IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Howard Road, LONDON, N16 8PP

Church Walk, heading north and running parallel to Albion Road.

This was the path running between Newington Green and Stoke Newington for those who wished to attend the latter's old village church. Easily overlooked, it now threads between shabby houses and back gardens but still retains a rustic character in its winding route.

This Unitarian chapel was founded in 1708 and is the oldest nonconformist place of worship still used in London. The banner on the right commemorates its most famous member, Mary Wollstonecraft, who, attracted by the dissenting community around the Green, came to live and briefly to run a school there, with her sisters and a friend, in the early 1780s.

Building on the corner of Newington Green and Albion Road.

The Unitarian Church on the north side of Newington Green.

Rain clouds gather over these blocks of flats on the north side of Matthias Road. The two blocks facing each other across the green form the Hewling estate and were constructed in the late 1930s to replace an area of poor quality housing. Hewling House is to the left, Matthias House to the right; there were originally three blocks but the third was destroyed by a Second World War bomb. The tall block in the background is Chaucer House, part of the Milton Gardens Estate. More details of the history of this area are available here: http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/municipal-housing/howard/index.htm

Newington Green itself is a pleasant relaxing open space in North London, ringed by fine mature plane trees on all sides. A small cafe is sometimes open.

The green provided grazing for sheep and cattle for centuries until "In 1742 the green, previously 'a most rude wilderness with large old trees' was railed in... In 1761 Newington Green was a 'pleasant village' consisting of a 'handsome square' surrounded by generally well built houses, with a row of trees on each side and an extensive grass plat in the centre... Among the inhabitants was Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731), who was educated at Morton's academy and in 1684 married a girl from Newington Green, where in 1692 he tried to raise civet cats." The civet cats, of which he had 70, provided musk which was used to make perfume. This enterprise, like many more of Defoe's, failed and the civets cats were seized in lieu of arrears.