Kingston Carnival, Regent St Festival: I went to Kingston upon Thames on Sunday September 3 2006 to photograph Kingston Carnival because I hoped to take at least one picture in the town to include in a show, Another London, I was preparing with two friends to take place in Kingston Museum in January 2007, and I made two pictures which ended up in that show.
But both were of Beeraahaar Sweet Combination, a prize-winning Carnival Mas Band based in Stamford Hill, Hackney, miles away in North London and with no real connection to Kingston. Kingston, formerly in Surrey, since 1965 has been a London borough on the edge of London, but until 2020 still home to the central offices of Surrey County Council.
Kingston Carnival began in 2001, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025, although this year it was postponed, but is planned to return in 2027.
Later I went to the Regent Street Festival in central London which had a Spanish theme. Below I’ll post with minor corrections what I wrote in 2006 and links to more pictures.
Kingston Carnival
Kingston, Surrey
The Carnival came from HackneyWith just a handful of people from Kingston.
A little bit of Hackney came to Kingston on Sunday morning to provide the Kingston Carnival. Hard to see why Kingston can’t put up its own carnival, but Beeraahaar Sweet Combination are a fine group that I’ve photographed at Notting Hill and Mardi Gras in Hackney, and even a small group of them gave the event a little atmosphere. Just a pity there weren’t more groups and people from Kingston in the parade to match them.
The stalls around the Guildhall showed there are a diverse range of communities in the area, but the parade didn’t really reflect this. Shipping in a carnival procession provides a little diversion, but surely the whole point of a borough paying for a carnival is to encourage community activities within its own boundaries?
From Kingston I caught the train up to town and to Spain, which was happening in Regent Street, closed to traffic for the day. Of course not closed to shopping, which perhaps rather limits what the organisers could do. I didn’t find the event too exciting, and the large crowds around anything that was going on reflected that too little was happening.
The police, mainly down a side street, were putting on a good show, one of the funniest I’ve seen for a long time, demonstrating how the police are supposed to restrain people, and use weapons such as pepper spray. The gulf between theory and practice is amazing.
I tried out a free sample of a revolting sherry-based drink, watched more Spanish folk dancers than was good for anyone’s sanity, avoided the sand on the ‘beaches’ and decided it was time to go home.
Church Path, Town Hall & West Reservoir: The third and final post from my walk on April 1st 1990. The previous post was Reservoir, Castle & Lordship Lane
Church path, The Old Church, St Mary’s, Church, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-61
The Old Church is the only remaining Elizabethan church in London, built in 1563 when the then Lord of the Manor decided to rebuild the near-derelict parish church, including a private chapel for him and his family. The Church was extensively restored in 1827-9 by Charles Barry who almost doubled its seating and replaced its wooden spire – not visible in my picture. But although much has changed it has retained its Tudor character.
The Old Church was heavily damaged in wartime bombing in October 1940, but repairs were made quickly and it was back in use only a couple of months later. Later there were more repairs and most of the box pews were removed. In 2013 the interior was remodelled to make it a flexible arts and community space.
The Old Church is on the right of my picture, rather overshadowed by its successor; there was a call by the end of the eighteenth century for a larger building to cope with the growing population of the area, but the new and much larger church was only opened in 1858. The new St Mary’s Stoke Newington was designed by George Gilbert Scott but its spire was completed by his son, J O Scott, in 1890. The building is in the Decorated style of the late C13/early C14 made popular by Pugin and the Ecclesiologist Movement. The Old Church became a ‘chapel of ease’ and has never been deconsecrated. Both churches are Grade II* listed.
Monument, Church path, The Old Church, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-63
One of the several impressive monuments in the churchyard around the Old Church, but I cannot make out the names of those buried here – though one of them died in 1789.
Several people prominent in the abolition of the slave trade have their graves here including James Stephen (William Wilberforce’s brother-in-law, a lawyer and chief adviser on the anti-slavery bill) and Wilberforce’s sister and daughter. He also asked to be buried here but when he died it was decided he should be in Westminster Abbey.
Two tombs in the cemetery are Grade II listed, that of James Stephen and of the Romantic woman poet and abolitionist Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) and her ‘beloved brother’, John Aikin (1747-1822)
Stoke Newington Town Hall, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-65
Stoke Newington Town Hall is an impressive municipal building, designed by J Reginald Truelove as the Town Hall for the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington and built in 1935-7 and still in use as council offices.
On its noticeboards are fly-posters from the TKiH, the Türkiye Komünist isci Hareketi, Communist Workers’ Movement of Turkey, illegal in Turkey. Founded in 1984 it merged with other Turkish groups in 1994 to form the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, MLKP who still appear in force in London’s May Day March.
West Reservoir, Lordship Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-55
I returned to the West Reservoir and took a walk around it – I think this picture shows the New River at right and was taken from a bridge over it. There appears to be a channel with a sluice gate joining the reservoir and the river just beyond the skip in the centre of the picture.
West Reservoir, Lordship Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4b-31
And I think this view was from more or less the same place but looking in the opposite direction, with the New River now in the foreground and council estates and solid blocks of council flats at Woodberry Down, a huge LCC estate built immediately after the war and now redeveloped.
This wasn’t quite the end of my walk, as I made my way back to Manor House station from here, and I took my final picture of the day going down the escalator there – but it was not worth digitising. For my next walk I returned to south London.
Reservoir, Castle & Lordship Lane: My walk on April 1st 1990 began at Finsbury Park Station and the first post, Brownswood Park Finsbury Park – 1990, ended on Green Lanes where this post begins.
Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-45
The New River Path leads from Green Lanes immediately north of the ‘Castle’ and I think I walked from this path to the bank of the West reservoir to make this picture. There have been considerable changes in the area and I can no longer identify the trees or buildings in my view.
The West Reservoir next to the New River dates from 1833, and I think this section of fencing probably dates from when it was enlarged in the 1850s or a little later. The associated filter beds have been built on, but a vigorous local ‘Save the Reservoirs’ campaign in the 1980s saved the reservoirs, with the West used for water sports and the East as a nature reserve.
Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-46
I think this was a part of the filter beds which have now gone. I liked the shadow of the fence and the wheel which presumably operated a valve to control the flow of water, perhaps to the pumping station.
Sand in the filter beds was first used to effectively removed most particles from the water but it was later realised that the slime which grew on top of the sand was very effective in killing bacteria to increase the safety of the water and sand filtration still plays an important role in producing our clean drinking water.
Reservoir, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-32
I think the man in the picture is a bird-watcher rather than a photographer and is holding up binoculars to his eyes. Many migrating species take a rest at our reservoirs and birders flock to watch them.
The Castle, Waterworks, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-21
The gothic fantasy waterworks, built to house massive steam-powered beam engines in 1854–1856 seen from close by – I needed a very wide lens to include the whole height of the tower. According to Industrial History Online “The original six beam engines, two by Watt & Co and 4 by Simpson were removed in 1953.” I think these were then scrapped. You can see similar beam engines in the highly recommended London Museum of Water & Steam in Brentford.
House, Waterworks, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-24
On Green Lanes I walked south and turned down Lordship Park. Here I got a view of the Castle. I think the tower at right is a disguised chimney and the square section on top of that at the left may have held the tank that water was pumped into to give the pressure for supply to customers.
Man Reading, House, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-13
Another picture in Lordship Park shows the very solid looking houses built there dating from around 1865. These are three storeys with a basement, the steps rising to an elevated ground floor, built in a Victorian Gothic style with the entrances recessed with a side window giving a somewhat clerical look; they have is some nice ornamental brickwork but in a fairly restrained fashion.
There are quite a few of these houses on both sides of thee street and I picked this view because of the man sitting reading the Sunday Mirror on the steps.
Lion, Brothers of Islam, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-16
A final picture on this street shows the passageway between two houses with a small flowerbed looked over by a lion, and on the post at right in the freely written message ‘Brothers of ISLAM’.
My walk, now in Stoke Newington, continued – more later.
Brownswood Park Finsbury Park: My walk on April 1st 1990 began at Finsbury Park Station. I walked a short distance past the gates to the park and then turned right down Queens Drive.
Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-3m-13
Queen’s Drive was laid out and developed from 1869, the same year that the park, misleadingly named Finsbury Park despite being a couple of miles from Finsbury, was opened, just a few years after the opening of Seven Sister Road station in 1861. In 1870 the station was renamed Finsbury Park. Most of the street was built up by the 1871 census, largely with substantial and well decorated four-storey terraces.
Queen’s Road – later renamed Queen’s Drive – was built as the ‘best road’ in a new select suburb then known as Brownswood Park, developed at first by John Brookes Porter in 1862. You can read more of its history in the Brownswood Conservation Area Appraisal.
Like many such areas it went downhill over the years. Wartime bombing including a V2 rocket damaged and destroyed a number of houses in it and nearby streets. By the 1950s most of the houses were in multiple occupation by “students, migrants, and the working class.”
This picture is of the rear of the Pembury Hotel which is on the corner of Queen’s Drive and Seven Sisters Road, just a few yards down the road and is a post war addition.
Houses, Princess Crescent, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-3m-15
Princess Crescent, also in Browsnwood Park, is not a crescent but two straight lengths of road at an angle joining Queen’s Drive and Gloucester Drive. The houses here were rather smaller than those in Queen’s Road. The other section of road has a two large blocks of council flats, St John’s Court on one side and a primary school on the other. From 1934 until 1960 the Finsbury Park Synagogue was there.
I walked back onto Queen’s Drive and continued to Brownswood Road, turning east and crossing Green Lanes into Lordship Park – not a park but a street.
Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 90-4a-01
Taken on Lordship Park and looking up Allerton Road towards the ‘castle’ designed by architect William Chadwell Mylne for the New River Company on Green Lanes, to house steam engines to pump water which had been cleaned in the adjoining reservoirs and filter beds to consumers.
The water was pumped to a large tank at the top of the main structure and then gravity fed to consumers. The towers and turrets disguise the huge industrial engines inside, initially giant single cylinder steam engines linked to pumps. These were later replaced in the 1930s by diesel and electric pumps. The gothic fantasy was felt to be more acceptable in this then select suburb than an industrial-looking building.
When the water board closed down this facility in 1971 it was saved from demolition by Grade II* listing and three years later converted into a climbing centre.
House, Tree, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-03
A pollarded tree in front of semi-detached houses on Lordship Park. The two story houses have some fine decoration on their doorways and windows. There are larger houses close to Green Lanes.
House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-61
Notices on the house say ‘NO BALL GAMES; and NO PARKING’ but there seems to be some kind of car scrap business running here in front of once fine derelict houses.
House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990,, 1990, 90-4a-64
I think these houses were just to the north of Portland Rise on the west side of Green Lanes and have since been demolished and replaced by to modern blocks of flats at 291 and 293 Green Lanes. The building at extreme left is still there.
House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990,, 1990, 90-4a-54
Unusually I took 11 frames here and there are six of them on Flickr – but I’ll only post three here.
These houses were a short walk from the West Reservoir where my my next post from this walk will begin.
Spice, Rain, Turkey & Cyprus: Sunday 15 July 2007 was another varied day for me in London, both for events and weather. I went to Hackney for Hackney Spice, but got bored and went to the South Bank where there was a tremendous thunderstorm. When the rain eased off I photographed some of the performers in a Turkish festival in Bernie Spain Gardens before crossing the river to the Embankment to photograph a protest by Greek Cypriots over the Turkish occupation of North Cyprus.
Hackney Spice
Hackney Town Hall
I think these dancers came from South London, but some other performers were local.
Hackney Spice was an event outside the town hall in Hackney, next to the Hackney Empire. Perhaps I was there too early, but it appeared to be getting off to a rather slow start, and I soon lost interest and caught a bus.
As I arrived at Coin Street, there were a few drops of rain, and apart from eating and drinking (high-priced cheap beer) not a lot was happening. I walked around and then took a walk along the embankment, sheltering under a tree as the rain came on a little harder.
Then came the thunderstorm, with perhaps the most tremendous downpour I’ve ever seen, pouring down through the leaves as if I was in the open. Even my umbrella didn’t really keep me dry, although it offered some protection. As the rain came, the view disappeared, first the distant view along the river, then the bridge, then I could no longer see the river itself, and trees only perhaps 25 metres away merged into whiteness.
There wasn’t a great deal to photograph, and I was more concerned about keeping my cameras dry – fortunately the raincoat built into my Lowe-pro camera bag was reasonably effective. As the storm eased slightly and visibility returned, still holding up my umbrella, I took a few pictures, but it was still raining too hard to move much.
Then the storm was over, and there were belly dancers on the stage. I don’t think I appreciate the finer points of this art (and appreciate quantity rather more than quality – after all you can only shake what you have), but I took a few pictures but rather more of the folk dancers that followed, their dances clearly linked to village life and agriculture.
National Federation of Cypriots – Turks out of Cyprus
March & Rally, Westminster
But I’d really come to photograph something connected with a rather different Turkish activity, the continued occupation of part of Cyprus by the Turkish army. I grew up hearing about the war in Cyprus, older brothers of friends were there fighting as a part of their compulsory national military service, and Don McCullin took some of his first and most striking images of war.
The front of the march – the red area is the Northern Cyprus, occupied by Turks
War and partition left both Greek and Turkish Cypriots with justifiable grievances – there were atrocities on both sides, and time seems to have done little to heal. While I sympathise with the Greeks who still mourn their lost sons, often disappeared without trace, I also find it hard to understand why the EU went ahead with recognition of Cyprus after the Greek Cypriots voted down the UN attempts to reunite the country. Greek and Turkish Cypriots live together with few problems in London – and it is surely time they did so in Cyprus too.
The National Federation of Cypriots march and rally called for Turkish troops and settlers who have come since the Turkish occupation in 1974 to leave Cyprus.
I’d expected the march to start late, and was surprised to see it had already begun as I came across Hungerford Bridge. It was a larger event than the similar rally I’d photographed a couple of years previously and attracted more photographers.
The organisers for some reason didn’t want photographers to cover the rally, moving us out of the area in front of the platform. It seems odd to say the least to organise a public event and then not provide proper facilities for press coverage.
Christian Aid, Mordechai Vanunu & Mass Lone Demos. My photography on Saturday 21st April 2007 began with a small event close to home with music and tree planting celebrating 50 years of Christian Aid. I then rushed into London for the start of the Mass Lone Demo initiated by Mark Thomas as a protest against SOCPA, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act which greatly restricted the right to protest in the area around Parliament.
After a short while there I travelled to Hackney where cyclists, some who had begun at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Clyde, were beginning the final leg of the Vanunu Freedom Ride. After they had set off I returned to take more pictures of the Mass Lone Demo, then took the tube to meet the cyclists again close to the IsraelI Embassy in Kensington.
Below is what I wrote in 2007, with the usual minor corrections and links to more pictures from the day on My London Diary.
Christian Aid: Tree Planting – Celebrating 50 Years
Staines, Middlesex
Saturday was another beautiful day, sunny, warm but not too hot, and the quintet with a fine singer created a mellow atmosphere as we gathered to plant two apple trees to celebrate 50 years of Christian Aid. the music included several of my Ellingtonian favourites, there were some interesting home-made cakes, and it was great to relax for a while in the sun.
One of the 2 apple trees planted at Staines to celebrate 50 years of Christian Aid gets watered in.
The trees were given and planted by Colin Squire of Squires Garden Centres, and as he commented, the Cox’s Orange Pippin was an appropriate choice, as not only is it a fine apple, but was first grown by Richard Cox just three miles away at Colnbrook in 1830.
The two trees are in a public area, and we hope that in years to come the public will come and help themselves and enjoy their crop.
Starbucks in Victoria St – 3 of the over 2000 demonstrations
Mark Thomas’s latest twist to the Mass Lone Demo was for demonstrators to set out a list of 20 demonstrations they would eaach hold in the SOCPA area on Saturday and to apply for permission for each of them. He was aiming for 2000 demonstrations (and hoping for an entry in the Guinness Book Of Records.) The police figure for the number of demonstrations that permission was applied for was 2,486, but it was actually quite hard to find many of them.
I’d hoped to photograph people at such highly desirable sites for demos as the Mothers Union, the Adam Smith Institute and the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia, but nobody was there when I looked. However I did find a few, [and also some Kurds who were not part of the Lone Demos] but unfortunately had to miss the final event to get to Kensington.
Kurds declare a hunger strike, demanding an end to the poisoning of Ocalan and his freedom
Freedom Riders in Hackney – they rode from Faslane nuclear base near Glasgow
Mordechai Vanunu told the world about Israel’s nuclear weapons – still denied, still secret and still not subject to any international inspection. He worked on the program for 9 years until 1985, and in 1986 blew the whistle, talking to the press. Days later he was lured to Italy and kidnapped from there by the Israeli Secret Service. Convicted of treason in Israel he spent 18 years in jail, 12 of them in solitary.
Released in 2004 he has been under severe restrictions on movement, who he can meet and what he can say. He would like to leave srael but it seems likely he will be sent back to prison. The ride demanded his freedom, the setting up of a nuclear-free Middle East as well as freedom for Palestine.
‘Vanunu’ at Hackney
The riders started at the Faslane base to the west of Glasgow where daily demonstrations are taking place outside the base of the ridiculous UK nuclear deterrent (ridiculous to have it, and in no way independent as we need us permission to use the weapons.) The ride stopped at many places on the way to demonstrate and hold meetings, including Menwith Hill spy station and Lakenheath USAF base.
A rally at the end of the ride at Notting Hill Gate, not far from the Israeli embassy
They were met at Hackney Town Hall by members of Hackney & Islington CND and CNF vice-chair Sophie Bolt. From Hackney they cycled on via Downing Street to Kensington, where there was a rally at which Jeremy Corbyn MP, Kate Hudson, CND chair and Louise Richards of War On Want were among the speakers.
The Israeli embassy in London is on a private street with security lodges at each end. cyclists are not allowed in the street, and demonstrations are certainly not tolerated.
Around Finsbury Park: On Sunday February 25th 1990 I began a walk from Finsbury Park Station
Bookmarks, 265, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Haringey, 1990, 90-2f-42
The Bookmarks shop was at 265, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park and was home to the Bookmarks Publishing Co-operative which had been established in 1979 to publish books and pamphlets by members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 1998 it moved to 1 Bloomsbury Street and is now Britain’s largest socialist bookshop and now sells a wide range of “non-fictional and fictional books that concern politics, economics, anti-fascism, anarchism, labour history, trade unionism, arts and culture, anti-racism, the environment, biographies, and feminism.”
Two doors beyond this at 269 was the former entrance to a cinema, built in 1909 as Pyke’s Cinematograph. Later it was combined with the larger Rink Cinema behind it at 10 Stroud Green Road and when I took this picture it had closed as a club and became as a large sign indicates ‘LONDON’S LATEST LUXURY TENPIN BOWLING ALLEY!’ with its entrance in Stroud Green Road around the corner. There is now a Lidl here.
House, 169, Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-43
After the railway station – at first Seven Sisters Road station – opened in 1869 the area around it was opened up to speculative building, with trains taking workers into the City at Moorgate station in around 15 minutes. This very substantial Victorian detached house was one of those on Queen’s Drive, just a few yards from Finsbury Park and a short walk to the station which would have provided a home for a well-paid city worker and his family and a servant or two.
Houses, Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-45
Further down Queen’s Drive were more very substantial semi-detached residences and although much of the area had deteriorated particularly since the war these houses still seemed in good condition. This was clearly built as one of the posher streets in Finsbury Park and had remained so, although many of these large houses were now dividied into flats and some had been replaced by later and larger blocks of flats.
House, Brownswood Rd, Wilberforce Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-31
A strikingly vertical house on the corner of Brownswood Road and Wilberforce Rd, though in fact is I think actually only the same height as the house opposite, also with a full height attic window. There are similar houses on all four corners of the junction. The large block of flats looks very near but is on Citizen Road around a kilometre away to the south-west.
Squat, 63, St Thomas’s Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-36
Two adjoining doors of 63 and 65 St Thomas’s Road both have notices on them from the squatters, on the left door warning that the premises are occupied and that any attempt to enter without permission is a criminal act, while on the right visitors are told they need to knock and shout up up to people on the upper floors. Squatting in a residential building in England only became illegal in September 2012.
Stop the Roads, poster, St Thomas’s Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-21
YOUR LAST CHANCE TO STOP THE ROADS states a poster for a march from Kings Cross to Archway on 24 February 1990, the day before I took this picture. In 1989 Margaret Thatcher had outlined plans for a £23 billion trunk road enlargement programme in the Roads for Prosperity white paper, designed to assist economic growth, improve the environment, and improve road safety. It led to years of protest with many schemes being cancelled though others, including the M3 extension at Twyford Down, the Newbury bypass and the M11 link road went ahead.
Lammas Lands, Leyton, Columbia Market & Bethnal Green: On Sunday 17th December 2006 I went to an event by local residents seeking to protect the Leyton Lammas Lands from the sprawling London 2012 Olympics before going to a meeting with a friend at Columbia Market. Unfortunately on my way there I got a phone call telling me he was unable to make it, so I took a few pictures there before walking on in a roundabout way to visit another friend in Bethnal Green. Below I’ll post what I wrote back in 2006 (with minor corrections) and some of the pictures from that day.
Loss of Common Land
Leyton Lammas Lands, Marsh Lane, Leyton
Allotments displaced by the Olympics may be relocated here on Leyton Lammas Lands
History seems about to repeat itself in Leyton, although the outcome may be different this time. It was in 894 that King Alfred drained Leyton Marsh and gave the local people the right to graze their animals on the Lammas Land created. (Details in this post come from a leaflet written by Lorraine Metherall and Neil Bedford, published by the New Lammas Lands Defence Committee (NLLDC) and from Martin Slavin’s Games Monitor web site – now archived here.)
Marsh Lane, now mainly a cycle route, may become a busy road in the Olympic Development Authority has its way. The ‘New Lammas Lands Defence Committee’ hope to protect ancient rights.
In the 1890s, the East London Waterworks Company tried to take over the Lammas Lands, and on Lammas Day, 1st August 1892, a large demonstration met on the marshes and ripped up their fences. The company tried to sue one of the people involved, and locals set up the ‘Leyton Lammas Lands Defence Committee‘ (LLLDC) and fought the case in court. The water company ended up admitting defeat, paying all costs and giving money for a local essay prize.
The efforts of the LLLDC led to the ‘1904 Leyton Urban District Council Act‘, in which parliament vested the lands in the council, making them responsible for maintaining them as “an open space for the perpetual use therof for exercise and recreation…”. The act made them a permanent public open space in return for the giving up of the lammas rights, and was confirmed by parliament in 1965.
Over the years parts of the land have been taken for other uses, including railway sidings, Gas Board land and, more recently, the Lea Valley Riding School and Ice Rink. When the Lea Valley Regional Park acquired most of the Lammas Lands by compulsory purchase in 1971, they for some reason felt able to ignore the 1904 act, and have blocked public access to some areas.
The latest threat to Leyton Lammas Lands come from the London Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Although outside the Olympic area, the Lammas Lands are a handy place to dump the unwanted, in this case the allotment holders of Manor Gardens. In the late 1880s the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Eton College and prompted them to set up a charitable settlement in Hackney. The Eton Manor Settlement bought up land, including lammas land in Hackney and Leyton and set up various sports clubs and related activities including the Manor Garden Allotments.
A new short section of road would link Marsh Lane to Orient Way here.
Although the ODA is apparently set on jettisoning inconvenient requirements that were a part of its original agreement – such as the need to replace common land – it apparently still has to re-site the allotments, and its preferred site is on Marsh Lane, part of the Leyton Lammas Lands. Unfortunately the current land is unsuitable, being heavily polluted with a relatively thin layer of topsoil on top of wartime rubble.
This is the area of the Lammas Lands that would be taken for the allotments
Making them usable means removal of some existing soil and bringing in many lorry loads of new topsoil, probably half a metre over the whole site. This would mean an new vehicle access to Marsh Lane, bringing traffic the few yards from Orient Way, along with widening Marsh Lane with the loss of some of the fine avenue of trees currently on both sides. This would also need to stay open for the use of the allotment holders, and would almost certainly result in the newly widened Marsh Lane becoming a heavily trafficked short cut to Church Road.
Singing ‘The Lammas Land Song’ “We will not be robbed when there’s a ballot in this land…”
The ODA needs the support of the local council for their application, and the NLLDC hope to raise enough local support to make them think again. It is of course possible that the courts could be asked to ensure that the provisions of the 1904 act are enforced.
[The Manor Gardens allotments were moved here in 2007 but the site allocated was in very poor condition. The ODA reneged on its promise to return them to their original site – but eventually in 2016 they were given a new site – only one fifth the area of their original site – on Pudding Mill Lane. This is now under threat from more and more tall buildings around it blocking out the sun.]
Leyton
Brightly painted sheds were being erected on the gas holder siteRail sidings& shedsFlood relief channel
I was in the East End partly to meet a mate at Columbia Market, but in the end he couldn’t make it. With Christmas just over a week to go, prices were high. I calculated we’d just sent several hundred pounds worth of eucalyptus twigs to the incinerator after I did a bit of pruning recently, and those three holly trees in the back garden would be a goldmine. Strangely, even at these prices, some people seemed to be buying the stuff, though by the end of they day there did seem to be quite a lot of plants being loaded back into the lorries, and there were certainly plenty of Christmas Untrees left.
Rootless trees
Real trees of course have roots, and we always get one that has them, and grow it on for a few years between January and December. A few die off, and others eventually get too big to get through the door, and there are three that would suit Trafalgar Square down the garden. [Two huge and still growing but I had to fell one of them a few years ago.]
I took a few snaps, and then wandered through Hackney and Bethnal Green on my way to visit another friend who had written a book, The Romance of Bethnal Green, on the area and is using some of my pictures, to take a look at the design.
Queen Adelaide’s Dispensary
There was some nice light on some of the streets and buildings, and Queen Adelaide’s head curiously lit up as I passed.
Freedom to Film & World March for Peace: On Sunday 18th October 2009 I went to Dalston to support a Hackney education charity whose students have been harassed when making films in public places and then joined a small march in the UK which was part of a worldwide humanist movement for peace.
Ridley Road Market: Worldbytes Defends Right to Film
Halal butcher in Ridley Road market, Dalston
Worldwrite is a Hackney-based education charity founded in 1994 which gives young people free film and media training supporting them to produce alternative programmes for broadcast on WORLDbytes, the charity’s online alternative Citizen TV channel Worldbytes.org. You can read more about them on the web site where you can also see a very wide range of their videos, though I couldn’t find anything now on this 2009 event.
In 2009 their teams were “finding it increasingly difficult to film in public places in Hackney: security guards, community wardens and self-appointed ‘jobsworths’ are refusing us ‘permission’ to film on many of our streets.”
As they stated, “There is in fact NO LAW against filming or taking photographs in public places and permission or a licence is NOT required for gathering news for news programmes in public spaces.“
They had called for photographers and film-makers to go along and take pictures in support of their protest and I went to do so at Ridley Road Market in Dalston, where Worldbytes crews had been told they can’t film there, not by the stall holders or other market users, but by employees of Hackney Council.
I went there to support them and the right to photograph in public places, but also because I wanted to photograph the market. I had previously taken a few pictures there but only as I was passing and had not seriously photographed the market.
After talking to the Worldwite protesters I set about walking up and down the market taking photographs of the buildings and people, particularly some of the stallholders. As well as my post on My London Diary, I wrote about the event at greater length here on >Re:PHOTO a few days later. Here’s a short section of text from that article:
“I took some general views without asking anyone for permission, but as usual, where I wanted to take pictures including stallholders or other people I asked if I might. Not because I need to, but out of politeness, and I shrugged my shoulders and moved on if they refused. Of course at times I photograph people who don’t want to be photographed, but this wasn’t appropriate here.”
“As I was using flash most of the time, it was clear that I was taking pictures and some people asked me to photograph them who I might otherwise have walked by. At one place I did stop to argue after having been refused – and eventually managed to get permission to take a picture; at another I got profuse apologies from an employee who was obviously sorry that the stall owner had decided not to cooperate with Worldbytes.“
“The council employees didn’t turn up to stop filming while I was there; probably Sunday is their day off. But it’s very hard to understand why Hackney Council should allow or instruct their employees in this way. They should know the law after all.”
My use of flash – generally as a fairly weak fill-in – was deliberate to make sure that people knew I was taking photographs, though in some cases it helped with the pictures. After I’d spent around twenty minutes obviously taking pictures I was interviewed by the Worldbytes crew, though I rather hoped they would cut that from their video of the day.
The World March For Peace and Nonviolence had begun in New Zealand on the 140th anniversary of Ghandi’s birth, October 2, 2009. It involved events around the world which ended at Punta de Vacas in the Andes Mountains in Argentina on January 2, 2010, where Silo (Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos) the founder of the Humanist Movement launched a new campaign for global nuclear disarmament in September 2006.
Volunteers from a base team of around a hundred went from New Zealand to Japan, Korea, Moscow, Rome, New York, and Costa Rica, attending events organised along the way to Argentina.
In London the march began with a vigil close to the Northwood Permanent Joint Forces / NATO Headquarters in Middlesex on Saturday morning, with speeches by World March UK co-ordinator Jon Swinden, Sonia Azad of Children Against War and organiser Daniel Viesnik, who also read out a message of support from John McDonnell MP.
Only around 50 people walked the whole way, but there were others around the world also marching. On the second day in London they began at Brent Town Hall in Wembley Park and I met them as they arrived at Marble Arch. They stopped for lunch at Speaker’s Corner where they then took part in the interactive play ‘Let The Artists Die’ on themes of peace, non-violence and the power of the imagination. It was written and directed by Charlie Wiseman who was also one of the three main actors.
They walked past the front of the US Embassy to the memorial to the British victims of 9/11 in Grosvenor Square, where it stopped to pay its respects. In Mayfair it was almost halted when a taxi driver deliberately drove into one of the marchers, but they continued to Trafalgar Square.
‘Heritage wardens’ stopped the march as it came down the steps in Trafalgar Square, telling them they could not walk through the square as they had not applied for permission.
After resting for a few minutes on the steps the march went around the side of the square and down Whitehall past “the Old War Office, and then the statues of famous generals outside the “Defence Ministry” (governments were more straightforward with language in the past)” and “the fortified gates of Downing Street and on to Parliament Square, where the march stopped at the permanent peace protest by Brian Haw there since 2 June 200l with the help of his supporters.”
I left the marchers there but they continued on to end at the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park.
Mare De Gras & Choose Life: On Sunday 10 October 2004 I photographed two very different events on the Streets of London, a carnival in Hackney and and ant-abortion march. Perhaps the only thing they had in common was that both were misnamed.
Hackney Mare de Gras
Dalston, Hackney
Mare de Gras – Fat Tuesday – is a season celebrated in New Orleans as carnival season, from 12th Night at the end of Christmas on January 6 to Fat Tuesday itself, Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter. In England our celebrations are rather shorter and involve pancakes and pancake races.
The parade began in Dalston Market
But in Hackney it was the name adopted for the carnival which began there when some residents decided it would be a good thing for them to have a carnival like Notting Hill, and since the main street is Mare Street it seemed a good name, even though it took place in September.
It wasn’t the first carnival in Hackney – there is a tradition of English carnivals dating back mainly to the late 19th century, held in many towns and villages across the country, though most have now died out. Two of my friends got Arts Council money to document some of them – and I showed work from Notting Hill with them in a show, English Carnival, in 2008. Others are still going strong particularly in the West Country. Hackney had its carnivals way back around the 1900s but I don’t think they lasted too long.
Those traditional carnivals had one thing in common – “they received no core public funding. Many were almost entirely organised by volunteers; most also raised money for charities.”
For the show I wrote: “Carnival in England has been enlivened over the last forty or so years by the Caribbean influence, and West-Indian style carnivals have received considerable funding and become a popular celebration of our multi-cultural society within the larger metropolitan areas of the country, joined in recent years by Latin American, Asian and Central European communities.”
The revival of carnival in Hackney is thought to have started as the Street Carnival Theatre in De Beauvoir, organised by Centerprise, in 1973. Later came a new Hackney Carnival – Mare De Gras – bringing together many of the carnival groups that had their roots in Caribbean culture and had begun in the 1970s, 80s and 90s taking part in the Notting Hill Carnival.
In 2004, Mare De Gras in late September was cancelled after 16-year old A level student Robert Levy was killed on Mare Street, stabbed after he had tried to keep the peace in a fight between boys close to his home, and the event was rearranged for the 10th October.
Hackney Carnival continued in later years, though the name Mare De Gras was dropped soon after 2005. In 2024 there was a parade, but for 2025 there were only a number of activities and no real carnival.
I left the carnival in Hackney soon after the parade began to photograph a much more somber event, the Chose Life March opposing abortion. Again its name seems misleading to me – opposition to abortion is not about choosing life, and as I commented in 2004, “the misuse of language in using slogans such as ‘Choose Life’ disturbs me greatly, as an attempt to preempt rational thought.“
One of the few parts of the march that did not seem lacking in life
I also wrote “Nature is profligate, full of false starts, and life cannot sensibly be considered to begin at conception” which I suspect is a quote but cannot find the source.
Many other Christians and other religions do not accept the Catholic teaching on abortion but take more sensible and more scientifically bases views. But “this doesn’t mean we should take abortion lightly or allow scientists to play as they like with human genetic material. ” And of course our laws do have important safeguards on abortion and the use of human material in research.
More pictures, including a couple of Brian Haw and one of the River Thames as the march passed them on My London Diary.
