Another busy week and another lack of blogging on my part...
Last week on Thursday I spent time investigating Hackney
Wick’s heritage as part of our ongoing investigation into the area- this was
all the more enjoyable as the weekend before I had wandered up the Lea
Navigation Canal from here and spotted some of the buildings I was then reading
about. This area is very bounded: To the West and North the A12, to the East, the
river Lea and the Olympic Park and running through the centre is Lea Navigation
and Hackney Cut where it links with the Hertford Union Canal running in from
the west. More on this soon. Despite its proximity to the Olympics it has a very distinctive feel and is still very industrial- the smell of the Bagel factory is particularly enticing!
I also spent time investigating English Heritage’s listed
buildings databases and attempting to create maps through an experimental
database tool that can output entries directly as map pins on a Google map
called Google fusion- (sorry for tall the Googles).
Friday brought a visit to the Woodberry Down estate in the
North of Hackney where the Senior Bees building explorers learnt about the history
of the estate and its massive 15+ year transformation and commensurate doubling
of its density to over 4000 homes. The tour of the first phase of development
we had was all the more impressive to me given that I had worked on one of the
sites as an archaeologist in 2008- where once stood a bombed out 1920’s house
there is now a 27 storey tower block.
Friday afternoon brought massive amounts of photocopying,
laminating and preparation for our visit to Culloden school on Monday 6th
which I will talk about tomorrow!
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