Attend Stoke Newington Literary Festival

As your author makes a break for another literary festival near the border, up in Stoke Newington they are beginning their own such event, with speakers as diverse as Maurice Glasman, Danny Wallace and The Gruffalo.


One of the most enticing meetings sees London explorers Mark Mason and Craig Taylor join together at 1pm on Sunday at the newly reopened Clissold House in what promises to be a great event.

For more, see http://www.stokenewingtonliteraryfestival.com/

_{^Picture © Hackney Plus used under Creative Commons^}

Sit and watch the people of London Fields

Always popular on a Saturday due to its proximity to Broadway Market, London Fields has a long history, dating back to 1540, when it was used to graze livestock on the journey from rural Essex towards the meat markets and slaughterhouses of Smithfields and central London.


Nowadays, its a much more leisure-focussed affair, with a lido, a cricket pitch, a table-tennis table, tennis courts, children's playgrounds and a number of decent pubs around its edges. It is also the centre of cool Hackney, and continues to attract trendy art kids like moths to a flame.

In summer, it is packed with these people, sitting out for whole days in the sun pretending they are very important, but in the winter months it is a more sedate affair, and on a bright Saturday it can be a nice place to sit on a bench and read a book, before returning to the busy market beyond.

For more on London Fields, visit http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cp-londonfields.htm

_{^Picture © Banalities used under Creative Commons^}

Drink at the Royal Inn on the Park

Previously most famous for being the site of the murder of James Alfred 'Jimmy' Moody, in 1993, nowadays the Royal Inn on the Park is a nice pub with a fantastic location right on the Northern edge of Victoria Park.


The pub is technically in Tower Hamlets, after Victoria Park was transferred solely to the borough when it became too expensive for Hackney to manage any more. Nowadays, it acts as a magnet for all those who have spent a day in the park, especially in summer, and when the park hosts festivals, and can get busy on weekends.

During winter, it is usually fairly sedate, except when hosting events and gigs upstairs, as it has done a few times recently. There is also good food on offer. For more information, see http://www.victoriaparkvillage.com/royal-inn-on-the-park.html

Wander on Hackney Marshes

Famous for having more than 60 marked football pitches, which provide the venue for up to 70 amateur football matches each week, Hackney Marshes is an area of grassland - formerly a marsh - which is part of areas of similar grassland which stretch along the River Lee, forming the Lee Valley Park.


Originally drained during Medieval times, the site became a dumping ground for rubble from buildings destroyed during the Blitz. Nowadays, it exists in the shadow of the Olympic site, and the East Marsh is set to close for football in May 2011, when it is being tarmacked over to become a temporary coach park for the Games.

For now, though, it remains the venue for amateur football and nice walks by the river, and should be taken advantage of. God knows how long it will take them to reinstate it, and what state it will be in, after the Olympics.

For more information, see http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cp-hackneymarsh.htm

Drink at the Kenton

Still in Hackney today, as we take a look at the Kenton, an award-winning neighbourhood pub with a fantastic programme of events and games throughout the week.


Named “Best Newcomer” in the London Region in the Great British Pub Awards 2010, the pub has a great range of drinks, as well as reasonably priced food (for this area, anyway) and roasts on Sundays.

The range of events is what makes the pub stand out for your author, however, with film nights, bingo, live music, DJs and art-exhibitions, as well as a weekly Scrabble tournament.

Other specials include reduced price drinks for seniors between 4pm and 6pm on weekdays and a weekly pub quiz. All this, and it is actually a very pleasant place to be of an evening.

The Kenton is on Kenton Road, on the Homerton/ South Hackney border. For more information, visit http://www.kentonpub.co.uk/

_{^Picture © Ewan Munro used under Creative Commons^}

Eat Italian Food at Su Sazzagoni

The blog is likely to be rather Hackney-centric this week, as your author will shortly be leaving the borough and fancies being self-indulgent, so let us have a look at Su Sazzagoni, an excellent neighbourhood Sardinian restaurant and delicatessen in Lauriston Road, E9.


Owned by Elena Sollai, a native Sardinian who came to London in 2007, the restaurant aims to deliver a chunk of true Sardinian lifestyle to East London, and your author thinks it does very well.

With a menu that is, we are told, 10% Italian and 90% Sardinian, the restaurant makes fantastic dishes, using vegetables, pasta, olive oil, wines and deli produce imported directly from Italy.

Su Sazzagoni is open daily and also offers a reasonably-priced takeaway service. For more information, see http://www.susazzagoni.com/

Take a walk in Haggerston Park

Often overlooked due to its funny shape, sports pitches, and proximity to nicer parks, Haggerston Park was previously an industrial area, and the northern half of the site only became a public park in the late 1950s, whilst the southern half wasn't developed for public use in the 1980s.


The industrial part of the park was, according to Wikipedia, once home to derelict housing, a tile factory, and the old Shoreditch gasworks, which had been damaged by a German V-2 rocket in 1944.

One slightly bizarre footnote to its history is that this park was apparently once used by Michael Jackson to land a helicopter with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse whilst visiting the now closed Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children.

For more of information, see http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cp-haggerston.htm

Relax in the Pembury Tavern

It's British Pubs Week this week, so your author is trying to crowbar in as many pubs as possible. It is, therefore, time to mention a lovely pub up in Hackney, the Pembury Tavern.


Built in the mid 19th Century, and closed in the late 1990s following a fire, and it wasn't until 2006 that it reopened, with links to the Cambridge-based Milton Brewery.

Now it offers an amazing sixteen handpumps, and serves a selection of ales from the Milton Brewery, and other British microbreweries. It also holds three beer festivals a year, the next of which is due to begin on 17th November, daily food - including pizza - on an ever-changing menu, allows pets and offers free wireless broadband.

It has its own Tuesday-evening chess club, and also offers draughts, Scrabble, backgammon, playing cards and dominoes. Given that they can fit in all this, as you might expect, it is pleasantly spacious inside.

If there's anything else you're searching for, have a look on the website here.

Wander Middlesex Filter Beds

Now a nature reserve, which is part of the Lee Valley Regional Park, the original six Middlesex Filter Beds were created in 1852 in order to purify water for the surrounding areas and prevent Cholera, and were subsequently expanded. By 1969, the system of water cleaning had become outdated, with the building of the Coppermills Water Treatment Works in Walthamstow, and they were closed.


By the late eighties, they had been the responsibility of Thames Water for many years, and had become overgrown, but teeming with wildlife. Seven beds were leased to the Lee Valley Regional Park and they now form the Middlesex Filter Beds Nature Reserve.

The reed beds and other areas are, we are told, home to over 60 different species of bird, including Snipe, Reed Warblers and Sparrowhawk, and also amphibians such as toads, frogs and newts.

Though the wildlife is possibly better in summer, they are open all year round and are free to visit. For more, see here.

Descend into Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors

In the basement of the Last Tuesday Society shop at 11 Mare Street, E8, is Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors, a collection of natural and supernatural objects, assembled on the basis of their aesthetic or historical appeal.


It is, we are told, an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the Kunstkamera, the Russian Museum of Peter the Great, dedicated to the exhibition of "natural and human curiosities and rarities".

Within, you can find anything from winged cats to shrunken heads, two headed teddy bears, human skulls, mummified penises, preserved trigger fingers, medical instruments and naughty books.

It really does have to be seen to be believed, and it is certainly an interesting collection, much of which appears to be for sale. For more information, see http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/thelittleshop_intro.html

Buy books at Pages of Hackney

Located on Lower Clapton Road, a short distance from Hackney Central station, Pages of Hackney is an independent bookshop which opened in September 2008.


Whilst upstairs is always an excellent bookstore, filled to the brim with excellent fiction, children's , politics, environment, art, cookery and second hand books, the basement gallery doubles up as a space for regular events and monthly exhibitions. Your author was there only last week for a fantastic talk on the history of Blue Plaques with the Hackney Society.

The shop is open Monday to Friday from 11am until 7pm, Saturdays from 11am to 6pm and Sundays from noon until 6pm. For more, see http://www.pagesofhackney.co.uk/

Search for paperbacks at the Broadway Bookshop

As you might imagine, your author is a bit of a London guidebook geek, and one of his favourite places to browse is at the Broadway Bookshop, on Broadway Market. It's a fantastic little independent bookshop which, though small, has books tucked in to every nook and cranny, so there's plenty on offer.


Whilst the Saturday farmers market is the mainstay of the immediate locality nowadays, the shop is open daily (except Mondays) and has always had a few browsers when your author has popped in. The also hold regular events with local and national authors, allowing them to showcase their wares, and even exhibit a handful of artworks.

Alongside this, its a great place to stock up on local news, with an excellent noticeboard and some leaflets. It's really just a nice little community bookshop which is a comfortable place to while away half an hour or so.

Broadway Bookshop is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am until 6pm and Sundays from 11am until 5pm. For more, see http://www.broadwaybookshophackney.com/

Pub on the Park

It's a Saturday, so if you get bored or rained off wandering Broadway Market, why not seek shelter, a bite to eat and something to drink at the Pub on the Park, notionally on Martello St, but mainly on London Fields in Hackney


Formerly the Queen Eleanor public house, the Pub on the Park is a great spot in summer, with its large terrace overlooking London Fields, but its not bad in winter either. There is a well stocked bar and a reasonably priced food menu and it's always at its liveliest when showing Saturday afternoon sport, which it does very well.

For more, see http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub543.php

_{^Picture courtesy of Ewan-M^}

Find St Augustine's Tower, Hackney's oldest building

Bit of a one for those who live in Hackney this, but it also helps to underline how much our city has expanded over the years. St Augustine's Tower, just off the Narrow Way in Hackney Central, is all that remains of the parish church of Hackney of St Augustine.


Built in the early 16th century, and formerly a place of worship for many noted dignataries including Thomas Cromwell, constant increase in Hackney's population meant that galleries were added to the church, by the 1780s it was no longer big enough to hold the constantly growing parish, and consequently the main church building was knocked down in 1798, in order to build the new Church of St John-at-Hackney, often using the old stone as building material.

After the eight bells of Hackney were relocated to the new church in 1854, the tower was for a while used as a public mortuary, and a tool shed, before eventually falling under the care of The Metropolitan Borough of Hackney in 1912. Ever since then it has been preserved for the Borough, either by the council or heritage organisations.

For more information, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Augustine's_Tower_Hackney

_{^Picture by Fin Fahey^}

Drink at the Dove

A frequent criticism by your author's peers is that he is too East London centric, but he likes to think he does a good job of covering much of the city, and there is always room for them to start their own blogs. So, today's idea is a drink at the Dove in Broadway Market.


It's a very pleasant little pub, specialising in belgian beers, but with ales and other drinks on offer, and also serves Thai and English foods. As with anywhere in the general area (which some Urban75 contributors refer to as w*nk city central) it has to be approached in the knowledge it will be full of East London posers, who are generally more worried about their hair than a good pub and a chat, but nevertheless it is still a good place to while away an evening.

For more on The Dove, visit the website at http://dovepubs.com/

_{^Picture by Ewan Munro^}

Sit in an alcove of old London Bridge

Most people know the story of how the old London Bridge was sold to a town in Arizona in the 1960s, but that bridge had only been there around 130 years and had replaced the more famous medieval bridge which linked North and South banks for around 500 years.


The pedestrian alcoves, added in a 1760 refurbishment to allow users of the bridge space to sit and take stock during their journeys across the Thames were relocated, as any self-respecting East London geek will know, to the Eastern fringes of Victoria Park in 1860, following the 1831 destruction of the old bridge, and they are now simple park seats.

For more information click here.

Eat Georgian food in Hackney

The Little Georgia Cafe, now situated at 87 Goldsmiths Row on the road between Hackney City Farm and Broadway Market, in Hackney is a nice cafe and must be one of London's few Georgian venues.


Georgia is not famous for a huge amount, and your author has no knowledge to suggest that they are a gastronomic superpower, but one of the great things about our city, of course, is the sheer range of cuisine on offer and this place is certainly evidence of this.

Whilst alcoholic drinks are not on the menu, tea and coffee flow with wild abandon, and it's good to discover the Georgian food, so next time you're in the area, why not pop by for some breakfast.

Click here to see the location on a map.

Visit the Hackney Museum

As the name suggests, it's a museum about Hackney, funded by Hackney Borough Council. Most boroughs in London seem to have their own museum nowadays, but Hackney is a particularly vibrant borough, so it's a particularly interesting one.


Though the borough was only officially put together in 1965 as an amalgamation of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington, its history goes back much further. Historically, it's one of London's poorest areas but it also has a rich industrial and cultural heritage, so there is a great deal to recall in the museum.

The museum looks at different aspects of life in the borough, covering work, housing, education, transport and more. It is part of the civic centre just off Mare Street and opposite the Hackney Empire. The museum is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 9.30am - 5.30pm, Thur: 9.30am - 8pm, Sat: 10am - 5pm, and is closed Sun, Mon and Bank Holidays.

For more information, visit the website at http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cm-museum.htm.

Click here to see the location on a map.

_{^Picture from flickr courtesy of activefree^}

Visit Broadway Market

Most who live in East London will probably be aware of this one, but for anyone else...Broadway Market is apparently one of London's oldest Chartered Markets (whatever this means) and is a Saturday Farmers Market market in Hackney with a wide range of stalls selling everything from vintage clothes to fruit and veg, and a wide range of things in between.


Following the decline of the old market, the Tenants & Residents Association (the BMTRA) joined forces with Hackney Borough Council to bring a Farmer's Market to the street in May 2004. Nowadays this is very much the theme, with added trendy Hackney locals and 'artists'. The market itself is improved by the presence of a range of excellent shops, pubs and cafes along the street and the London Fields park, at the North Eastern end is a lovely space to relax, take a swim in the heated lido or have a drink in the pub on the park (more about these in future items though).

Broadway Market was once part of an ancient 'drovers' route' where livestock was driven on its way from Essex and the Epping Forest into London. London Fields was the last patch of grazing land before entering the city and heading for the meat markets of Smithfield. Nowadays it is a charming street which has a great atmosphere due to the presence of a range of small businesses like Nutritious Food Galley, the Broadway Bookshop and the Dove public house.

For more information on Broadway Market, visit the website at http://www.broadwaymarket.co.uk/, or just go down there yourself.

Click here to see this post on a map.

^{^Picture from flickr courtesy of magnusfranklin^}

See Sutton House, Hackney's oldest house

Sutton House is a Grade II* listed tudor house on Homerton High Street in Hackney. It is now open to the public and also houses a museum, cafe, art gallery and gift shop.

Built in 1535, and home to counless generations since then, it was acquired by the National Trust in the 1930s and used as a fire warden centre until the 1980s.

Following the departure of the fire wardens, it was taken over by squatters who used it as a community centre and live music venue. When they were finally evicted, the National Trust set about restoring the house in keeping with it's Tudor heritage and it opened as a full-blown National Trust property in 1991.

If you would like to visit, Sutton House is open 12.30-4.30pm Thursday-Sunday, from 1st February to 21st December. It costs £2.80. For more information visit the website.

^{^Picture from flickr courtesy of Bunch & Duke ^}