland Basin

Well, I say 'quiet' - it's certainly true that the decibel count is fairly low here, but at this time of day you do have to dodge and weave your way through a plague of lunchtime-joggers of almost biblical proportions - and that's before the cyclists get going...

As I walk back up to the station I hear something I've not previously heard anywhere in London - perhaps surprisingly, given the ethnic make-up of many of the areas I've been to. From the top of the nearby Suleymaniye Mosque's minaret, comes the sound of a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

Whenever I've heard it on documentaries or TV shows, I've always found the call to prayer to be a curiously pleasant sound - despite not having the slightest interest in the religion it represents - so I'm quite happy to let it waft over me as I walk back along the main road. I'm just surprised to realise that I don't think I've heard it from any other mosques I've happened to walk past.

If, like me, you've ever wondered what the Muezzin is actually calling, you're in luck as thanks to my friend Mr Google I can enlighten you today:

"Allah is most great. I testify that there is no god but Allah. I testify that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. Come to prayer. Come to salvation. Allah is most great. There is no god but Allah."

Each phrase is repeated varying numbers of times and for those who struggle with their early morning devotions, there's the rather charming addition of the words "Prayer is better than sleep" in the first call of the day.

***

But again, no sooner have I got here than I feel like I've seen everything the place has to offer - and I'm heading back to the station, back north on the train, to change once again at Canonbury onto the eastern branch of the Overground Line to Stratford, to change again there onto the Central Line towards Hainault.

***

Hainault, is of course on the Hainault Loop - that portion of the Central Line I've so far found so strangely unfulfilling every time I've visited one of its stations.

I wish I could say that Hainault manages to surprise me and that my mind is changed about this part of London - but sadly not.

Hainault

The station is pretty much the only point of interest on a very long, very straight, and very dull stretch of road called New North Road. The road disappears off into the distance in both directions, interrupted only by the occasional petrol station or newsagent, and even looking on the map there seems to be nothing much further afield worth looking at.

In fact the only thing I might have been tempted by - if it wasn't so far away - is Hainault Forest. It's a good 2km off down the road, and without knowing much more about what I might find there, I really can't bring myself to undertake the obviously dull walk there and back.

I think the thing that gets me about these places is that none of them seem to have any sort of 'hub' or 'centre'. Most places, it seems to me, grow outwards from a main street or shopping area - but that doesn't appear to be the case here. There are shops, but they seem to have been plonked down haphazardly wherever it took the owner's fancy.

So, after the briefest of wanderings up and down outside the station, I head westwards again - but this time towards what I do at least know to be a more lively part of town.

***

Ah, Hammersmith...

Hammersmith - people! shops! life!

Ok, so it's not the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - but at least there's a bit of life here!

And actually, of course, it does see its fair share of the great and the good, since it's the home to one of the most famous live music and comedy venues in London - the Hammersmith Apollo (but more of that anon).

I arrive in Hammersmith on the Piccadilly Line, which means I emerge from the station which is contained in the Hammersmith Broadway Shopping Centre (see photo above). A separate station, which is a terminus for the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines, is a short distance away on Beadon Road.

Hammersmith's other station

What is odd is that, on the back of my now rather battered and dog-eared copy of the tube map, there is only one station listed in Hammersmith, not two. Astute readers may remember that, when I was contemplating my visit to Edgware Road's brace of eponymous stations (which can hardly be much farther apart than those in Hammersmith) I spent some little time deliberating as to whether to treat them separately or not. In the end, since they served different tube lines from separate buildings, I decided I couldn't in all conscience treat them as a single entity.

Which is exactly the case here in Hammersmith - so I'm a little puzzled as to why Transport For London, in publishing and printing its maps for the tube travelling masses, thinks it can get away with it, if I can't!

The Lyric Theatre

Around the corner from the second station (second - got that TFL? - different, other, not the same!!!) is my second theatre of the day (or perhaps all London's theatres should be considered as just one venue, eh TFL?......... alright, I'll stop now - but you get my point...).

The Lyric Theatre's original building was designed and built by the same man as the Hackney Empire - Frank Matcham. That building was closed in 1966, but was carefully dismantled and rebuilt on a new site nearby. It re-opened in 1979.

 

In front of the theatre is a small piazza which - especially in summer months - is heaving with Frappuccino drinking office staff.

 

 

A little farther south, on an otherwise anonymous pedestrian crossing island on Queen Caroline Street, is a black cast-iron bench, bearing a small plaque.

 



'Rik Mayall's Bench'



This is a replacement for a wooden bench that stood here previously, and was featured in the opening credits to the BBC comedy 'Bottom' starring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson.

 



Plaque to Rik Mayall



Following Rik Mayall's untimely death last year, thousands of fans petitioned to have the bench replaced, and it has become something of a shrine to the late comedian, with letters, photos, and at one time even a pair of grubby 'Bottom-esque' underpants hung around the railings.

 

The Rik Mayall 'Shrine'

South of the bench, under the shadow of the Hammersmith flyover - an elevated section of the A4 - is the concert venue now known as the Eventim Apollo. Depending on your age-bracket, however, you might know it more familiarly as the Hammersmith Apollo, the Carling Apollo, the Labatt's Apollo, the Hammersmith Odeon, The 'Hammy-O', or even the Gaumont Palace (though you'd have to be getting on a bit to remember that name).

 

The 'Hammy-O'

Most big names in music have played here at one time or another including Buddy Holly, The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Thin Lizzy, The Who, Dire Straits, Blondie, Duran Duran,  Tears For Fears, Culture Club, Kylie, and many more. And it's not just rock stars who come here - comedy stars who haven't yet succumbed to the lure of huge arenas like the O2 can often be seen performing here.

 

Further south again is the river, crossed by Hammersmith Bridge - a suspension bridge designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

 



Hammersmith Bridge



The bridge, though not an especially vital transport link, has nevertheless been the subject of various terrorist attacks over its lifetime, from a bomb in a suitcase in 1939 (discovered by a passer-by and thrown into the river just before it exploded) to the only marginally more successful bomb set off by the 'Real IRA' in the early hours of June 1, 2000.

 

As it happens, my wife Mrs Nowhere Man used to own a house-boat which was moored just a few yards away from the bridge, and was actually staying on it on the night the bomb went off.

 

Not that, at the time, it was a particularly harrowing event for her, as it seems she pretty much slept through most of the excitement. Having had one or two* drinks the evening before, she was sleeping fairly soundly when the explosion occurred at around 4.30am. She did wake up and (in modern parlance) thought 'WTF?!' - but in the absence of any further information promptly fell back to sleep again.

 

It was only when she got up for work the next morning and had to do a kind of hundred metre hurdles over several sections of police tape, that she discovered what had happened.

 

(* - the exact amount is lost in the mists of history, but clearly must have been enough to mask the cacophony of dozens of emergency sirens, boat-dwellers being evacuated, and startled birdlife that presumably filled the air that morning.)

 

***

Just before I head back to the station, on a jetty under the bridge, I spot a guitar-player strumming merrily away. I wonder if he's playing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'...

 

Water Music