A Guide to Hackney's Landmarks

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  Round Chapel: The story of the Round Chapel begins with a nonconformist, congregationalist church established in 1804 at the Old Gravel Pit Chapel on nearby Morning Lane. The Gravel Pit Chapel was in turn a breakaway group from the Ram's Chapel in Homerton. // By 1868, the congregation at the Old Gravel Pit had quadrupled and they decided to build a new, much bigger chapel as part of the new development nearby in Clapton to take account of the increasing popularity of the area. The Clapton Park Chapel, known as the Round Chapel, would become one of the important nonconformist centres in East London. But despite its members and missionary activities increasing in the 1870s and 1880s, from the turn of the century the congregation shrunk as the composition of the neighbourhood changed and the slow but steady exodus to London’s outer suburbs began. // The architectural importance of the Round Chapel has been recognised and protected through its status as Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England, meaning that it is in the top four percent of protected buildings in the country. The designation made specific mention of the chapel’s interior for its unique shape, and for the cast iron columns, which caused controversy at the time of building as they were typically only used in music halls and railway stations.

  
  

• Hackney Marshes: If you’re a football fan you definitely know about West Ham Stadium, so what is another site you can visit? Well, there is actually another place in Stratford that plays a significant role in British football - the Hackney Marshes. Open to the public since 1893, it hosted up to 120 pitches on site at its peak in the 50s and 60s, now with around 88 remaining. Around 12 were lost when the nearby London Olympics in 2012 claimed for the need of space for car parks. The site, literally filled with history, has rubble from damaged World War II buildings dumped into to raise the ground level of the marshes by 3 metres. These damages became the foundation for the football pitches. Being the home of the Hackney and Leyton Sunday Football League, the Hackney Marshes is an important site producing many well-known football players, including Bobby Moore, David Beckham, Ian Wright and more. Even Lionel Messi has visited the Marshes in 2010. This site is also filled with local lores, being the site of bear sightings in 1981 that mobilised 50 police officers and even a helicopter for the search, but nothing was ever found.

• 75 Wallis Road: This Victorian warehouse built in 1868 has a little blue plaque at the top of the building commemorating Alexander Parkes, who produced Parkesine, the first synthetic plastic ever produced in the world. The site has witnessed quite a variety of characters, from being the home of cabinet maker Bernard Parker to being a store for the manufacturer of Dinky Toys, as well as being a communist book warehouse. Continuing the legacy of design and innovation, the site is now occupied by HTA design, an architecture company. Appreciating architectural history and integrity, the current site has retained certain elements of the past, such as the brickwork structure, and the large timber and ironwork roof trusses.