St Johns PRINT UPDATE V2

ST. JOHN-AT- EFORE 1850, HACKNEY was a rural ERAS IN HACKNEY’S DATES Bsettlement close to the city of London DEVELOPMENT L Late 13th Century O and home to courtiers and wealthy 1890s W Early 16th Century HACKNEY Late 18th/early 19th Century Londoners. It has long been associated CLAPTON E R 1816 PASSAGE Late 19th/early 20th Century with radicals and dissenters. 1900 C & CLAPTON L CLARENCE A St. John-at-Hackney church and churchyard PLACE d P e T are at the heart of the old village and parish of O SQUARE 1816 CLAPTON Hackney, with remains of a medieval church. N SQUARE R Sutton House dates from about 1525 and is CLARENCE ROAD 1897 D St. Augustine’s Church, built Hackney's oldest surviving domestic building. Hackney 1292, was rededicated as St. Near to Mare Street is the site of St. Baths John’s c.1660. This painting A D by John Varley shows the east Augustine's Church, Hackney’s earliest place R O end of the church shortly of worship. It was built in 1292, probably by N O 1904 before it was demolished in the Knights Templar – an order of military T c.1797 (when the new St. Police monks who owned land in Hackney (including P a John-at-Hackney Church was Station Temple Mills at Hackney Wick). Rebuilt in A The tower of St. John-at- completed). The houses L facing the churchyard stood C16, possibly using some of its original fabric, Hackney from the west. C U where Bohemia Place and the it was rededicated as St. John’s c.1660 after bus station now is. R RS the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Based in War E Memorial ST. JOHN’S Courtesy Hackney Archives Dept. Clerkenwell with substantial landholdings, the W CHURCH ROAD WI Order acquired the property of the Knights O Sedgwick L Loddiges + tomb C Templar when they were suppressed. tomb + C The church was considerably enlarged in the H K St. John-at- U 1760s, but demolished c.1797 when the new St. Hackney a SUTTON SQUARE R R ) N + Hunter John-at-Hackney, designed by James Spiller, Y 1797 C O was opened. Only ‘St. Augustine’s Tower’ now A tomb H A W remains, bought by Hackney Council in 1929 to W 1810 D save it from demolition (the position of the nave W E O Walled SUTTON PLACE b L is marked out on the ground). The bells R garden L 1525 remained there until the new church tower had R A Sutton been reinforced to support them in 1854. Some N House ( fine old graves and monuments were also Beaufort x transferred to the new church. T c tomb + E 1292 P Between the tower and Mare Street was E St. Augustine’s A Hackney's first Town Hall. It moved in 1866 to R Tower T T a larger building, on what is now the garden in H S front of the present Town Hall, and in 1936 to BOHEMIA PLACE the current Town Hall. E (bus garage)Black poplar – R possibly the a c [1802–1866] A tallest tree G LA Above left: View of the church from Churchwell Path with an acer in autumn colour. Above right: In Spring, crocuses flower on the grassy area east of Hackney NIN M in Hackney CLAPTON SQUARE OR St. Augustine’s Tower. Bohemia Place and the south end of the Narrow Way are in the background. The bold letters a–e refer to locations marked on the map. Clapton Square, to the north of St. John’s old Town Hall M Below left: View of the church and vicarage from the south. The path links Mare Street to Sutton Place and Urswick Road. The headstones against the Churchyard, was laid out in 1816. Some The present St. John-at-Hackney Church was completed in 1797 and became the centre perimeter wall are from the old churchyard, which was declared full in 1859, grassed over, and converted into open space in 1893. Below right: Horse chestnut houses remain on the north and west side of Hackney, with houses built in the 1810s and Clapton Square laid out in 1816. In 1825, tree in flower in Clapton Square, with some of the old houses on the west side in the background. Hackney was split into three parishes: Hackney, South Hackney and West Hackney. (including one visited by Lenin) and along Clarence Place, which connects Clapton Square to Clarence Road; Clapton Passage (1890s) connects it to Lower Clapton Road. The other C19 houses were replaced by a mansion block in 1900. Hackney Baths (1897) and Police Station (1904) are near by. At first the gardens in Clapton Square were private but in 1924 they were acquired by LCC (London County Council) and transferred to Hackney Council, who now manage them. There are some fine trees in the Square. Two true service trees Sorbus domestica (SE & NE corners) probably came from Loddiges Nursery, for many years the principal supplier of this rare tree. These two varieties have fruit like apples and pears; delicate leaves, in rows along the stalks, turn bright red in the autumn. e Other trees include golden rain, manna ash, One of two true service trees in Clapton Square: this one, on the north-east corner, native black poplar, Plymouth pear, pride of bears pear-like fruit; the other has apple-like fruit. The houses to the right behind the tree b d India, Persian ironwood and Italian cypress. are new, reflecting the line of original houses. To its left is a mansion block, built in 1900. ST. JOHN’S CHURCHYARD, ITS TREES & MONUMENTS Above: Flowering cherry trees – some of many that were cut down in Above: Japanese flowering cherry by the railed enclosure of tombs along February 2006 as part of Heritage-Lottery-funded work. the path connecting Mare Street to Sutton Place, and detail of its flowers. The walled garden was added to the south of the church Above: Maple in autumn colour. Openings have now been created in the walls behind to improve visibility into the walled garden. in 1963. It contains some fine trees, including dawn redwood and swamp cypress. The garden is now being opened up as part of the Heritage Lottery work in the churchyard. The War Memorial, north of the church, stands on what was the site of a fine cedar of Lebanon. The tomb of the Loddiges family is the best known in St. John’s Churchyard. Conrad Loddiges’ world-famous nursery, opened in 1816 to the south of Morning Lane, held the largest collection of trees in Britain. Loddiges were the main supplier to Abney Park arboretum. Above: St. Augustine’s Tower behind a London plane and horse chestnut, looking towards Mare Street (the Narrow Way). Other prominent tombs include those of Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, RN Hydrographer, who developed the Beaufort Wind-Scale; Harry Sedgwick, a trustee, who THE CHURCHYARD & TOMBS oversaw funds for planting avenues of ca. 200 elms (long St. John-at-Hackney churchyard connects Mare Street gone) and horse chestnuts in the churchyard; and Vice- with Lower Clapton Road to the north, and Sutton House Admiral John Hunter, Governor of New South Wales. and Sutton Place (1810 terrace) to the east; it is an important pedestrian thoroughfare. The old churchyard, Returning the Churchyard to its Historic Views which was declared full in 1859, was converted into open Most of the fine selection of Japanese cherries around the space in 1893 and the graves were grassed over. The graves were cut down in February 2006 as part of the Above: The walled garden was added in 1963 and received a Civic Trust headstones were moved to the perimeter walls and chest plan to return the churchyard to its historic views. The Award. Dawn redwood (centre) was only known from fossils, until it was tombs were moved to a railed enclosure. The churchyard destruction of trees, merely because they were considered discovered growing in China in 1941. To its left is a swamp cypress. re-opened as St. John’s Gardens in 1894, and its care 'unsuitable', was fiercely resisted by local people who Below left: Buttercups add spring colour to the grassland. Above: Beech tree in autumn colour in the corner of the vicarage garden, and maintenance were transferred to the local council. managed to save a few of the threatened trees. Below right: Summer-flowering crocuses grow in the dappled shade behind the monument and headstones against the wall. A Tree beneath a tall lime tree near the Mare Street end of the churchyard. Preservation Order (TPO) has been applied for for this fine tree. Left: Loddiges family tomb. The flowering cherry trees were a fine addition to the memorial of Hackney's most famous FURTHER READING plantsman. The tomb now stands in sterile splendour (below). David Mander, St-John-at Hackney: The story of a church, 1993. Published by The Hackney Society. David Solman, Loddiges of Hackney: the largest hothouse in the world, 1995. Published by The Hackney Society. See also the leaflet on Abney Park NR in this series. This leaflet was prepared by Anne Woollett and Mike Trier with assistance from Ian Graham and the Friends of Hackney Tower and Churchyard. For more information about St. John’s and activities there, see www.stjohn-at-hackneychurch.org.uk All photographs © Anne Woollett. Based on Collins mapping - www.collinsmaps.com Printed by Visualize, London, using eco-friendly litho inks..

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