Friday, 20 August 2021
I won’t lie. I have very little interest in countryside. This usually flabbergasts people. How can I not love it? I get the same reaction as when I say I’m not interested in pets. I must surely be subhuman, a monster!
It’s not that I can’t enjoy being ‘in nature.’ I love looking at mountains and hills, I love the ocean (not lying on the beach, though)…but I’m most comfortable in cities. Not the super noisy commercial parts, but where I can see buildings and people and all things urban (and hopefully not sub). I don’t even like parks or public gardens. I’m fine in the countryside for short visits, but I tire easily and don’t feel like myself. So I’ll stop being defensive and say that’s just who I am.
However, Lisa and I were meeting for lunch and she suggested we go to the Woodberry Wetlands and find something there. Coincidentally one of my favourite local places had been advertising a second location – at Woodberry Down. Perfect.
I took the bus to Lisa’s place. I love the buildings she lives in. They are set back from the road opposite Clapton Common in a row called Clapton Terrace. It’s not known exactly when the terraced houses were built but the oldest ones show in a map from 1774 and one house has a plaque dated 1760. They were probably lived in by wealthy family who would have had stables at the back. These are listed buildings and haven’t changed very much.
At the end of the terrace (at number 1) is St Thomas’ Church. The first church was built some time between 1773 and 1777 and was initially in a large fenced garden. It’s been extensively altered and  in 1873 the whole of the interior was remodelled. These days it’s a plain and solid looking Anglican church with a fairly active presence and congregation in the mostly Jewish neighbourhood.
I haven’t really become used to being driven in a car in London. It feels alien. There are differences other than the obvious oddities of being on the left. The cars are small and they seem to drive quickly. There are no stop signs and there are amber lights before green and red ones. Drivers seem more skilled, able to negotiate sharper turns, narrower roads, and dodging pedestrians who cross the road at random – not quite slowing down to do so but somehow managing it. And Lisa drives me confidently over to Woodberry Down.
I was really surprised to see the usual North London architecture give way to a very modern area. And our target, 215 Hackney, was along a modern street.
The original 215 Hackney is – not surprisingly – at 215 Stoke Newington Road in Hackney. This location is their second and this was my third visit, but only the first to this new location. It’s much larger than the original, but mostly the same middle Eastern influenced menu. I had the Jerusalem breakfast, which I chose for the variety of things on the plate.
Woodberry Wetlands stands on 11 (some sources say 12) hectares of ponds and dykes very close to the urban streets of Manor House, Stoke Newington and Woodberry Down. From the park you can see the surrounding housing, but inside the wetland it’s litter-free, a wildland habitat full of brambles, reed beds, meadows and hedgerows. The wetlands area is home to many species throughout the year, including wintering populations of birds who have migrated from Africa for spring and summer, several species of bats, amphibians, butterflies, dragonflies, and small woodland animals. The air is calm. Unlike in a park, the people we did see were quietly walking or scrambling down gentle paths and riverbanks.
You’ll also find a river and two reservoirs here. A little history – Woodberry Down didn’t start out as a wetland. Although it’s on a hill, it’s still called a ‘down land,’ giving the area its name. Six hundred years ago this was meadows, pastures, and small farms. The New River was constructed in 1613, bringing in clean water from Hertfordshire. In 1833 the East and West Reservoirs were built to bring in drinking water to Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill. Large houses sprang up between 1850 and 1920, lived in by stockbrokers and others who wanted suburban luxury. From 1930 to 1955 many houses sat unused and the land was brought up by Greater London Council, giving rise to the Woodberry Down housing estate on the northern bank of the Stoke Newington reservoirs as slum clearance housing for people from Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and the docklands. By 1980 Woodberry Down was considered a utopian success but there was no wildlife. The reservoirs and river were cleaned up but in 1990 to 1996 the estate lacked funding and was neglected.
In 1992 the reservoirs were put up for sale by the newly privatised Thames Water with a view to being filled in and built over. A long campaign led by local residents followed and the reservoirs were saved, cleaned up with more ecologically sound methods, and wildlife began to return to the area.
The regeneration of the area began in 2001 and the wetland area was built in 2016, with the East reservoir opening to the public for the first time. There are many volunteers and visitors now. Today I was one of them.
We crossed a small bridge and saw the Coal House Café. It had been one of our choices for lunch. It has a plaque outside that doesn’t mention a coal house. There’ss not much online but I read that the Coal House is a ‘lovingly restored 19th century, Grade II listed, brick building, featuring contemporary interior design, muted tones and bespoke handmade furniture and fittings. The rooftop patio offers panoramic views over both the East and West Reservoirs.‘
Walking is not my best subject these days and at first, when Lisa suggested we do the whole tour of the East Reservoir I really wasn’t keen, but somehow I kept going and we did manage to walk all the way. As Lisa put it, once we started there’d be no quitting – the only way out is to keep going!
The following are the photos I took on our route around the water to end up beside the old estate and the new builds.
I said I wasn’t in my element in the countryside. When I’d go on trips out of Toronto with friends, I’d notice the visible relaxing and happy chatter when we finally left the city, then the surburbs behind. I, on the other hand, would feel the delight of seeing something different fade to a feeling of anxiety and boredom. Returning home the opposite would happen. I’d feel relief and happiness at the first sight of urban living, while y friends would begin to fret and moan about the countryside they’d left behind. I had a taste of this on my walk. Although you can see homes from the wetlands. At one point at the edge of the reservoir Lisa even pointed out a school with a busy schoolyard, telling me ‘that’s the school where I’m a governor.’ We walked along the top end of the reservoir and past some turnings and sheds, and there was the old housing estate and the newer buildings. I felt happy to be nearing the end of the walk and wonder if New Yorker Lisa felt differently.
As always, I was struck by the difference between the old and the new. I like the old style estate flats, but I confess to being more attracted to the gleaming new ones. Every place I see now that I know that we’ll have to move is a potential home. I can’t look at any building without imagining myself living in it…or hoping I wouldn’t have to! My friend, Shahanaz, moved here from Hackney Downs a couple of years ago and I have a standing invitation. Maybe I’ll take her up on it.
My favourite photo of the walk is this one, a board where people are invited to report what wildlife they’ve seen on their journey. Dodo?
