It’s a rare occasion that I see myself travelling north of the river, with the only reason I do go being to visit my girlfriend who lives in Hackney. Along the route that I take from Brockley to Hackney, I have noticed that I do significantly little walking – I get off the Overground at Dalston Junction and catch a bus to Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington then another bus straight to her home. As well as being ignorant of the sites a long this route, I have also barely spent time around Stoke Newington during the night. It’s for this reason I’ve decided to do a night-walk along the route, as to find out what I have missed had I not been lazy.
My route north to south.
The start of my journey places me on the return route from her house, getting off the first bus to begin at Abney Park Cemetery. The cemetery has always been one of the main landmarks on the route back, and with help of my recent module ‘The Great Exhibition’ I’ve noticed the architecture all around Abney Park is very similar to the themes explored throughout the Victorian period, specifically Egyptian Revival architecture which, after some research, seems a very common design theme among cemeteries in London, with it being seen in the majority of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ private cemeteries.[Carrott, Richard G.] It’s also interesting to note that the cemetery most certainly seems the oldest structure around this area, where further north and south of the A10 look to have been, from first glances, very much gentrified.
The Egyptian revival architecture is very apparent.
Due to this being a night walk, the cemetery gates were closed further from the main entrance, so I continued my walk southbound into the depths of Stoke Newington. The first thing I notice as I begin the walk is the amount of all things related to Turkey, and although there were already many Turkish corner shops and takeaways, the one that stood out to me most was the Besiktas FC fans club, wedged in between two hip cafés. I had always known Stoke Newington and Dalston had an incredibly strong Turkish community around here, but it was interesting to see how deep this community went (especially with the amount of London football clubs there are!) Aside from the sheer amount of shops, I was equally impressed by the scale of such buildings (some of the ‘corner shops’ were on supermarket scale) and the broadness of items and food on display, with many consumables such as dragon fruit and passion fruit available of which I’ve tried to get around Brockley without a great deal of success. Looking into the reasons for this massive culture difference when compared to South London, apparently came from Turkish Cypriots travelling to the area in the 1930s as well as the Kurdish community which came in the 1980s, with the Hackney council estimating roughly 6% of Hackney’s population being Turkish speakers. Understandable why the culture is so apparent after almost a century of being here.
The Turkish influence seemingly seeped out of everywhere.
Reaching what I would believe to be the midway point, I began to stumble across something which suddenly became a lot more common – a church. This was one of the few places I did know of around Stoke Newington as St Paul’s are famed for their farmers market. However, I had never noticed that this was the first in a wave of churches which suddenly spring up, and not all of them being Anglican.
Religion and a shared community are a big deal in Hackney.
Not just 5 minutes down the road I also came across a Baptist church, a Mosque converted to a halal butchers at the front and a church at the back, and another Baptist church. Looking back, its interesting to see that all these religious buildings are very close together whilst all serving different beliefs. Another interesting point is when looking at the web-page for these churches, the Baptist church states “Sermons are translated into Lingala and Portuguese, but we represent many different nations and speak many other languages. I believed that due to the Turkish influence, there would be many more Mosques than churches (and as it happens, I found 2 more outside of my walking route in the local area) but the main Aziziye Mosque is indeed funded by the UK Turkish Islamic Association, doing all its sermons in Turkish rather than English or Arabic.[Ansari, Humayun.] Although I have been stating throughout this area is very predominantly Turkish, Stoke Newington still stays true to the London spirit, showing its multicultural heart and diversity among all people.
Interesting to note the front of Aziziye Mosque is a Halal butchers, as the Mosque was converted from a cinema.[Haywood, Susie.]
Leaving Stoke Newington and moving into the Dalston area, the streets previously dominated by family owned shops and takeaways is transformed into a visual and audible attack on the senses with many bars, clubs and high-density commercial shops springing up and in the distance, high rise towers can be seen – the streets become a lot busier and suddenly it feels like you are back in central London. Even the people walking around changed, a lot younger and out for different reasons, I saw Dalston at night as the young rebellious teenager compared to Stoke Newington’s more professional and calmer demeanour.
Bustling nightlife around Dalston.
However, in between all the bars and Costas there are hints of Stoke Newington. Next to the neon blue Rio cinema sits a Turkish Bank, opposite – a furniture shop with all lettering in Turkish and further past Dalston Kingsland station Ridley Road Market is having its stalls dismantled all in preparation for the next working day – another product of Victorian England.
Night walking shows us what we may miss during the day, in this case lots of rubbish.
My walk down the A10 ended up being full of surprises. This route I had taken by bus many times before has ended up being a cultural adventure from Victorian England, then to the Turkish influences all throughout Stoke Newington and Dalston, the staggering nightlife around Dalston Kingsland and then back into the 19th century to finish with Ridley Road Market, its safe to say that north of the river can be perceived as an entirely different city, even country. Had I chosen to do this walk again, I believed I would have focused more so on the huge amount of religious influences in the area, specifically religious buildings, but the Victorian sandwich I have discovered will certainly influence my travel routes and inspire me to perhaps think of walking before my own laziness.
Marking the end of my journey.
Bibliography
Ansari, Humayun. The Infidel Within. London: C. Hurst &, 2004.
Carrott, Richard G. The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments, and Meaning, 1808-1858. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Haywood, Susie. “Lovely Landmarks.” Hackney Today, June 06, 2011.
“Hackney Council.” Hackney Council. Accessed December 08, 2018. https://hackney.gov.uk/hackney-diversity.
“Ridley Road Market.” Ridley Road Market. Accessed December 08, 2018. https://hackney.gov.uk/ridley-road-market.
“Stoke Newington Baptist Church.” Stoke Newington Baptist Church. Accessed December 08, 2018. https://hackney.gov.uk/hackney-diversity.
Walking Through London's History 2018 