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HISTORY
(under construction – please get in touch with John if you can supply any additions or corrections)
The street named Listria Park owes its unusual shape to the , now one of London’s lost rivers, which at one time helped to define the northern boundary of the estate of (1640-1721), Lord Mayor of London.
Stoke Newington was at that time something of a centre of nonconformist Protestantism, and an even more celebrated resident of the Abney estate was (1674-1748), known nowadays as the father of the English hymn school, though he was also a prolific writer on theological subjects, with robust awaiting unrepentant sinners.
Pictured left, as it is today, is Dr. Watts Mount (or Mound), which then stood beside (or as some allege, on a tiny island in the middle of) the Hackney Brook. It was reputedly his favourite site of contemplation, and a stone tablet erected there in his memory by his admirers still adorns it. The mound is within a few feet of what today is No. 1 Listria Park. The Abney estate’s boundary remained unchanged when, in 1840, it became . Some of the exotic trees planted at that time still remain, but nature has largely taken over. Today Abney Park’s densely wooded 32 acres of wildlife preserve constitute the view from the back of houses on the west and south sides of Listria Park.
By 1860, thanks to the mid-Victorian population explosion, the Hackney Brook had become an open sewer. Responding to the ‘‘ of 1858, the Metropolitan Board of Works consigned it underground as part of the sewage system designed by Today (says Wikipedia) the Brook is untraceable, having become lost in the labyrinth of sewers as they developed. This photo from the Hackney Archives shows the building of the sewer, which carried effluent from as far away as Highgate and delivered it to the main sewerage system at Old Ford. (click on the image to enlarge)
An Ordnance Survey map of 1864 shows what appears to be a formally planted garden in the area now occupied by Listria Park and Martaban Road.
This section of the map shows Dr. Watts Mound at the top left-hand corner, with the edge of what was by then Abney Park Cemetery (1840) running down the left-hand side of the map. The cemetery’s wall (today lying at the bottoms of Listria Park back gardens) runs south, to the right of a line of trees. Manor Road passes diagonally across the top right-hand corner, while towards the bottom of the map what is now Martaban Road is shown as a tree-lined path running west to east, with non-rectangular buildings on its north side suggestive of ancient property boundaries. (click on image to enlarge)
The next detailed Ordnance Survey map dates from 1894-6, and shows the Listraban area laid out as streets, with vacant plots at Nos. 61, 63, 125 and 127 Listria Park, possibly because of unstable, sandy subsoil resulting from the course of long-forgotten waterways. In the 1990s soaring property values led to the underpinning and development of all four sites, with the addition of the present 137 Listria Park. A double-fronted house at 44 Listria Park, shown in the 1894 map, disappeared at some point after 1937, and the resulting gap was only refilled in the late 20th century.
One curiosity today is No. 23 Martaban Road, whose facade is somewhat suggestive of a chapel, but if so it does not date from the Victorian high tide in church- and chapel-building, for the site is shown as vacant in the 1896 map. The frontage features a stone carving of a ram’s head, and the fact that the ram is a Biblical symbol for Christ may be a further clue to the building’s original function. Before its recent conversion into flats it was used as a dressmaking workshop.
25 Martaban Road was also a vacant site in 1896, but by 1937 the plot was filled with a utilitarian red brick light industrial building. Its upper floor was later to be occupied by the Hackney Pakistani Women’s Welfare Centre, a voluntary organisation run by a Listria Park family named Qureishi. Among other things it taught employment skills and dispensed health advice and a weekly lunch for the elderly. Around the turn of the century, following a fire in the ground floor warehouse, the building was converted into the present flats. In both this case and that of 61 and 63 Listria Park, developers had to overcome reluctance by planners to grant change of use, for in Hackney, not the most economically thriving of boroughs, the loss of land supporting employment is resisted.
Unlike the stately villas that by the mid-19th century lined Stamford Hill (homes to affluent bankers escaping the unsalubrious air of the City), the newly-constructed Listria Park and Martaban Road offered more modest dwellings to the capital’s burgeoning work force. From contrasts in style and size it is clear that the streets were divided into parcels leased to different speculative builders, with the grandest at the north-east wing of Listria Park and the most modest on the southern stretch. In many houses the original decorative cornices and fireplaces have survived.
An indication of the social character of the first generation of occupiers comes from the census of 1901 … (to be researched)
Like an old soldier, Listraban today shows the honourable scars of war wounds. At a few front gates the observant eye will notice small rectangles of iron in the ground, surrounded by lead. Those are the vestiges of the original cast iron railings, torched down during the Second World War to make munitions. Nearby Summerfield Road, off Church Street, whose railings somehow survived, gives an idea of what Listraban would have looked like before 1939.
Another testimony to the war is the slightly hazy view from some of Listria Park’s back windows. A bomb is said to have fallen in Abney Park, and the roughly-surfaced wartime glass that replaced blown-out windows still survives in some homes.
In the 20th century the 61-63 Listria Park site was at times the focus of controversy. It had been occupied by the Jeakins family, resident in Listria Park, who ran a removals business and used the plot, laid to concrete, as a park and maintenance site for their lorries. This was not universally popular, and oral tradition has it that abortive schemes were hatched to undermine it by such measures as having the road made one-way, which, given the sharp south-east corner, would have made the manoeuvring of lorries difficult at times. (That point was well demonstrated when police diverting traffic unwisely directed a 106 bus into Listria Park). In fact the marshalling of lorries carried on until Danny Jeakins acquired ownership of the site and planning permission for the houses that now stand there.
The character of Listraban had meanwhile undergone a significant change following the 1974 Housing Act, which empowered local governments to set up ‘Housing Action Areas’ with a view to improving housing quality. This led to the appearance of cobbled promontories built out from the pavements, some of them with tree pits, others carrying large containers for decorative plants. These features contribute greatly to the special atmosphere of Listraban.
The present Community Association eventually took over responsibility for maintenance of the containers. At one stage there were even fantasies of temporarily exploiting the then vacant sites as communal gardens, but the practical obstacles were too formidable.
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