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Although there is archaeological evidence that Stone Age people
from the Paleolithic period hunted and camped along the 'Hackney Brook', Stoke Newington
is not thought to have been continuously occupied until the late Saxon period of 600 AD.
The Romans had built 'Ermine Street' (now the A10 Stoke Newington High Street and
Stamford Hill) in 47 AD, which formed the eastern boundary of what became Stoke Newington,
with the western end defined by the old Green Lanes. The earliest written reference to
'Neutone', land which had been given by the ninth-century Saxon king Athelbert to St
Paul's cathedral, is in the 1086 Domesday Book. It was then a small farming community with
4 farmers, 37 labourers and was part of the Middlesex (Middle Saxon) Forest, the
population being around 100.
The prefix 'Stoke', loosely meaning 'timber' or 'tree stump', was in use by the late
thirteenth century and, by the 1460s, the Church was leasing their 'demesne' (land) to
'Lords of the Manor'. The Stoke Newington manor house and grounds covered an area along
the north side of Church Street, from the old church of St Mary's to just beyond today's
Edward's Lane.
By 1613, the 'New River', a man-made canal to bring fresh water from Hertfordshire to
Islington, had been dug out and, as there were no pumps, it had to follow the contours of
the land. It snaked in and out of Stoke Newington, where a small part remains in Clissold
Park.The need for water purification led to the development of the complex of reservoirs,
filter beds and pumping stations to the north of Lordship Park. The old castle pumping
station is now a climbing centre, and a housing development, Myddleton Grange, has
recently been built over the filter beds.
The afore-mentioned 'Hackney Brook' is, however, Stoke Newington's oldest waterway. It ran
to the north of Clissold Park and Abney Cemetery through Hackney on its way to the River
Lea, and was eventually piped underground in the 1860s.
The parish's proximity to the City of London attracted rich merchants to the area from the
sixteenth century onwards. By the early eighteenth century, a group of large mansions had
been built at the eastern end of Church Street and in the High Street. Fleetwood House
(built c 1634, demolished 1872), on the site of today's Fleetwood Street, was the grandest
of them all; Abney House (built 1700, demolished 1843) stood on the western half of
today's cemetery; Defoe's House (built c 1700, demolished 1865) was on today's Defoe Road,
the grounds stretching back to Kynaston Road; the Manor House School (built c 1700,
demolished 1880) replaced the Lord of the Manor's house and was later a school, famous for
having Edgar Allen Poe as a pupil, on the site now occupied by The Fox Reformed; and
Halstead House (built 1705, demolished 1930) was on the site of today's Rose & Crown.
At this time, groups of slightly smaller houses were also being built on Church Street.
Church Row was a group of nine houses built in 1700 and demolished in 1936 to make way for
the Town Hall; Sisters Place, the oldest existing building in Church Street, was built in
1715; and Paradise Row, a group of houses on the south side of Church Street facing
Clissold Park,was erected between 1723 and 1764 and became the heartland of Stoke
Newington's early Quaker community, with some of the refronted houses still standing
today.
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The New River and Paradise Row from Green
lanes, c 1750. Courtesy of Hackney Archives |
Maps of 1745 and 1800 show the parish as mainly farmland,
with the only built-up areas being Church Street and Newington Green. Other roads, such as
Lordship Road, Green Lanes, Matthias Road and Boleyn Road, existed simply as country lanes
and cattle tracks with little or no housing. The population at the time of the 1801 Census
was slightly under 2,000.
However, by 1821, to cope with the pressure of London's fast expanding population, the
Pulteney Estate, which covered 60 acres of farmland on the south side of Church Street,
was auctioned off in small building lots. Many of these were purchased by the renowned
builder Thomas Cubitt, who proceeded to construct Albion Road and form Clissold Crescent.
With a regular horse bus service into central London, the pressure for more housing in
Stoke Newington grew, although space was retained for the formation in 1840 of Abney Park
Cemetery from the Abney and Fleetwood estates. Between 1840 and 1860 many acres of meadow
land south of Church Street were used for the manufacture of bricks for house-building.
What was then South Hornsey had now been built with the roads named after poets, eg Cowper
and Milton; and Park Crescent on Church Street and Clissold Road had been erected on the
Rector's land. By 1868, the land north of Church Street was also being developed and
Bouverie, Lordship and Yoakley Road now boasted fine houses.
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Late 19th century view of The Albion on
Albion Road |
By the 1871 Census Stoke Newington's population had swelled
to 17,452. However, by the 1891 Census the population had nearly trebled to 47,988. This
huge increase in population was caused by several factors. The revolution in transport
made Stoke Newington even more accessible and desirable the GER Stoke Newington railway
station was built in 1872 and horse-drawn trams started running on the London Road (High
Street) and Green Lanes in the early 1870s; the large brick field to the south of Church
Street was built over with dense housing, giving birth to Dynevor, Kynaston, Sandbrook
Road, etc and offering homes to the office workers, clerks and the lower middle classes;
the demesne (Church) land north of Manor road had been fully developed but with a bigger
and better class of housing for the merchants and grandees; and Brownswood, west of Green
Lanes, was being built up.
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