Hackney Wick, Hackney/Tower Hamlets
This run-down Leaside area, divided from the rest of Hackney by the East Cross Route, is presently exhibiting a flowering of cultural creativity
Dilapidated premises on Wick Road in 2007, showing no sign at that time of pre-Olympics revitalisation
The parish church of St Mary of Eton with St Augustine was founded in 1880 by Eton College, which wanted to perform charitable work in a poor part of London.
The locality has a proud history at the heart of east London’s industrial development. Remarkably, the use of the word ‘petrol’ was pioneered in Hackney Wick, by Carless, Capel and Leonard, who carried on their refining business here for over a hundred years from 1860, while Matchbox toys were made at Lesney’s factories here from 1947 to 1983.
Hackney Wick did not gain its station (originally to have been called Wallis Road) until 1980, when the North London Line was reopened to passenger services, although there had been a station at Victoria Park from 1856 to 1943.
From the mid-20th century much of the area was built up with council housing, some of which has since been demolished. Completed in 2003, St Mary’s Village has replaced the 1960s tower blocks of the Trowbridge estate with a mixed tenure development of houses and flats.
After a period of stagnation, several sites in Hackney Wick have been undergoing regeneration and numerous artists and designers have set up studios here – and in neighbouring Fish Island – in old warehouses and disused industrial premises. The locality’s new-found cultural effervesence is showcased annually in an arts festival called Hackney WickED, which takes place over three days at the end of July and/or the beginning of August. In a further boost to the Wick’s flourishing cultural status, a canal-side community arts centre called the White Building is due to open in 2012.
However, despite these encouraging developments, this remains a very underprivileged part of London. A third of homes in Hackney Wick are rented from a social landlord and another quarter from the council. Five per cent of households have neither central heating nor sole use of a bath or lavatory – the highest proportion in London.
