Hackney Road is a London arterial route running from Shoreditch Church to Cambridge Heath. It occupies a no mans land in between Bethnal Green and Haggerston. For half of its course it forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

It has yet to experience the gentrification of nearby Columbia Road or Broadway Market and presents a spectacle of inner city urban dereliction (Harrison 1985). Derelict buildings include many defunct pubs - such as the curiously named 'Flying Scud' - and the empty Children's Hospital. Completing the picture are striptease venues such as Browns, The Olde Axe and Images (Clifton 2002), bingo halls, fast-food outlets and building sites. However, there is a city farm, which brings a touch of the pastoral to this particularly urban area. Hackney City Farm is located at the junction of (intersection with) Goldsmith's Row on the northern (Hackney) side of the road. Next to the farm is Haggerston Park.

In 2008 a 178-room Days Hotel London Shoreditch opened at the junction with Pritchard's Road.

Hackney Road is served by the 55, 48 and 26 buses.

On 21 July 2005 at 13:30 BST a small explosion occurred on the Number 26 bus travelling from Waterloo to Hackney Wick, on Hackney Road at the corner with Columbia Road. There were no fatalities in the explosion.

References

• Clifton, L. (2002) Baby Oil and Ice: Striptease in East London. The Do-Not Press Limited: London.
• Harrison, P. (1985) Inside the Inner City: Life Under the Cutting Edge. Penguin: Harmondsworth.

External links

• London Borough of Hackney
• Days Hotel London Shoreditch