Community Stories

Very off topic - How can I find a picture of a house in Hackney c1925 now demolished?

JACK G
Posts
359
Likes
647
My wife's mum was born in a house called "The Hollies" 61 Mare Street, Hackney, London which was demolished many years ago. After painstaking research we have managed to identify the exact location - it was on the corner of Mare Street and Bush Road. Bush Road was not built until many years after the house was demolished.

The house was believed to be an old hunting lodge and had cells with chains in the basement.

There were two large Holly bushes in the front garden hence the name "The Hollies".

61 Mare Street is now a modern building housing The Five Points Brewing Company and "The Hollies" would have been on land that was partly the site of the brewery and the rest Bush Road.

We have visited the Hackney Archives, the Hackney Museum and have also been in contact with the Hackney Society who suggests the houses in this area were demolished around 1930 which ties in with my wife's mum's stay there.

The Hackney Society supplied the map below which we think is c1870 certainly before the railway was built which ran across the middle of the original garden to the house.

We have also established that number 61 on this map is the last large house to the left of the letter 'R' in Mare Street.

At the bottom of the map you can see the word Grove - this is a road called Ash Grove.

No one has been able to help with a picture so any ideas how we could track down a photo or period drawing/painting?

The Hollies..png
 
Lucasssssss
Posts
622
Likes
996
The first place I would suggest to look is " Pevsners Architectural guides". However, they were begun in the 1940s, so may be too late for your needs, either way, it is definitely worth a look to see what it says on that house, or houses in the area. Often Architects worked in groups, so if you could find the architect of the street, you may be able to find similar houses, and/or research the architectural drawings, they are usually held somewhere.

I would also go to the national archives, who may hold Architectural drawings of the area, (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/tudorhackney/ab1.asp) this website looks promising.

It also might be worth consulting Hackney Council's archives (are these the archives you have already looked at?), it says on their website they have over 20,000 photographs/drawings, you might find some luck there (http://apps.hackney.gov.uk/servapps/historicimages/results.asp) you can search by Mare Street, it brings up about 50 matches.

Let us know how you get on
 
JesterP
Posts
252
Likes
266
Your right it is a little off topic. It may be worth looking into paintings aswell as photos I had a quick look and found this. I found a painting of my very first home which was built 200ish years ago and was bob smacked to see it surrounded by fields. And a painting or print is a little nicer I think.
HSW_SCAT_002.jpg
 
lillatroll
Posts
2,743
Likes
4,338
Facebook?, there are loads of historical groups on there. For my home town, Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan Wales there are many different groups and local historians that can tell you the most random facts about it.
 
Spruce
Posts
7,676
Likes
61,943
Local libraries often have connections with archive photos
 
Vitezi
Posts
3,190
Likes
13,859
You might have some luck searching through aerial photographs. Try this site:
https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/search?keywords=hackney&country=global&year=all

Based on your map, the closest aerial photo I can find of the Hackney section is from 1936:
EPW050914.jpg

I think Mare Street and Ash Grove is near the red arrow in the upper right:
upload_2018-9-12_18-11-54.png


But I can't really claim to know what I'm looking at 😟
 
upload_2018-9-12_18-8-49.png upload_2018-9-12_18-11-54.png
tyrantlizardrex
Posts
8,890
Likes
28,363
The Museum of London have epic archives... worth getting in touch with them before they start the relocation and lots of stuff goes into Blyth House for storage...
 
Professor
Posts
2,327
Likes
2,539
"The house was believed to be an old hunting lodge and had cells with chains in the basement. "
For hunting hounds, or for missing hikers recruited for the most dangerous game?
 
citizenrich
Posts
2,617
Likes
5,602
Professor Professor
"The house was believed to be an old hunting lodge and had cells with chains in the basement. "
For hunting hounds, or for missing hikers recruited for the most dangerous game?

Probably for unlucky highwaymen. Lol
 
JACK G
Posts
359
Likes
647
lillatroll lillatroll
Facebook?, there are loads of historical groups on there. For my home town, Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan Wales there are many different groups and local historians that can tell you the most random facts about it.

Thanks lillatroll - an excellent idea and I know it gets a very wide audience but I don't do Facebook or any social media except this forum and TZUK!

Jack
 
JACK G
Posts
359
Likes
647
Lucasssssss Lucasssssss
The first place I would suggest to look is " Pevsners Architectural guides". However, they were begun in the 1940s, so may be too late for your needs, either way, it is definitely worth a look to see what it says on that house, or houses in the area. Often Architects worked in groups, so if you could find the architect of the street, you may be able to find similar houses, and/or research the architectural drawings, they are usually held somewhere.

I would also go to the national archives, who may hold Architectural drawings of the area, (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/tudorhackney/ab1.asp) this website looks promising.

It also might be worth consulting Hackney Council's archives (are these the archives you have already looked at?), it says on their website they have over 20,000 photographs/drawings, you might find some luck there (http://apps.hackney.gov.uk/servapps/historicimages/results.asp) you can search by Mare Street, it brings up about 50 matches.

Let us know how you get on

Thanks Lucasssssss - some great tips there which I will follow up.

We have visited The Hackney Council's archives a couple of times and I think it depends on the knowledge of the person you talk to how lucky you are.

Jack
 
rcs914
Posts
2,510
Likes
3,729
So I spent probably a couple hours on this yesterday, seeing what I could find. It appears that the house you are looking for would have been on the corner of Beck and Mare, before Bush street was made, and across the street from the Trinity Church. I found a neat site where you can choose various maps of london and overlay them with older maps - the one I have used here is from around 1900 I think. You can vary the opacity of the map as well to get a better idea of old vs modern placement. I found a couple pictures only of the Trinity Church, and a couple of the intersection of King Edward's and Mare, but none seem to look the right direction.

Here's the map site, which you might find useful as well:

https://davidrumsey.georeferencer.com/maps/377744797115/view

To start I just searched for Mare street in the upper left and then was able to find the correct area:

mare.JPG


This is where I started from - you may need to go back to this if you want to look at a different map:

https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/Ha...ate_from=0&date_to=9999&scale_from=&scale_to=
Edited:
 
JACK G
Posts
359
Likes
647
rcs914 rcs914
So I spent probably a couple hours on this yesterday, seeing what I could find. It appears that the house you are looking for would have been on the corner of Beck and Mare, before Bush street was made, and across the street from the Trinity Church. I found a neat site where you can choose various maps of london and overlay them with older maps - the one I have used here is from around 1900 I think. You can vary the opacity of the map as well to get a better idea of old vs modern placement. I found a couple pictures only of the Trinity Church, and a couple of the intersection of King Edward's and Mare, but none seem to look the right direction.

Here's the map site, which you might find useful as well:

https://davidrumsey.georeferencer.com/maps/377744797115/view

To start I just searched for Mare street in the upper left and then was able to find the correct area:

mare.JPG

Hello rcs914,

I appreciate the time you spent on this and the map overlay function is excellent.

The houses in Beck Road do in fact back onto Bush Road but 61 was not on the corner of Mare Street and Beck Road. There is a block of 4 shops/houses on Mare Street between Beck Road and Bush as can be seen in this link

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...c078142c280c4a6!8m2!3d51.5366812!4d-0.0572263

We viewed the drainage plans dated 1892 for this block yesterday (all gripping stuff) at the Hackney Archives and they were built before Bush Road. The earliest map in the archives showing Bush Road was dated 1987.

When 61 was demolished the site first became a swimming baths for a while before being redeveloped again and Bush Road being built.

I emailed the editor of The Hackney Gazette this morning and he has just responded saying he will print my search details in their letters page so we might get lucky that way.
 
JACK G
Posts
359
Likes
647
Vitezi Vitezi
From 1895:
https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201481

upload_2018-9-13_11-3-10.png upload_2018-9-13_11-7-53.png

Thanks Vitezi,

The 1895 map is really clear and "The Hollies" is the large house on the left of letters A and R in Mare Street.

You can also see the block of 4 shops/houses built c1892 and mentioned in my post above.

If you look at the map in my original post you can see how the railway cut through the land at the rear - I reckon it was an early case of 'not in my back yard!"

Jack
Edited:
 
Sign up or log in to reply...

Similar threads

oddboy

Here's a picture of a watch and a picture of something else

oddboy Open Discussion
STANDY
STANDY
Posts
116
Views
9K