Stoke Newington: Public services

Public services

There was a common well on Newington Green c. 1541 (fn. 39) and the main public source was the parish pond on the south side of Church Street near the old rectory, mentioned in 1569 as the pillory pond. (fn. 40) In 1828 it was filled in and a well and pump were fixed on the site. (fn. 41) In the 1560s William Patten spent considerable sums on supplying water to the manor house. (fn. 42) Permission to pipe or fetch water from neighbouring wells or pumps often featured in 18th-century leases. (fn. 43)

Some houses, particularly in Church Street, paid for piped water from the New River in the early 18th century. (fn. 44) From c. 1724 when the course was altered, the New River Co. was bound to supply Abney House and houses built on the demense free of charge. (fn. 45) Six houses in Church Street were thus supplied in 1825, (fn. 46) By will dated 1664 Thomas Stock directed that the rent from one of his houses was to be applied to bringing the New River water along Church Street. (fn. 47) In 1897 the task was said to have been effected without any charge on Stock's property. (fn. 48) By 1856 nearly all houses within Hackney district had water laid on by the New River Co. or by the East London Water Works Co., which in that year provided service pipes in Paradise Row (fn. 49) but in 1867 only four houses in the district were on constant supply and houses in Cock and Castle Lane were supplied from two common cocks. (fn. 50) The water supply was still only intermittent until 1896 when the vestry's demand for a constant supply was met. (fn. 51) In 1904 the Metropolitan Water Board superseded all the metropolitan water companies (fn. 52) until itself superseded by the Thamas Water Authority under the Water Act of 1973. (fn. 53)

Natural drainage was mostly by Hackney brook, north of Church Street. (fn. 54) In 1831, when cholera broke out, there was said to be a lot of bad drainage, Hackney (then called Manor) brook being particularly filthy. (fn. 55) In 1843 the vestry appointed a committee to deal with the drain next to Queen Elizabeth's Walk, a tributary of the brook. (fn. 56) In 1848 the brook, in the absence of a common sewer even in the main street and under the pressure of increased population, was said to be the receptacle of everything offensive. Drains were being laid from new houses directly to the brook. (fn. 57) In 1852 the vestry requested the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers to cover part of the brook, which carried 'the most obnoxious drainage from Highbury and Holloway', (fn. 58) and following further proposals in 1855 (fn. 59) and 1856 the M.B.W., which had superseded the commissioners, agreed to replace the brook with a northern high level sewer, (fn. 60) and Hackney board undertook to provide sewers along the most populous roads, from Kingsland to Stamford Hill and along Church Street. (fn. 61) Most sewers had been constructed by 1860 (fn. 62) and the whole system of main drainage was operating by 1868. (fn. 63) South Hornsey's sewage, previously discharged into the metropolitan sewers without payment, (fn. 64) was in 1874 officially admitted to the metropolitan system and the district charged sewerage rates. (fn. 65)

Watchmen were employed in the 16th century. Inhabitants were presented at the manor court in 1569 for the failure of the watch when summoned by the constable and in 1571 for failing to keep a watchman to guard a house within the demesne. (fn. 66) Payments were made for a watch in 1698 (fn. 67) and the churchwardens' accounts in 1707 included disbursements to a private watch. (fn. 68) In 1750 the inhabitants of Stoke Newington raised subscriptions to provide a guard on the London road to protect coach and foot passengers. (fn. 69) In 1774, when Stoke Newington was said to be'from its situation exposed to frequent robberies, burglaries, and other outrages', an Act was passed to light, watch, and water the parish: trustees who met each August and were empowered to make a rate of up to Is. in the £, employed eight watchmen during the winter. (fn. 70) There were clashes between the trustees and the vestry in 1784 and 1786, when the vestry considered raising subscriptions to employ its own watchmen during the summer. (fn. 71) In 1828 there were nine night watchmen paid weekly by the trustees during winter and four patrols of private watchmen supported by voluntary contributions. (fn. 72) The vestry tried again in 1829, as it had in 1786, to gain control over the trustees. (fn. 73)

Stoke Newington was included in the metropolitan police area from 1829 (fn. 74) and in 1830 the vestry declared that the new police were better than the watch, although there were complaints that parts of the parish, especially Cut Throat Lane, Lordship Road, Woodberry Down, and the northern part of Green Lanes, were insufficiently policed. (fn. 75) The lighting and watching trustees in 1854 were still concerned with lighting and watering the roads and employed a salaried clerk. (fn. 76) The London road and Green Lanes, which were lighted, watched, and watered under the turnpike Act of 1815, (fn. 77) were administered by a committee of the metropolitan turnpike roads commissioners from 1827 to 1836, who employed watchmen and a horse patrol. The numbers of the watchmen were steadily reduced from 25 in 1828 to 12 in 1834; in 1829 their swords were removed and in 1830 pistols were declared 'not necessary'. (fn. 78)

Punishments were presumably administered in and near the parish or pillory pond in Church Street in the 16th century. The constable was presented in 1572 for inadequate stocks and cucking stool and in 1576 the lord of the manor was to provide a tumbrel for scolds. (fn. 79) Control had presumably passed to the vestry by 1700 when the churchwardens' accounts included payments for repairing the stocks. (fn. 80) In 1716 the vestry ordered a cage to be built, and the next year someone pulled down both cage and stocks. (fn. 81) The culprit undertook to replace them in 1718 but in 1721 the vestry decided to move the cage, stocks, and whipping post to a place near the Green Dragon since their previous position, presumably also on the London road, was considered a nuisance by the road trustees. (fn. 82) The vestry decided to build a new cage on the south side of the brook in High Street, near the bridge at Stamford Hill, in 1803. (fn. 83) The cage was moved yet again in 1824, when it was built on land given by Joseph Eade in Red Lion Lane, near the pound and engine house. (fn. 84) The metropolitan police took over the cage and were presented in 1831 for erecting a chimney at the police station house in Red Lion Lane. (fn. 85) Although the police retained the station in 1870, by 1834 they were refusing to take charges there and Stoke Newington people had to go to Kingsland, presumably to the watchhouse on the Hackney side of High Street, south of Shacklewell Lane. (fn. 86) The police also had stables in Barrett's Grove by 1848 (fn. 87) and in 1868 built a station at no. 33 High Street. A new section house was acquired in 1913 and rebuilding of the station was planned in 1959 and again for 1976; in 1982, however, the station was still essentially the Victorian one of 1868, although new offices had been built in Victorian Road. Stoke Newington formed part of the Kingsland and Hackney subdivision of N (Islington) division until 1878, when it became a subdivision in its own right with 104 police. Boundaries of the subdivision were revised in 1933 and in 1965, when Stoke Newington became a subdivisional station (GN) in Hackney L.B. (fn. 88)

Stoke Newington parish possessed by 1780 a fire engine which in 1805 was kept in an engine house probably at the church. (fn. 89) A new engine house was built probably in 1806 near the manorial pound on the north side of Church Street, near Barn Street. (fn. 90) In 1820 Joseph Eade granted a new site in Red Lion Lane, where an engine house was built at his expense shortly afterwards. (fn. 91) The vestry continued to maintain the engine until 1858, when Stoke Newington arranged to use the new engine and engine house built by Hackney on the east side of High Street. (fn. 92) The old engine was sold in 1860. (fn. 93) Under the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865, (fn. 94) responsibility passed to the M.B.W., although Hackney board of works continued to use the High Street station until its replacement in 1886 by a new station called Stoke Newington station at the corner of Leswin and Brooke roads in Hackney. (fn. 95) Responsibility passed in 1889 to the L.C.C., which ran the fire brigade known after 1904 as London Fire Brigade, (fn. 96) and in 1965 to the G.L.C. In 1977 a new station opened in Stoke Newington Church Street, on the site of Fleetwood House. (fn. 97)

Lighting formed part of the provision of the turnpike roads Acts of 1774, 1789, and 1815. Under the Act of 1774 lamps were placed at intervals of 25 yards in the London road and of 30 yards in Church Street. The 1815 Act provided for lighting with gas. (fn. 98) The Imperial Gas Light Co. supplied gas lighting to the church in 1828 (fn. 99) and by 1854 street lighting within the parish consisted of 92 gas and 44 naphtha lamps. (fn. 1) Hackney board of works approached the gas companies to replace naphtha and oil lamps with gas in 1856 (fn. 2) and work was under way within the year although there were difficulties in Green Lanes and Stoke Newington Road because of boundaries with Hornsey and objections by residents of areas in Stoke Newington which paid lighting rates but had no lighting. (fn. 3) The number of gas lamps, supplied by the Imperial Gas Co. (which by 1887 had been amalgamated into the Gas Light & Coke Co.) (fn. 4) increased to 213 in 1868, 301 in 1877, 417 in 1884, and 540 in 1895. (fn. 5)

Hackney district board of works decided against supplying electricity in 1883 and again in 1890 (fn. 6) but in 1893 it obtained a provisional order under the Electric Lighting Acts of 1882 and 1888. High Street and Woodberry Down were included in the area supplied by Hackney board and in 1902 Stoke Newington B.C. obtained an Act to supply the rest of the borough. In 1903 Hackney M.B. agreed to supply electricity in bulk to Stoke Newington, which did not generate its own current. (fn. 7) An electricity substation was opened in Edward's Lane in 1906, which supplied all the area after the arrangement with Hackney terminated in 1907. It was extended in 1913, 1919, 1922, and 1924. A generating set was installed at the refuse destructor in Milton Road in 1909. Bulk supply was again taken from Hackney in 1928. Substations opened at Wordsworth Road in 1929, Lordship Road in 1933, and Victorian Road and Trumans Road by 1938. (fn. 8) Only 79 of 858 street lamps were electric in 1935 and they were confined to the main roads. (fn. 9)

Mary Lister founded an invalid asylum for 'respectable females' in 1825. (fn. 10) Intended to provide rest and medical care for domestic servants, it opened in the wooden house in Church Street previously used as a workhouse. (fn. 11) In 1830 it moved to no. 187 High Street, which housed 24 patients in 1851. (fn. 12) In 1909 alterations converted the asylum into a hospital, which by 1917 was called Stoke Newington home hospital for women. (fn. 13) The hospital had 31 beds in 1930. It moved to Stevenage during the Second World War and did not reopen after the war. (fn. 14)

In 1825 a group of gentlemen, which included Nathan Mayer de Rothschild and James William Freshfield of Abney House, opened Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington dispensary for the poor. (fn. 15) It opened on the Hackney side of High Street and moved in 1864 to no. 189 High Street, next to the female asylum, where an apothecary was resident. (fn. 16) By 1930 Stoke Newington borough, through its maternity and child welfare committee, was making a donation to the dispensary, (fn. 17) which treated 5,974 patients in 1946. (fn. 18) The dispensary closed in 1952 when, by a Charity Commission Scheme, its endowments were used to found the Stoke Newington and District Sick Poor Charity. The income, disbursed mostly in cash grants, was to be used for the sick poor of the area. (fn. 19)

A private lunatic asylum opened in Northumberland House, at the northern end of Green Lanes, in 1830. (fn. 20) It had 63 male and female inmates in 1851, (fn. 21) 80 in 1911, and 59 in 1951, (fn. 22) a few years before the house was demolished to make way for Rowley Gardens. (fn. 23) In 1980 the institution reopened in Finchley as Northumberland nursing home. (fn. 24)

Bearstead Memorial hospital, a Jewish maternity hospital which had originated in the East End in 1895, opened with 32 beds in Lordship Road in 1947. (fn. 25) It had 60 beds by 1948 but only 24 in 1981, and had closed by 1983. (fn. 26)

In 1831 the vestry set up a committee to deal with cholera. Sub-committees for seven districts tried to remedy bad drainage and purchased blankets for the poor, but there was difficulty in obtaining a house as a cholera hospital. The committee, which had last met in December 1832, was briefly revived in 1849 to deal with another outbreak. (fn. 27) Hackney district board of works was the responsible authority in 1866 when cholera struck again, afflicting Hackney much more than Stoke Newington. (fn. 28)

Under the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, (fn. 29) which established the metropolitan asylum district for the relief of fever, smallpox, or insanity, (fn. 30) Stoke Newington continued to use hospitals outside the parish. Under the National Health Act of 1946 Stoke Newington fell within the area of the North East Metropolitan board, administered by Tottenham management committee. By 1981 it was part of Haringey Health District. (fn. 31)

In 1897 a parish nurse was appointed in commemoration of the queen's jubilee. (fn. 32) In 1914 Stoke Newington arranged to use a new tuberculosis clinic at the metropolitan hospital in Kingsland, Hackney. (fn. 33) The borough council had its own child welfare clinic at no. 44 Milton Road by 1915 (fn. 34) and a maternity and child welfare centre at Barton House, no. 233 Albion Road, by 1927. (fn. 35) A third centre opened at Woodberry Hall in 1946, when foot, dental, physiotherapy, and toddlers' clinics were also introduced. Clinics as well as hospitals were by then under the care of the L.C.C. (fn. 36) The first comprehensive L.C.C. health centre opened at Woodberry Down in 1952. (fn. 37) The infant mortality rate, which averaged 118 per 1,000 in 1901-5 and 57 in 1921-5, was 18 in 1960. (fn. 38)

A municipal day nursery opened for the children of women employed in war work after ratepayers noted the need in 1917. (fn. 39a) The nursery, probably in Barton House in Albion Road, was closed in 1921 because of poor attendances. (fn. 40a) Three day nurseries were opened in 1946. (fn. 41a) In 1976 Defoe day care centre was opened at Hackney college in Ayrsome Road as a nursery for the children of girls who had not completed their education. The centre was threatened with closure in 1981. (fn. 42a)

Stoke Newington churchyard and the burial ground of Abney chapel were closed under the Metropolis Burial Grounds Act of 1854. (fn. 43a) The burial ground belonging to the Friends' meeting house in Park Street, which had opened in 1827 and was enlarged in 1849, (fn. 44a) continued in use until 1957. (fn. 45a) The main burial ground within Stoke Newington was at Abney Park, 32 a. between Church Street and Stamford Hill, where a cemetery designed by William Hosking was opened in 1840, mainly for dissenters. (fn. 46a) Nearly 39,000 people had been buried there by 1867. (fn. 47a) As Stoke Newington lay within the Metropolitan Burial District, Abney Park was among the burial grounds subject to the General Board of Health under an Act of 1850 (fn. 48a) and to the borough council after 1900, (fn. 49a) but was owned by the Abney Park Cemetery Co. (fn. 50a) until its liquidation in 1975. Hackney L.B. bought it in 1978 for £ 1 and partly restored it in 1980. (fn. 51a) Hosking's Egyptian style lodges and entrance gates survive and his chapel, of stock brick with stone dressings in a 14thcentury style and on the plan of a Greek cross, stands derelict. (fn. 52a) The cemetery contains a monument by E.H. Baily to Issac Watts, although not Watts's grave. (fn. 53a)

In 1855, after the closure of the churchyard, a vestry committee concluded that as there were so few pauper burials a new cemetery was not necessary. (fn. 54a) In 1862 the vestry set up a burial board which continued until 1896, (fn. 55a) but no public cemetery opened within Stoke Newington. The duties of the burial board were confined to keeping the churchyard in order until 1881, when it applied for a faculty to build a mortuary there. The board maintained the mortuary until it was taken over in 1896 by the vestry, which was succeeded by the borough in 1900. (fn. 56a) Stoke Newington arranged to use Hackney's mortuary after its own had made way for municipal buildings in 1937. (fn. 57a)

In 1886 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners purchased the Clissold or Crawshay estate for building but in 1887, after a local campaign led by Joseph Beck and John Runtz, they agreed to sell it to the M.B.W. as an open space. Clissold Park, (fn. 58a) which consisted of 53 a. (25 1/2 a. in Stoke Newington and 27 1/2 a. in Hornsey) and a house, (fn. 59a) was paid for by the commissioners, with substantial contributions by the M.B.W. and Stoke Newington vestry and smaller contributions from South Hornsey, Hackney, and Islington. In 1887 an Act authorized the purchase for a public park, (fn. 60a) which opened in 1889. (fn. 61a) The park, which was the responsibility of the M.B.W. and its successor, the L.C.C., was one of the first London municipal parks to provide animal and bird life: deer were introduced and the two lakes which had been filled were re-excavated. Neither the vestry nor the L.C.C., however, would finance the conversion of the house into a museum. (fn. 62a)

Stoke Newington adopted the Libraries Acts in 1890, when the library commissioners agreed to make temporary use of the assembly rooms in Defore Road. (fn. 63a) In 1892 they opened a library in Church Street, built with contributions from J. Passmore Edwards. (fn. 64a) Andrew Carnegie paid for an extension in 1904, (fn. 65a) and the building was extended again in 1937, as part of the municipal buildings centred on the town hall. The borough council from 1900 administered the service through a public libraries committee. Branch libraries opened at Brownswood Road in 1948, Seven Sisters Road (Woodberry) in 1955, and Howard Road in 1957. (fn. 66a)

The borough council opened slipper baths in Milton Road in 1909 and in Church Street in 1925 (fn. 67a) and swimming baths in Clissold Road in 1930. (fn. 68a) Washhouses were opened next to the town hall in Milton Road in 1914. (fn. 69a)