Market – Page 3 – slightly weird

6th September 202024th September 2020

Chatsworth Road, Millfields, and the River Lea

Sunday, 6 September, 2020

My friend was having a birthday party. Such things right now worry me quite a lot. How do I balance my worries of being around other people with my desire to celebrate with a dear friend? It would be outside in a pub garden, I was assured, but still I hesitated. For one thing (and in a major way) she lives in an area that’s recording the second highest rates of infection in the borough. All the guidance says that this population needs to stay away from others. How foolhardy would I be to say yes? How awful would I feel if I said no? I compromised by saying I’d be happy to drop by for an hour as long as it was outside and then I determined not to get too close to anyone.

One way I’m able to soothe the fear and worry is think about how I can make the best of an outing. Invariably, this means taking photographs and thinking ahead to what I might be able to do while out – maximising the effort. I’m not sure if this is sound thinking but it will do. For me, at least.

Part of my compromise with myself was to walk through Chatsworth Sunday market to see how it was faring right now. I do love the street, and the market can be colourful and interesting. There’s a little deli that might have something interesting to take home with me, too.

The bus sped along Homerton High Street without stopping in at the hospital. I’d forgotten about the construction on Homerton Row. This just meant more walking to retrace the route to go up Chatsworth Road. Not so bad. It was a lovely day and that helped.

The market was underway, smaller than usual. Most disappointingly, like most other East End markets, the food stalls and trucks have taken over. There’s little else going on. I love looking at the food offers but it’s honestly feeling a little tedious by now. Perhaps if the quality were to improve or the prices were to go lower (I’m happy with small dishes to compensate for this) I’d feel better. It’s like the let down feeling when someone you’ve discovered some time ago goes mainstream and loses it appeal as it changes or sometimes degrades. Or perhaps I’m just a snob.

Posher flats on Homerton High Street — Posher flats at Homerton High Street. Just across the road is a broken down and boarded-up housing estate (next)

Approaching the market on Chatsworth Road

A note about Percy Ingles Bakers. A sad one. The bakery was founded in East London in 1954, by Percy Ingle. His grandsons were running it until they announced they were closing up. I grew up with this bakery, on the Roman Road at the top of the market. As a child, there was nothing better than the luridly pink iced buns, the chocolate cornflake cakes, the lovely slabs of bread pudding, and the many hot meat and other pies I so often grabbed more recently when hungry for a quick lunch while out. It turns out that the very first Percy Ingles bakery was on Clarence Road! There hasn’t been one there for a long time but there was one at the top of the Narrow Way, close to Clarence Road. The store on Chatsworth Road shows its rebranding to just Ingles, its new colours making it look more modern and stylish. In the end, it didn’t matter. Covid-19 was the final straw.

Food food food at Chatsworth Road Market

L'Epicerie, a nice little deli — L’Epicerie, a nice little deli, especially lovely at Christmas

A sight I'd never see in Toronto! — A sight I’d never see in Toronto! Take Away cocktails

A lone plant stall amongst the food offerings. Not much colour today

Continue reading “Chatsworth Road, Millfields, and the River Lea”

4th September 2020

Short walks in Clapton and Stoke Newington

Saturday, 30 August, 2020

Short walks are the thing! I had a couple of places I wanted to see this week, and I have been slowly crossing things off my list. On Thursday I went to look more closely at the old Orphan Asylum and on Friday I decided to have a return visit to the Stoke Newington Farmers Market. So how did I do?

One thing I wanted to do is go back to Clapton Square and take in Clapton Passage. For one thing, at the Clapton Square end, there’s a gorgeous Loddiges palm tree. I like the narrowness of the passage but the houses aren’t in good repair.

The last time I walked on Clarence Road, I was alone and a little too nervous to wander down Clarence Mews alone so Krish and I went into the mews and I could dream about my sometime mews house again.

Peering in a window in the mews — I peered in a window at the long space. Most of these houses are the homes of artists, craftspeople, and architects

Impressive home on Clapton Passage, at the exit from Clapton Square

That beautiful palm at the corner of Clapton Square and Clapton Passage

Side door, St John's Mansions on Clapton Passage — Side door, St John’s Mansions on Clapton Passage with its dormer windows

From Lower Clapton Road, the old Orphan Asylum looks really impressive. The first time we saw it, we wondered what it was. It stands there like a Hackney Acropolis.

See what I mean? A sort of Hackney surprise, one of many. It’s a shadow of its former self, though.

From my research: The London Orphan Asylum was founded in 1813 by Andrew Reed who had been trained at Hackney College. The site of Hackney school off Lower Clapton Road, later reached by Linscott Road, was bought in 1820 and the children were transferred to new buildings there in 1825. The asylum included boys’ and girls’ schools and was administered by the headmaster, who was also chaplain; numbers rose from 206 in 1826 to 453 in the 1860s. The building by W. S. Inman, ‘very ambitious although rather cheaply executed’, had a frontage of 19 bays, the central 3 projecting beneath a pedimented Tuscan portico and the outer ones also projecting; it was extended behind in 1846 and included a chapel seating 400 in 1851. After the orphans had moved to Watford in 1871, the building was taken over by the Metropolitan Asylums Board c. 1873-6 and the Salvation Army from 1882.

There’s still a school there. We took some photos and a man came to ask if he could help. Oops. There were no children around so I hope no one will come after me. This was a small street with some cute kids’ art.

And that was that. I’d finally had a close-up look at the asylum. I was shocked to see no plaque on there, no sign of what it once was. Just a shell with no life. I’d like to check the archives for pictures of the children, the school and boarding rooms, and the site as it once was.

And then Krish couldn’t resist some chips from The Mermaid fish bar at Clapton Pond, another area I must blog about when I can.

As we walked home, we came across a memorial. I don’t know if this man was an accident or murder victim, but I shudder when I see these. There was a time that Hackney had a reputation for violent crime. This has changed over the years, but I think that the pandemic has brought out some bad feelings and actions. I hear it from everywhere. Around here we sometimes have gang fights and random violence on the housing estates. I hear the helicopters circling and I’m never sure if there’s a rave somewhere or the police are on the lookout. It’s not restricted to Hackney but this is my neighbourhood so it’s meaningful.

Trickcy, it reads

Continue reading “Short walks in Clapton and Stoke Newington”

1st September 20201st September 2020

A walk to Ridley Road Market

Friday, 28 August, 2020

On a day when I thought staying home and resting might be a good idea I instead found myself saying yes to going up to ‘the big Sainsburys’ in Dalston. It was an excuse to take a couple of photos for my aunt of a converted synagogue nearby and also keep my promise to myself to take some photos in Ridley Road Market.

First off, the synagogue. It’s hidden behind Montague Road. Montague Road Beth Hamedrash began 1902 and closed between 1980 and 1985. I’ve often thought about living in that top floor with the patio balcony.

There are many repurposed and demolished synagogues around. It amazes me how many there must have been at one point. My research tells me that around 1880 there were about 5,000 Jews in Hackney and Dalston. The richer Jews tended to move further north to Stamford Hill, Highbury, and Stoke Newington. By the end of the early 1900s there was a large population of the ‘better class of Jewish working man.’ The Jews of Whitechapel chose Dalston or Canonbury as their ‘first steps upwards.’ In the early 1950s Hackney was assumed to have the densest Jewish population in the country, and the two estates on Amhurst Road alone contained 1,500 to 2,000 working-class Jews, while half of the boys at Hackney Downs school were Jewish. Many of these families prospered and moved along and less than a third of the school’s boys were Jewish by 1972, replaced by newer Afro-Caribbean immigrants. My closest synagogue is about a kilometre away today. The Montague Road Beth Hamedrash would have been a two-minute walk, with others to choose from not much further.

Little house between two larger — I always think about how I could live in one of these little houses built between two larger ones

Straight up to St Mark’s Rise and turn left and the bottom of Ridley Road market is straight ahead. I wasn’t keen to go into, with all the restrictions. There are barriers on either side too and that’s a bit daunting, since I often want to leave to get out to the shops along the road. Instead I walked along the west side of the market, taking in the sights of the mostly Afro-Caribbean storefronts.

The shops are mostly just shallow sheds along the road, each with its chaotic assortment of goods. There’s fish, meat, fabrics, vegetables and fruit, and household goods.

I’m not the first to say that there’s not enough Ridley Road history. Geographically, it links Dalston Lane to Kingsland Road but there’s really nothing much said about the street until the mid 1800s. The main street of Dalston, Kingsland Road, was completely commercial by 1849, properties being sold off by the Tyssen family, and the tram arriving in 1872. In 1930 The Kingsland Road market was in Ridley Road, and was among the best known in London. Other records show that the market existed since the 1880s. This period features in most of the then-modern Hackney, with so many houses that I’ve photographed having this decade engraved on the facade. Ridley Road at the end of the 1880s had about 20 stalls and has played an important part in Hackney’s history. Before the pandemic is had over 150 stalls. Once a Jewish market, it is now mainly Afro-Caribbean and Turkish.

Restricted entrance to the stalls area of Ridley Road Market. Normally, stalls would come right down the end down either side of the road

The fabric store at the bottom of the market has seen better days. I’ve shopped in there, hoping the mountain of fabrics wouldn’t engulf me

Stalls are spaced apart and there are fewer than there once were

Obligatory burger and hot dog stand. On the whole they are very poor quality

Near the top of Ridley Road, with Kingsland High Street and the new buildings ahead

New normal spacing means the stalls are sparse

The top of the market — I reached the top of the market and stallholders were starting to leave

It’s hard to show the atmosphere of Ridley Road so I took a couple of videos to try to show it. This is pandemic time so it doesn’t bustle as it used to.

I’ll confess to not liking to shop on Ridley Road, and I’ll often avoid walking along it. While it’s interesting, it crosses the line of interesting into too scruffy. That’s saying a lot coming from me. I don’t see the sense of pride I think there should be there. The shops stay the same, often look dirty, are usually quite smelly…have I sold you yet? However, there’s a lot of colour and vibrancy once you get past the assault on your senses. And you’ll find the odd favourite stall – the egg stall, and the one where we buy herbs aren’t there right now but we went regularly.

With so many newcomers in the area demanding more modern, luxurious surroundings, and with the increase in new building, Ridley Road is threatened. New residents aren’t shopping here, the poorer shoppers are being squeezed out of the area by rising prices, and the stallholders are having trouble meeting the rents and rates along with the decrease in traffic. The pandemic has has meant fewer stalls, so restricted foot traffic and revenue. While I am not a big Ridley Road fan, I’d be sad to see it totally cleaned up and overhauled, if not razed. No matter what, Ridley Road has served this community very well for almost a century and a half and I don’t know what Dalston would be without it.

30th July 202030th July 2020

One of those everyday walks to Dalston?

Thursday, 30 July 2020

I have a plan to take little corners of the local area and explore them with my camera. They aren’t likely to be things or places I’ve never blogged about before, but this is my exploration radius now.

Yesterday I was meeting two friends outside in Dalston, so I gathered a list of things I needed to do and buy and off I went.

Route — My route. If anyone knows how to just draw a line without all the external stuff, let me know!

Sandringham Road is opposite my flat and goes up to Dalston, where it stops. Along the way there are historical and older parts, and the council buildings – houses mostly but some flats. It’s residential until you reach the top, where there are a few cafes and you are facing the Rio Cinema.

First stop - the Donk — My first stop was to see the Donk wall art again. I like the idea it’s in my neighbourhood on a wall that was crying out for something

St Mark’s Rise is an interesting point along Sandringham Road. Its name is taken from the very large church at the corner, St Mark’s.

From Wikipedia – St. Mark’s Church: St. Mark’s is a large Victorian church primarily built in the period 1864–66 to a design by Chester Cheston. It is reputedly the largest parish church in London, larger than Southwark Cathedral, capable of hosting congregations of 1800-2000 people[12] and its great size has earned it the nickname, the “Cathedral of the East End””. The residential area around the church is also of high architectural quality and has accordingly been designated the “St. Mark’s Conservation Area”.

This seems to be another spot where there’s a lot to be learned, just a couple of minutes’ walk away.

The Vicarage — St Mark’s Vicarage. Romantically, I’ve dreamed of living in such a warren of a house – at least that’s how I think of it

St Mark's Church — St Mark’s Church, constructed in the Early English Gothic style between 1864 and 1880. This very large church has a unique feature on the tower – a turret barometer, the only one in England and perhaps the only working one in Europe.

The view along St Marks Rise — I always look towards Independent Place, the complex where my sister rented while staying nearby. There must be history of this complex but I haven’t found it yet

Continue reading “One of those everyday walks to Dalston?”

30th December 20197th January 2020

Hackney delivers at Christmas, innit – and the Ghost of Christmas Past

Monday, 30 December, 2019

A week or two before Christmas and you’d never dream it was just around the corner. Not on my street.

The view down the street just a couple of weeks before Christmas

At nearby St Thomas' Square, not much sign of Christmas here either — At nearby St Thomas’ Square, not much sign of Christmas here either

I’m used to the Christmases of Toronto, where bling was everywhere and not always tastefully. Now in Toronto, the lights in the centre are definitely not up to London standards but when you get (surprisingly quickly) to the neighbourhoods, almost every house has lights inside and out.

When I lived and visited La Habra (California) one of my favourite things to do at Christmas time was to drive around looking at the magnificent outdoor lights and decorations, each neighbour trying to outstrip the next. I used to say that what Los Angeles lacked in snow, it made up for in lights!

In ‘the old days,’ it was a very rare Toronto Christmas that was not white, sometimes spectacularly so. The drifts would blanket the streets and obscure some of the doorways and windows, creating a surreal and muffled scene, but the lights would shine through – magical. We;d light a fire log and settle in for a warm and lovely day indoors.

My childhood Christmases – in east and south-east London – were simple affairs. The tree would go up – more magic – often while we slept. On Christmas eve we’d go to bed, trying desperately to fall asleep or Father Christmas would not come down our chimney at all. It was the same chimney that we’d burned our ‘This is what I want for Christmas’ letters – mum and dad assured us that the words would arrive at the North Pole in the smoke. A glass of something strong and a mince pie or biscuit was waiting for Father Christmas, and we’d always check in the morning to see if it was gone – it always was.

When we did awake, there’d be a pillow case or stocking at the foot of our bed and also a tangerine and some nuts in the toe of the stocking – I imagined to keep us content and not out of bed too early. I don’t remember any elaborate presents. Colouring books, a doll, toiletries as we got older… A good breakfast and then, as our dinner was roasting, Dad would take us out to buy something we chose, sometimes from the chemist. The air was usually crisp and the puddles frozen over. A favourite trick was to crack the ice with my shoe – how much fun were the simple things!

When Robin was little, I was very excited for his first Christmas. The first he was only a few months old but the second was highly anticipated. A bulging stocking at the foot of the bed each year and then the wait for him to wake up. Yes – the wait! I’d be awake at 5am like a child – and he’d be asleep. An hour later, asleep, three hours later, asleep…some time before noon, he’d wake up rubbing his eyes and wondering why John and I were hovering over the bed. I have tapes of his childish chatter as he opened presents. So cute!

It’s not likely that I’ll get into the West End to see the big lights this year. I had lots of plans and even marked on my calendar all the opportunities I had to check them out, but the cold rain and other bits and pieces put paid to that idea. Hopefully, next year.

But here I am in Hackney and, while there are no spectacular light displays, it’s got its own kind of special going on.

Just before Christmas, I went with my friend Holly-Gale to see my pottery instructor, Maria’s studio. She and others in the studio were having an open house sale. Maria is one of those people who, when you meet them, you know you’ll stay connected.

Some of Maria's pots inside her tiny studio space — Some of Maria’s pots inside her tiny studio space

I bought a few things from the 'seconds' box. I love this fragmented piece, which I'm using a candle holder — I bought a few things from the ‘seconds’ box. I love this fragmented piece, which I’m using a candle holder

One very rushed morning on the weekend before Christmas, I met Lisa for a quick visit to Mare Street and Broadway Markets.

Inside the market it was warm and bustling

The Chandelier Room at Mare Street Market

Rebel Rebel had some lovely Christmas flowers – they also created the door display

Netil Market was super quiet, with only a couple of stalls open. We were shocked but walked on to Broadway Market. Things were quieter than usual there. First we wandered into the Vegan Market, which seemed to have a few stalls including a man who was selling raw oysters, freshly smoked kippers, and jars of smoked oysters. I decided to buy a jar – haven’t tried it yet. Soon!

Finn and Flounder on Broadway Market was pretty gorgeous

One year I bought sprigs from holly from here. This year, nothing

Couldn't resist a photo of one of the remaining Pie and Mash shops — Couldn’t resist a photo of one of the remaining Pie and Mash shops* *See bottom of blog**

Market florist selling her wintry bouquets

Continue reading “Hackney delivers at Christmas, innit – and the Ghost of Christmas Past”