Clapton Square
Encyclopedia
Hackney Central
Hackney Central is the central district of the London Borough of Hackney in London, England. It comprises the area roughly surrounding, and extending north from Mare Street. It is situated north east of Charing Cross...
, was designated in 1969 and extended in 1991 & 2000. It is protected by Acts of Parliament as a London Square
Squares of London
Squares in London have long been a feature of London, England. A few, such as Trafalgar Square, were built as public open spaces, like the city squares found in many cities, but most of them originally contained private communal gardens, sometimes known as garden squares, for use by the inhabitants...
. It is dominated by the Church of St John-at-Hackney
Church of St John-at-Hackney
The Church of St John at Hackney is situated in the London Borough of Hackney. It was built in 1792, in an open field, north east of Hackney's medieval parish church, of which only St Augustine's Tower remains...
built in 1792-97, and St John’s Gardens. Its made up of listed late Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
terraces on Clapton Square. More of these terraces can be found on the south side of Sutton Place
Sutton Place Hackney
Sutton Place, is a small street in the London Borough of Hackney. It links Homerton High Street with St John's Church Gardens, in Hackney. The Georgian terrace of 1790-1806, is Grade II listed as a whole, together with the villas on the north side of the street which date from 1820, and is sited in...
(once home to Colin Firth) and pairs of early mid-nineteenth century houses to the north.
Clapton Square has a charming village feel, and five-storey houses with their original leaded fanlight
Fanlight
A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...
s above the doors, pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and roof cornicing
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. Their sash windows, ornamental cast-iron balconies, six panelled doors, columns and porches make them easily as impressive as any Grade II listed Georgian property in smarter south-west London, and many have stunning views of the church. Clapton Square, with its ivy-clad frontages, was laid out on Clapton Field in 1816 and is still a pocket of greenery in this busy area. Two sides of the square were demolished in the late 19th century, so today Georgian houses are only on the north and west sides. The Rectory
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
for St Johns was relocated to Clapton Square in 2006.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
but has now been rebuilt in Georgian style by Furlong Homes. Russian revolutionary Vladimir Illyich Lenin used to visit, around 1905, his friend and comrade Theodore Rothstein
Theodore Rothstein
Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was a journalist, writer and communist. He served as a Soviet ambassador in the 1920s.- Life :Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was born 1871 in the Imperial Russian city of Kovno , the son of a Jewish family.Rothstein left Russia in 1890 for political reasons and settled...
at a house on the west side. 19th century Jewish writer Grace Aguilar
Grace Aguilar
Grace Aguilar was an English novelist and writer on Jewish history and religion. She was delicate from childhood, and early showed great interest in history, especially Jewish history...
also lived in the Square. To the north-east of the square is Holly Villas in Clapton Passage which is a fine terrace of bay-windowed Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
villas of 1882.
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
one of England’s greatest scientists who lived at a house in the 1790s (demolished in 1880) on the corner of the Passage and Lower Clapton Road. He was hounded out of his house and laboratory in Birmingham by a mob that opposed his support for the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. He was invited to come to Hackney to take up the post of Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
Minister at the Old Gravel Pit Chapel where he had many friends amongst the Hackney Dissenters. A plaque
Blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
marks the site of his house above the existing corner building in Lower Clapton Road. He emigrated to America in 1794 fearing a repeat of his family’s persecution.
In a cottage behind Priestley’s house, in the closing years of the 18th century, lived a Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
widow called Louisa Perina Courtauld
Louisa Courtauld
Louisa Courtauld was an English silversmith.Daughter of a silk weaver from France, Courtauld was born in London, in which city she spent most of her career. She lived in a cottage behind Joseph Priestley's house off Clapton Square on the corner of Clapton Passage and Lower Clapton Road in Hackney...
, a designer of gold plate who married Samuel Courtauld (goldsmith). Their son, Samuel Courtauld
Samuel Courtauld (art collector)
Samuel Courtauld son of Sydney Courtauld and Sarah Lucy Sharpe was an English industrialist who is best remembered as an art collector...
, founded the Courtauld dynasty of silk and artificial fibre manufacturers and a descendant founded the Courtauld Institute now in Somerset House.
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, at the junction of the historic north-south thoroughfares of Lower Clapton
Lower Clapton
Lower Clapton is a district within the London Borough of Hackney.It is immediately adjacent to central Hackney - bounded, roughly, by the western side of Hackney Downs , the Lea Valley , Clifden Road and the Lea Bridge Road...
Road and Mare Street and the east-west route of Dalston
Dalston
Dalston is a district of north-east London, England, located in the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
Lane and Homerton
Homerton
Homerton is a place in the London Borough of Hackney. It is bordered to the west by Hackney Central, to the north by Lower Clapton, in the east by Hackney Wick, Leyton and by South Hackney to the south.-Origins:...
High Street (Figure 1). The land slopes gently down from the north to the southern portion of the Conservation Area. Most of the Area is situated on the Hackney Gravels geological terrace created by the once wider River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
. The Conservation Area is split amongst Chatham, Dalston, East Down and Lea Bridge
Lea Bridge
Lea Bridge is a district of the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated to the northeast of the borough and bounded by Upper Clapton to the north, Lower Clapton to the south, and the River Lee Navigation to the east...
Wards, and has approximately 250 dwellings yielding a population of some 1,000 people.
The Conservation Area contains two significant open spaces, Clapton Square and the Churchyard of St. John-at-Hackney, known as St. John's Gardens, an L-shaped green area with good footpaths. The serpentine form of Lower Clapton Road (together with the partly pedestrianised stretch of Mare Street, a busy shopping district) is a distinctive feature of the Area, generating a good sequence of views.
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
the following year did a great deal to make country life more appealing to affluent urbanites and this trend continued in the Georgian period. Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, who lived in Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, described Hackney in the 1720s as comprising "twelve hamlets" and "having so many rich citizens that it contained nearly a hundred coaches". Important Hackney residents included the Governor of the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
, who lived in Hackney House, Clapton in 1745 and the chief founder of the Honourable East India Company.
St Augustine's Tower Hackney
St Augustine's Tower stands in St John's Church Gardens, in Hackney Central, in the London Borough of Hackney, just off the southern end of the Narrow Way . It is all that remains of the early 16th century parish church of Hackney of St Augustine, which replaced the 13th century medieval church...
the Tudor period
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
Sutton House, the neo-classical Church of St John-at-Hackney
Church of St John-at-Hackney
The Church of St John at Hackney is situated in the London Borough of Hackney. It was built in 1792, in an open field, north east of Hackney's medieval parish church, of which only St Augustine's Tower remains...
, and the High Victorian Round Chapel
Lower Clapton
Lower Clapton is a district within the London Borough of Hackney.It is immediately adjacent to central Hackney - bounded, roughly, by the western side of Hackney Downs , the Lea Valley , Clifden Road and the Lea Bridge Road...
all of them listed buildings and significant local landmarks.