Cultural And Trendy Walking Tour From Hackney Central To London Fields

Solo Travel
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Tally-ho, Joolz Guides here, in which I wander around London and tell you fascinating facts.
And today we are in Hackney.
And we're going to walk from Hackney Central all the way down around
and sort of end up down near Cambridge Heath, you'll see.
Anyway, look, don't forget to hit the subscribe button if you like the videos
because that really helps and also hit the little bell
because that will notify you when I upload a new one.
Now, look, we're standing outside the Hackney Empire,
which is a beautiful theatre built in 1901.
It was designed by Frank Matcham, who was your go-to man if you wanted a theatre.
He designed the Coliseum.
He also designed the Hippodrome in Leicester Square.
I mean, mostly in those days it was people like Mari Lloyd.
You know, my old man said follow the band, sort of musical stuff.
W.C. Fields has performed in there, Stan Laurel.
What's interesting, from the 1960s till about the 1980s,
you see up on the roof there, you see they've got, she's called Talia or Thalia.
She's the Greek muse who overlooks poetry and comedy.
But in the 1960s, this was overtaken by, I think it was Mecca,
and it was the bingo hall.
They're always being overtaken by bingo people.
And they ended up renovating these domes and the statue of the Greek muse up there.
But then they did it all cheaply, but failed to realise it's a listed building,
and they were then forced by the council to come back
and redo it using all the proper correct materials and methods,
and it cost them an absolute fortune.
So in the end they ended up having to sell the place,
and now it's gone back to being a theatre, which is what it should be, Simon, don't you think?
Yes.
And it's also where my sister saw Chas and Dave play, and Chas Hodges gave her a kiss.
In fact, the music you can hear is by Chas Hodges' daughter.
Lately I just spent a week with me old Aunt Brown
Came up to see the wonder sights of famous London town
Anyway, very nice.
Look, next to the Hackney Empire is the newer town hall.
We'll come to where the old town hall used to be later.
This is another one of these town halls you get from the 1930s.
On the roof there you've got St George's flag for England,
you've got the Union flag for Britain,
and then the one on the right, that's the Hackney coat of arms.
I don't know if you can see, actually, but I'll refer to that flag later,
so note that that's what it is.
You've got a museum over there in the library.
Now that's a new library, but the old library from 1907,
there's this one here, which they turned into a cinema.
Why do they have to change everything?
I like those old original Truman signs, you know, from the brewery.
I like that. You get points for spotting those original brewery signs on pubs.
And look, you see this road here, Graham Road, number 55 down there.
We're not going to walk all the way up there because it's quite a long way.
But that's where Mari Lloyd used to live.
Now I'm always going on about Mari Lloyd.
I don't know if you know who she was, but she was the queen of the music halls.
My old man said, everyone loved her, but a proper East Ender.
And famously, she sits among the cabbages and peas.
She had all these sort of bawdy, rude, double entendre songs.
But she died quite young, but when she had her funeral,
hundreds of thousands of people showed up.
So it would have been quite an easy short trip for her to walk around the corner
and then up to perform at the Hackney Empire.
I'd have loved to go and see those in those days because there was no TV and radio and stuff.
So that was kind of...
Very special.
Yeah.
Look, this place here, this used to be the station, Oslo.
It's now a cafe, but it dates from about 1870.
Then they had to expand it and everything.
So it's now the Hackney Central station's around the corner.
But it's nice. I like those original stations.
And then around here, this is where the buses all...
The buses still pull in here.
Since the 1880s, when they had these horse-drawn trams,
they used to come in here.
In 1896, it was the North Metropolitan Tram Company.
They converted to electric trams in 1896.
And then in the 1930s, they became trolley buses.
And then in the 1950s, they got diesel buses.
Now, I guess it's back to being...
It's come round in full circle. We're back to electric.
Yeah.
They got it right the first time.
Look at this wonderful tower here, Simon.
This is the one that appears on the coat of arms,
which I was trying to point out to you on the flag,
which was fluttering above the town hall over there.
It was actually built in the 13th century.
Well, not this one.
Originally, there was a church here which was built in the 13th century.
I think it was the Knights Templar. It might have been the other knights.
But anyway, it was rebuilt in the 16th century.
There's St. Augustine's.
Sometime later, around 1798, they decided they needed more room
because the congregation was growing so much here.
So they had to build a bigger church, St. John Hackney, which is around there,
which we'll come to.
But the new church didn't have a strong enough bell tower.
So they decided to keep this one.
And it wasn't until about the 1850s or so
that they managed to strengthen the new tower to accommodate bells.
Just in front of it, actually, you see this?
This is the old vestry hall.
The ancient village of Hackney sort of started around here.
And back in those days, they had the parish system
for, I don't know, administration and stuff like that.
It wasn't until 1900 that they brought in the metropolitan borough system
where they introduced 28 metropolitan borough of Hampstead,
Borough of Camberwell, all those things.
But this was the old vestry hall from 1802.
The reason why it says 1900 on it
is because that's the year in which it all changed
and they introduced these new metropolitan boroughs and everything.
So they gave it a good sort of sprucing up,
and so I think it's been renovated.
A lot of the local boroughs, they wanted snazzy, big civic buildings
like the ones we saw over there.
I think they originally intended to use it for that purpose.
That's why I spruced it all up.
Anyway, now it's one of those kind of pub tap rooms.
You can go in. It's closed at the moment because it's quite early in the morning.
Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do?
I want to go to Birmingham, but they're taking me off to Crewe.
Send me back to London quickly as you can.
Oh, Mr Porter, what a silly girl...
This was obviously a very well-to-do place to be buried.
I mean, they've got all these big family tombs and family vaults,
and I haven't ever seen so many of these chest-style tombs in a row.
There's a lot of them, and some famous people here as well.
Look, Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. There he is.
I mean, he's actually in there, Simon. He's there.
So today is an extremely windy day, funnily enough.
So on the Beaufort wind scale that he came up with,
I mean, what do you think is?
It's not calm, zero, gentle breeze, moderate breeze.
Moderate breeze today, isn't it?
Yeah, moderate breeze, but later on, I mean, yesterday, it was definitely a strong gale.
There's tombstones you can see stacked up over there around the edges.
I expect those are from the old church
because they've cleared out all this area.
This was the graveyard, so they take all the gravestones
and they put them at the side and just stack them all up,
one of whom is Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland.
He was the guy who was betrothed to Anne Boleyn before Henry VIII came along.
He went, Step aside. Step aside, Percy.
I'm having her.
Should have done better just to stick with old Henry Percy.
So he's there. They cleared it out.
All he's got now is a plaque inside the new church.
He also arrested Cardinal Wolsey.
Did well just to stay alive in those days, if you ask me.
Here we go.
So this must be one of the stones that denotes the site of the old church.
This stone, something the site, something something east.
I think this...
The other one's over there.
Yeah, so this is where the old church came to.
They demolished it in 1790.
We're going this way anyway.
This is a sort of pedestrianised bit of Mare Street.
You know, you look up and you notice these things.
So you can see how that used to be a manor house.
You see here, this dates from 1845.
Daniel Tyson.
He was like a manorial steward, whatever that is.
Basically, there was a nice old pub on this location called the New Mermaid.
And they knocked it down so that he could have a manor house here.
Which, if you stand back, you can actually see what it kind of originally looked like.
Yeah, it would have been quite grand, I suppose.
I wonder if they would have had something on this side as well.
I doubt it.
That probably would have stood alone, wouldn't it, back then?
And then they decided, in their wisdom, to turn it into a Greggs and shoe zone.
SEND ME BACK TO LONDON QUICKLY AS YOU CAN
OH, MR. PORTER, WHAT A SILLY GIRL I AM
They do concerts and stuff in there.
And Hackney's so trendy these days.
The Coldplay have played in there.
And Robbie Williams.
I wonder if he played Angels. That probably would have gone down well.
AND THROUGH IT ALL
TRUCHLAND OF LONDON
Merchants.
See, Hackney was quite popular with merchants.
Bankers.
It was the new kind of commuter town, I suppose, around this sort of time.
Like early 19th century.
They built up this area for people.
Because it was quite easy to get into the city from here.
So this was actually quite a well-to-do area.
What else do you see?
Deputy General of the East India Company, this guy.
Look at that.
That was a decent job in those days.
Died 1831.
Must have lived around here, I reckon.
Would that fit the Yale?
Key, security key.
Probably need a skeleton key for that one.
Did you get it?
No.
Hackney has more than its fair share of these phone boxes.
These are the original K2 ones, the nice ones.
They only had about 1,500 of these made.
Then they became too expensive.
So they started making the other ones, which have a little window there.
They're smaller, slightly smaller.
The K3, I think.
Anyway, they're right next to this lovely old police station.
Was it a police station? They're closing them now.
Where'd all the police go?
Yeah, exactly. I don't know.
I think they just wanted to make some money.
I think it was sold off.
I think it was the government decided to sell it off, from what I can gather.
I might be wrong. Don't write in.
It's a school of some sort, but...
Yeah, I mean, I agree.
Why can't they just leave them as police stations?
I suppose that would have had the police light on it, that one there.
Yeah.
It's gone now.
This is a lovely little street, this, by the way.
It's really wonderful.
You've got the Hackney Public Baths over there.
That's from 1897.
So quite a lot of the original old buildings have survived the Luftwaffe here.
But across the road there is one of my favourite shops.
Look at that, Ommitt & Son.
They sell all the old film equipment, film projectors, Super 8, whatever you call it.
You probably know more about it than I do.
Let's go over there.
I just love the look of 16.
16 has got such a beautiful look.
I just love it to bits.
But, you know, this is my favourite.
This one here.
This is the jewel in the crown.
Hey, look at that.
Yes, it's a Gaumont.
It's at least 100 years old.
So it would have been nitrate in those days.
So you'd load your film, 1,000 feet maximum,
which gives you about eight minutes, nine minutes running time.
Well, that would have been an epic in those days.
So you shut it like that in case it catches fire so it stays in there.
The shutter is on the outside.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah, don't get your fingers in there.
It's fully functioning.
Oh, that sound.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, what are you going to have today
that's going to last 100 months, let alone 100 years?
You know.
Look here.
To the cinema.
So you can book this place out.
Oh, that's lovely, isn't it?
Look at that.
You see, you can get like 16 or so people in here.
Let me try this.
How about that?
It's for private bookings.
This is amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is the projector you use?
That's one of them.
That's the Super 16.
That's brilliant.
Yeah, but we can run any film in here.
And people bring in their own?
People bring their own films for a little special screening
or they can choose one of our films.
These seats are original.
These are actually 90 years old.
These are from the 1930s.
These are actually 100 years old.
My very good friend Liam rescued them recently.
They came from Kinema in Blackburn.
Oh, lovely.
These are so comfortable.
From Russia With Love.
He's an extra.
Is it your dad's?
Yeah, just an extra in the opening scene.
Is it really?
Yeah, yeah.
I love that film.
Beginning of From Russia With Love, my daddy's wearing that.
If you look really carefully, you can see him in that chess scene
at the beginning, they're playing chess.
Yeah, it's nice that, yeah.
What a wonderful film.
And he's also in The Avengers quite a lot.
The actual display rack for the VHS tapes
is something I didn't realise I'd missed or even remembered
until I'd just seen one now.
It's like, oh yeah, I remember those.
I sold a copy of Back to the Future.
One got auctioned in LA for $75,000.
$75,000 for a VHS?
They even great them.
They great them.
That's right!
Yeah, they great them.
Nerds.
Authenticates them.
I knew as soon as I brought Simon in here,
they'd have a nerdy conversation.
Alright.
The porter wouldn't stop the train,
but I laughed and said, you must.
Keep your ear on, Mary Ann,
and mind that you don't bust.
You see this square, Clapton Square,
it's laid out in 1816.
Look at some of these beautiful houses around here.
I mean, I was saying earlier about how all these typical people
who'd be living here were like senior merchants,
officers, financial brokers.
When I was a kid, the word Clapton used to fill me with dread
because there was an area along there
that they used to call the murder mile.
Oh, OK.
And I always thought, oh, Clapton.
That's a bit scary.
But, I mean, it's glorious, really.
Look at it.
Tremendous place.
Quite a lot of famous people have come from Hackney, actually.
Idris Elba is from Hackney.
Alan Sugar.
Let me just get over here.
Who else?
I've got Ray Winston from Hackney.
And I'll tell you who else lived here, famously.
Joseph Priestley.
Look, he lived above Domino's.
Anyway, he was the one who invented carbonated water.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I think so.
He said, on the whole,
I spent my life more happily at Hackney
than I had ever done before.
That's because he's living above Domino's.
Exactly.
No problem.
Or because they actually welcomed him here
because he was living up in Birmingham.
Because he supported the French Revolution,
an angry mob hounded him out.
And then he was invited to be a minister
at the old gravel pit chapel, which we'll come to later.
It was popular with Hackney dissenters.
And I like it.
I mean, look at that.
Look up there.
Points for that.
1880 Clapton pavement.
That nice little parade there.
And it's right opposite this beautiful round chapel,
which from 1869 was the United Reformed Church.
It says, built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
And then the cornerstone there is in a round church.
I don't know.
Maybe that's not referring to the stone.
It's referring to Jesus Christ.
But I just find it funny having a cornerstone in a round church.
But it's now, since the 90s, it's a place for performing arts.
They'd have lots of big performances here.
I wonder what that is.
There might be something to tie your horse to or something.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Answers on a postcard to...
I like this shop.
This is excellent.
Is this your shop?
Yeah.
Good stuff in there.
You always find good stuff in these places.
A famous poster that everyone had on their wall.
So we're now here on the other end of that little cut-through.
That down there is where we went to the film shop.
Just down there.
So we've walked all the way around.
And this Strand building, it dates from 1925.
It used to be the old Hackney electricity demonstration halls and offices.
I love those art deco things.
But these days it's just flats.
Since the 90s, actually.
I don't know if it's luxury flats.
Who knows.
But I do like the details.
It's down there as well.
This is a beautifully preserved street.
So it's Sutton Place, it's called.
And these buildings, on this side, these are from 1795 or so.
And you see here, under the pavement here, they've got their coal hole covers here.
So the coal man would deliver their coal down into there.
And then there'd be servants living in the basement there.
Could come and collect the coal.
And take it up to the rest of the house and put it in the fireplaces and stuff.
Filmed the hours.
The hours.
Was that with Nicole Kidman?
I think so.
That was filmed down here.
And actually, I think Colin Firth lived in this street.
They're terrific houses.
Named after Sir Thomas Sutton.
Sir Thomas Sutton, he was the one, I don't know if you saw my Charter House video,
but he's the one who founded the Charter House, the school and the charity for poor boys back in Tudor times.
He used to live in this area.
But then they flattened his house and they built these houses along here.
But around the corner, he got his land here after the dissolution of the monasteries.
So Henry VIII came along, smashed down all the monasteries and nicked everybody's land.
And that's how Sir Thomas Sutton, who was an arms dealer and the richest man in England,
managed to end up with that stuff there.
But look, over here is Sutton House, which is the oldest in Hackney.
Come over here.
Look, it was built in 1535, this house, for a guy called Ralph Sadlier.
Anyway, he was a courtier who worked for Thomas Cromwell.
And it has had lots of uses in the past.
It's been a school.
It's belonged to merchants.
All sorts of people down the ages.
But in the 1980s, it had squatters in here.
It's amazing to think a house like that was squatted.
But anyway, they've beautifully preserved it.
It's closed at the moment, so I'll have to go through the keyhole another time with Julesy.
Oh, this must be the kitchen.
Servants' quarters. Meals are all prepared in this.
This must be that thing that they use.
It's like a bed warmer.
They warm up the hot coals in there, and then they put them into your bed.
Upstairs.
Now, upstairs to the family's quarters.
Upstairs.
Someone's having something nice for dinner there.
Feels like everybody just left.
They've done a fabulous job, I must say.
It feels very Tudor in here.
Do you ever watch Homes Under the Hammer?
Stairs going up to the bedrooms?
It's amazing.
This is like, wow.
This is from when it was a squat.
They've decided to recreate the time, the period when this place was a squat.
Can't really blame them.
We came down this road.
That's Sutton House here.
Sutton Place hasn't been built yet.
So we've got Sutton Place over there with all the nice houses.
Over here is where the carriages and stuff would have waited.
For the big, wealthy families there,
and they'd have their carriages and horses out in the back here.
And at the back of the gardens over there,
they had the night soil path.
It's like the night soil path was where your night soil man,
who had the most disgusting job in the world,
would have to come along and remove all your effluents
and all your poos and stuff from your cesspit out the back
because they didn't have flushing toilets or whatever.
So he'd come along there.
And there's the river, the Hackney Brook,
coming down the back of Sutton House there.
Actually, the river, the Hackney Brook,
ran along the back there and then down further over,
but that didn't get turned into the sewer until later on.
So they still, at this stage, didn't have a sewer.
And so they had to send the night soil man to come and get your poos.
I don't know what his wife said when he got home.
I mean, imagine if that was your job.
People do it all the time now with their dogs, don't they?
Don't bother them.
What's the difference with humans, Simon?
There's a lot of difference.
LAUGHTER
This is the Burberry Outlet store,
so if you want some discounted Burberry clothing, you come here.
Thomas Burberry was from Basingstoke.
He started up the Burberry company.
I think he was really young at the time. He was, like, 21 or something.
Later on, they invented this waterproof material
called Garberdine or something,
which was used for the trench coats in the First World War.
And even Shackleton wore Burberries
on several of his expeditions to the South Pole.
I mean, even the Queen and King Charles,
they have royal warrants from Burberry.
Look at that.
There's quite a lot of housing estates around here.
And right in the middle of them, a stink pipe.
Points to me. Yes.
I mean, I've noticed you get a lot of these
along the routes of underground rivers.
The Hackney Brook, which was the one that went along
behind the houses in Sutton Place,
it now runs in a tube or something.
It's been turned into a sewer.
And I've noticed you get a lot of those nearby
to take all the smelly, woofy smells out there
and out up into the air.
Anyway, points for that.
Look up there. You see that church?
You see at the top, there's a cock on top of the church.
Yeah, that's what he means in King Lear,
when he's saying,
Drench the steeples, drown the cocks.
Blow winds and crack your cheeks.
Rage, blow ye cataracts and hurricanes.
He's talking about drench the steeples, drown the cocks.
He's saying, drown out those weather veins,
which all tend to look like cocks in those days,
because cockerels, sorry, I'm not trying to be rude,
because it represents St Peter denying Jesus
three times before the cock crowed twice.
That's why you have those cocks quite often on top of churches,
in case you were wondering.
Look, if you look over here, you can just about see,
I mean, it's all just overgrown now,
but there's a few little graves and stuff.
This was the old New Gravel Pit Chapel,
which stood on this site from 1810 to 1970.
So that's its graveyard.
So some of the graves are still there,
and that's the one where Joseph Priestley,
he was invited to be a minister here at the chapel.
Anyway, that is all that remains around the colossal wreck.
The lone and desert sands stretch far away.
This is what it's all about, Simon.
1930s architecture.
You see, this is how they used to do things well in those days.
That beautiful building from 1937, Lennox House,
was designed by J.E.M. McGregor.
He went on to become the professor of architecture
at Cambridge University, actually.
I think the idea was to have a marketplace underneath,
so they could sell stuff and, I don't know,
finance the buildings or something.
Anyway, it's quite an unusual design, don't you think?
I've always liked that effect.
It's an in-and-out. The ribbons, it's like a ribbon.
Oh, well, they each have a nice balcony,
and they're nicely done.
A lot of charity shops and second-hand furniture shops,
and other really nice, swanky, new-looking places as well.
It's a bit of an incongruity, this street.
It is eclectic.
My favourite thing about this street is this stamp dispenser.
Look at that. You only get points for spotting this.
This is on the George VI post box,
which you could do with a lick of paint.
Oh, look, good action shot there for us. Thanks.
And look at this, see?
Do you remember those? I haven't seen one for ages.
Out... Out of use.
Yeah, so you put your coin in there, 50-pence coins only,
and then you pull that, and your stamps will pop out of there.
And every child who was worth their salt
would definitely put their finger in there
and check to see if anyone had left some money.
I always used to do that.
It's lovely. You don't see those anymore.
I used to live in one of these houses.
I can't remember exactly which one, but it was...
I would have been here back in 2002.
Was it as nice as that back then?
It was still nice back then.
Between you and your brother, you must have lived everywhere in London,
cos you were just around the corner
from probably the most beautiful terrace of houses in Hackney,
or one of them, Castlen Road here. Look at this.
This is from 1792, this was built.
Well, I'm very glad I did live here,
because it was so... You know, it was typical London digs.
Yeah. Very romantic.
You know, that townhouse, you know,
stuff you'd see on TV and film through the years,
and then, you know, as a young person sharing a house, that's great.
See those coats of arms up there at the top of the building?
Those are the three different developers
who built that terrace in 1792.
Nice that they're remembered up there.
On his clean old shirt front that I laid me trembling head
Take it easy, rest a while, the dear old chap he said...
See, this isn't like the one that we just saw.
This isn't a stamp dispenser.
This is a... I think this is a box
for the postman to leave his letters in
when he's doing a round or something.
Still get points for spotting these,
and again, it's another King George VI postbox
that's in need of a lick of paint.
And it's right next door to the Munger House.
In the year 1670, Henry Munger left money in his will
for houses for poor men over 60,
which gives you some idea.
Don't think it's that long until we'll qualify for something like this.
So if you're over 60 years of age, back in 1670,
you could have stayed in one of these,
although they actually did refurbish them in Victorian times.
Some of the brickwork is still original,
but, yeah, it's had a refurbishment, essentially.
It's been housing poor people for nearly 400 years.
And on me do not frown
You shall have my mansion dear away in London town
Church of St John of Jerusalem.
This spire up here,
originally this is from 1845, this church,
this was used by the Luftwaffe
when they flew across Hackney Marshes on their bombing raids.
They would use this as a kind of marker to find their way.
And then, stupidly, they bombed it.
And so they couldn't use it as a marker any more.
They had to lower that new steeple in using a helicopter.
But that's how they put the new one on.
Is this a flying buttress?
I think that's a flying buttress.
You seemed a nice old boy, so I replied this way.
I will be your own for life
You may doodle on the empty wine
We've swung back round to Mare Street,
so straight up this road is about where we began at Hackney Empire.
But I wanted to come here to Victor Wynne's Museum of Curiosities
where, quite some years ago, vintage jewels paid a visit.
Now, if you're in Hackney and you want a genuinely eccentric English experience,
come and check out Victor Wynne's Museum of Curiosity
at number 11, Mare Street.
Had you loved me, as a shining ray of love
should warm the darkness of my life,
the first frob of my grief-stricken soul
would be a happy rhapsody.
My name is Victor Wynne,
and the hope is to get the whole world into a little box.
These are the preserved front bottoms of Victorian prostitutes
collected by a Glaswegian surgeon.
A well-used vagina.
I, Victor Wynne, do most solemnly swear that I witnessed Amy Winehouse
pooing into this jar on the 25th of November.
No way. Seriously, that is hers?
Come downstairs. You've passed the mermaid at the bottom of the...
Sorry we're late. I'm well.
We haven't started yet. Have a glass or something.
I loved the fairies, because you're always finding a fairy in a corner
doing something naughty.
There's an artist called Tessa Farmer who makes these little fairies.
So here, for example, the fairies are releasing a vial of clothes moss.
Napoleon's death mask.
Then we move to Sebastian Horsley.
Those are the nails that he used when he crucified himself.
There's so many weird and wonderful things that you've actually never seen.
But there's something for everyone.
You're actually quite speechless.
A shrunken head from the Amazon.
Magical soap from the Thieves' Market in Mexico City.
I honestly think this is the weirdest place I've ever been.
Have a silkworm.
OK, marvellous. In for a penny.
The largest egg in the world that was laid by the extinct elephant bird in Madagascar.
Next door we've got the sarcophagus with the human skeleton.
You can rent that for dinner parties and you can also rent it for intimate moments.
If you're having an intimate moment, we ask you not to put too much pressure on that table.
These Chinese dildos, you can hire them by the hour.
Oh my good lord.
It's only open from Wednesday till Sunday, but you've really got to see it to believe it.
He's totally bonkers. He belongs in some sort of Gothic novel or something.
The guileful hesitations would no longer dare to show their crafty face.
You would be found amid divine visions.
Rose blossoms would have adorned the bramble of life, had you loved me.
I'm wondering why I recognise the name Jay Hoyland's son.
And I'm wondering if they are the...
Because it says foundry there. Established 1880.
So it's quite possible they might have done some of the coal hole covers.
If you see a Jay Hoyland's son coal hole cover, let me know.
Because that would be really cool.
I love the fact that, look at these old buildings with all the cranes and everything.
Evokes the era, doesn't it Simon?
So much for our sunny day.
Come here, we're in Broadway Market here.
All very well to do these days.
Very posh. This is Cat and Mutton Bridge.
Cats in the old days, the cat was a reference to the coal barges that used to go up the canal.
Because this is the canal that goes all the way from the docks in the east round to Paddington.
And the Grand Union Canal.
So it's called Cat and Mutton Bridge.
Because it's referring to the cats which are those coal barges that went up and down.
And mutton, as in the sheep, which used to come down.
We just passed it actually, Sheep Lane.
Which is just parallel to Broadway Market.
And they'd come down here I suppose on their way to Smithfield.
Points for spotting a Stone Street sign there.
That's quite nice.
This was a real working class kind of market back since 1883.
They say this is one of the markets they based EastEnders on.
I don't know, it was one of them anyway.
It's all rather changed these days.
It's all full of very good looking, well dressed people.
I suppose they think they're having fun.
Look, this place.
So this was actually a Pioneer shop until quite recently.
Still says Hot Jelly Deals.
When you look up close it's actually turned into a optician.
It might look a bit strange going to the optician to get Jelly Deals.
Old Fred Cook, he started that up, well it says up there 1862.
He moved here in 1900.
And he was selling all these eels and stuff to the cattle drovers who would bring the sheep down.
Bloke's grandson was still working here around 2007.
I think it's time to go to the pub.
What shall I do?
I want to go to Birmingham but they're taking me off to Crewe.
Send me back to London quickly.
Good, cheers Simon.
Cheers.
Cheers everybody, thanks for watching.
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button if you like the videos.
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Anyway, see you next time.
Oh Mr Potter, what a silly girl I am.
