Clapton, London
Clapton is a district of east London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney.
Clapton is divided into Upper Clapton, in the north, and Lower Clapton to the south. Clapton railway station lies north-east of Charing Cross.
Geography and origins
The hamlet of Clapton emerged in the manor and Ancient Parish of Hackney.Origins
The hamlet of Clapton was, from 1339 until the 18th century normally rendered as Clopton, meaning the "farm on the hill". The Old English clop - "lump" or "hill" - presumably denoted the high ground which rises from the River Lea. Clapton grew up as a linear hamlet along the road subsequently known as Lower and Upper Clapton Road. As the area became urbanised, the extent of the area called Clapton eventually increased to encompass most of the north-eastern quarter of Hackney.Scope
Because Clapton has never been an administrative unit, it has never had any defined boundaries, though the E5 postcode area has been influential in shaping perceptions of the area's extent, E5 occupies most of the north-east of Hackney. The district borders the River Lea to the east.Describing Clapton as approximating to E5 is useful, but informal and imperfect - postcode areas are not intended to define districts. An example of the imperfection of using E5 is that part of the community around Clapton Common is excluded from the postal district despite almost always being publicly viewed as being part of Upper Clapton.
Administrative history
The Ancient Parish of Hackney split from Stepney in the Middle Ages and had consistent boundaries from that time on.The area was part of the historic county of Middlesex, but military and most civil county functions were managed more locally, by the Tower Division, a historic ‘county within a county’, under the leadership of the Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets. The military loyalty to the Tower meant local men served in the Tower garrison and Tower Hamlets Militia, rather than the Middlesex Militia. This arrangement lasted until 1900.
In 1900 the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney was formed, using the boundaries of the former parish, and it became part of the County of London. In 1965 Hackney merged with the boroughs of Shoreditch and Stoke Newington to form the modern London Borough of Hackney, part of a new larger county of Greater London.
Upper and Lower Clapton
Clapton was a linear hamlet covering an extended roadside area.From the early 19th century, manorial courts distinguished the parts north and south of Lea Bridge Road as Upper and Lower Clapton, and those names soon passed into general use with Hackney Lane becoming known as Lower and Upper Clapton roads. In the late 19th century the stretch of road through the Clapton Common to Stamford Hill was named Clapton Common.
The junction with Lea Bridge Road is still used to define Upper and Lower Clapton; Kenninghall Road is an extension of Lea Bridge Road and as such also provides a convenient point of reference between the two parts of Clapton.
Clapton Park, on the eastern side of Lower Clapton, combines Victorian terraces around Chatsworth Road and the post-war Clapton Park Estate. In the east of this neighbourhood, terraced housing was demolished by Hackney Council and rebuilt in the 1970s, with a small shopping precinct around Gilpin Square, and is today mostly a low-rise estate. Chatsworth Road's market, which historically ran 4–5 days a week, was revived as a Sunday market in 2010, having closed in 1990.
Latter history
Brooke House
A large house known as the King's House stood on the site now occupied by BSix Sixth Form College, as early 1476. The house was within a estate, which was described as the Manor of Hackney from about 1532 to the early 17th century — although there were two other manors in the south of the Parish.In 1532, Henry Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, acquired the estate from Sir Richard Neville. However, in January 1535 the land was taken by Henry VIII; in settlement of a debt. The King visited the house in April 1535 and on 24 September 1535 he granted his "manor or principal messuage of Hackney" to Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister. Cromwell refurbished the house, and on 1 May 1536, returned the house to the King. In July 1536, Ralph Sadleir brought Mary I of England to the house to swear the Oath of Supremacy before her father, and Jane Seymour, the Queen. Henry continued to own the house until his death in January 1547. Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, died in the house in Hackney known as the "King's House" on 24 June 1604.
The name of the house derives from its purchase by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, in 1621 — which led to ownership by the family for over 200 years. The house became tenanted after 1724, but in 1758-9 the house was modified by a lessee, William Clarke who converted it to a lunatic asylum. The site remained in this use until 1940. It was notably managed by the Monro dynasty of doctors from 1762 to 1891, several of whom simultaneously occupied the position of Bethlem Physician; the third of these, Thomas Monro, was a prominent art collector and early patron of J. M. W. Turner, who painted the asylum circa 1794.
Clapton Cinematograph Theatre at 229 Lower Clapton Road was opened in 1910, one of the earliest purpose-built cinemas in London, established in response to the Cinematograph Act of 1909.
The remains of the house were destroyed by enemy action in October 1940. of Brooke House were purchased by the London County Council in 1944, and further bomb damage occurred that year. The house was finally demolished in 1954, and archaeological investigations of the Tudor palace took place in 1955-6. New school buildings were erected in 1960, designed by Armstrong and MacManus.
21st century
The 2011 England riots affected Clapton, with Clarence Road being the epicentre of the rioting in the district, and was the site of Pauline Pearce's viral "Heroine of Hackney" speech, where she chastised rioters for their behaviour.In 2018, parts of Clapton were flooded due to a burst water main on Waterworks Lane off the Lea Bridge Road, with flood water pouring into the River Lea.
Local features
The Abode of Love
Upper Clapton is home to one of London's more unusual churches, the Church of the Good Shepherd, which was used as a place of worship by a splinter group of the Catholic Apostolic Church and now is used by the Georgian Orthodox Church. However, the church was originally built by the Agapemonite cult in 1892 as the Church of the Ark of the Covenant.The Agapemonites, who held unconventional views on marriage and the role of women, relocated to Upper Clapton from their spiritual community in Spaxton, Somerset, and had prospered by this time. Although it is fairly conventional in floor plan, the outside of the church features extensive statuary and symbolism. The main doorways have large carvings of angels and the four evangelists symbolised by a man, an eagle, a bull and a lion. The same four figures, cast in bronze, look out over the four quarters of the Earth from the base of the steeple. The two flanking weather vanes are inspired by William Blake's Jerusalem and depict a fiery chariot and a sheaf of arrows, while the main steeple is clearly surmounted by a spear. The stained glass windows, designed by noted children's book illustrator Walter Crane, and made by J S Sparrow, illustrate the 'true station of womankind'.
The church, which was completed in 1895, was designed by Joseph Morris and his family, some of whom were members of the sect. The style is Gothic Revival; for its "curiosity value" it was designated a Grade II-listed building on 12 September 1969.
The cult had always been surrounded by scandal during its sojourn in Somerset and, after the move to Clapton, this degenerated into sheer farce. The original leader, Henry James Prince, who claimed to be immortal, died in 1899 and was succeeded by the charming but philandering John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, who wasted no time before declaring himself as the Messiah. Challenged by a jeering mob to prove his godhood by walking across Clapton Pond, Smyth-Pigott declined and retired to Somerset, where he was said to enjoy the favours of as many as seven "spiritual brides" a week. Smyth-Pigott, who also claimed immortality, died in 1927, after which the cult went into decline. The Clapton church had already been abandoned by the cult and was acquired first by the Ancient Catholic Church in 1956, and then by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2005.