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Stoke Newington

Coordinates: 51°34′N 0°05′W / 51.56°N 0.08°W / 51.56; -0.08
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Not to be confused with Newington, in the London Borough of Southwark.

Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is located in Greater London
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Location within Greater London
OS grid referenceTQ3386
• Charing Cross5 mi (8.0 km) SW
London borough
Ceremonial countyGreater London
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLONDON
Postcode districtN16 N4
Postcode districtE8
Dialling code020
PoliceMetropolitan
FireLondon
AmbulanceLondon
UK Parliament
London Assembly
List of places
UK
England
London
51°34′N 0°05′W / 51.56°N 0.08°W / 51.56; -0.08

Stoke Newington is an area in the northwest part of the London Borough of Hackney, England. The area is five miles (eight kilometres) northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington, the ancient parish.

The historic core on Stoke Newington Church Street retains the distinct London village character that led Nikolaus Pevsner to write in 1953 that he found it hard to see the district as being in London at all.[1]

Boundaries

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The borough lay entirely west of Roman Ermine Street (the modern A10) and included South Hornsey.

The modern London Borough of Hackney was formed in 1965 by the merger of three former Metropolitan Boroughs, Hackney and the smaller authorities of Stoke Newington and Shoreditch. These Metropolitan Boroughs had existed since 1899 but their names and boundaries were very closely based on parishes dating back to the Middle Ages.

Unlike many London districts, such as nearby Stamford Hill and Dalston, Stoke Newington has longstanding fixed boundaries; but to many, the informal perception of Stoke Newington has blurred over time, to stretch east of the originally Roman A10 to overlap areas of the former Ancient Parish and subsequent Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.

Formal ancient limits

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The Metropolitan Borough largely adopted the Ancient Parish's boundaries, including the eastern boundary, which followed the A10 road, though there were minor rationalisations, notably the transfer of areas of Hornsey.

Stoke Newington's northern and western boundaries have become the north-west borders of the modern London Borough. The eastern boundary was formed by the A10 road, where it goes by the name Stoke Newington High Street (originally High Street, until a name change in 1937[2]) and Stoke Newington Road (meaning the road to the hamlet of Stoke Newington) further south.

These boundaries included the sites of the small hamlet of Stoke Newington and part of Newington Green, but excluded the open space known since the early 20th century as Stoke Newington Common (originally Cockhangar Green). Stoke Newington railway station was built close to, but just outside, this area.

Wider contemporary perception

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More recently, many have come to see Stoke Newington as extending east of the A10 to overlap the AP\MB of Hackney to include West Hackney, an ill-defined area of the N16 postal area that includes Stoke Newington railway station, Rectory Road railway station and Stoke Newington Common.

As a consequence Stoke Newington, like nearby Stamford Hill, has become closely associated with the N16 postcode, though a significant part of western Stoke Newington is covered by the N4 postcode district.

Governance and representation

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Administrative history

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The Manor (estate) of Stoke Newington was part of a huge block of land around London held by the Diocese of London. This broad area comprised many estates, stretching from the Manor of Stepney in the east (of which neighbouring Hackney was a part), to Willesden in the west and Hornsey in the north. The Manor is recorded, as Neutone, in the Domesday Book of 1086, as part of the Ossulstone hundred of the county of Middlesex.[3] Domesday also records that the Manor was held by St Paul's both before and after the Norman Conquest. Stoke Newington was a Prebendary Manor, providing an income to the work of the cathedral.

The Ancient Parish of Stoke Newington was established to serve the area of the Manor with which it was coterminous[4] and, like other parishes, would have had its boundaries permanently fixed by the 1180s,[5] even if the underlying Manor's boundaries changed (though manor boundaries were generally stable at that date).

From the Tudor period, parishes were obliged to take on a civil as well as ecclesiastical role, with the administration of the new Poor Law of 1601.

In the 17th century, the Ossulstone Hundred was subdivided, with the parish of Stoke Newington, on the west side of Stoke Newington High Street, becoming part of the new Finsbury division and the parish of Hackney to the east becoming part of the Tower division.

The Ancient Parishes provided a framework for both civil (administrative) and ecclesiastical (church) functions, but during the 19th century there was a divergence into distinct civil and ecclesiastical parish systems. In London the Ecclesiastical Parishes subdivided to better serve the needs of a growing population, while the Civil Parishes continued to be based on the Ancient Parish areas.

The Metropolis Management Act 1855 merged the Civil Parishes of Hackney and Stoke Newington into a new Hackney District. This proved very unpopular, especially in more affluent Stoke Newington, and after four unsuccessful attempts the two parishes regained their independence when they were separated by mutual consent under the Metropolis Management (Plumstead and Hackney) Act of 1893.[6]

The London Government Act 1899 converted the parishes into Metropolitan Boroughs based on the same boundaries, sometimes with mergers or minor boundary rationalisations. Stoke Newington was smaller than desired for new boroughs, and there were proposals to re-merge it with Hackney, or to detach Hackney's northern part and join it with Stoke Newington. These proposals were rejected due to the experience of "intolerable and interminable feuds" between the districts when they were previously "forced together", and because Parliament recognised that there was "great ill-feeling and mutual ill-will... between the inhabitants of the two districts".[7]

Coat of Arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington – the motto means 'Look to the past and look to the future'

Stoke Newington was permitted to become an independent Borough, and most of South Hornsey (also a part of the Finsbury Division was transferred to it to increase the new authority's size. Parts of South Hornsey had previously been exclaves that separated southern Stoke Newington from the rest of the area. The Finsbury Division was abolished.

Stoke Newington lost its independence in 1965, when it merged with the Metropolitan Boroughs of Hackney and Shoreditch to form the new London Borough of Hackney.

Representation

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Stoke Newington is part of the Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency, which has been represented by Labour MP Diane Abbott since 1987.

History

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Early

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Stoke Newington retains two parish churches. St Mary's Old Church (left) and New Church (right).

Stoke Newington, or 'new town in the wood', has been lightly settled for hundreds of years, close to larger neighbouring Saxon settlements near the River Lea. In the 19th century it was discovered that Stoke Newington Common and Abney Park Cemetery had been part of a Neolithic working area for axe-making, some examples of which can be seen in the Museum of London.[citation needed][8]

In the Middle Ages and Tudor times, it was a very small village a few miles from the city of London, frequently visited by wayfarers as a pit stop before journeying north, Stoke Newington High Street being part of the Cambridge road (A10). At this date the whole manor was owned by St. Paul's Cathedral and yielded a small income, enough to support part of their work. During the 17th century the Cathedral sold the Manor to William Patten, who became the first Lord of the Manor. His initials 'WP' and the motto 'ab alto' can be seen inscribed above the doorway of the old church next to Clissold Park.

18th century

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A century later, it passed to Lady Mary Abney who drew up the first detailed maps of field boundaries and began to lay out a manorial parkland behind today's fire station on Church Street, with the aid of her daughters and Dr Isaac Watts. During the course of the century, given its proximity to the city a number of Quaker and nonconformist families became settled in the area.

19th century

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During the early 19th century, as London expanded, the Manor of Stoke Newington was "enfranchised" to be sold in parcels as freehold land for building purposes. Gradually the village became absorbed into London's seamless expansion. It was no longer a separate village by the mid- to late 19th century.

Being on the outskirts at this time, many expensive and large houses were built to house London's expanding population of nouveau riche whose journey to London's commercial heart the birth of the railways and the first omnibuses made possible. The latter were introduced into central London in the 1820s by George Shillibeer after his successful trial of the world's first school bus for William Allen and Susanna Corder's novel Quaker school, Newington Academy for Girls. By the mid-19th century, Stoke Newington had "the largest concentration of Quakers in London", including many who had moved up the A10 from Gracechurch Street meeting house in the city. A meeting house was built in Park Street (now Yoakley Road) by William Alderson, who later designed Hanwell Pauper and Lunatic Asylum.[9] The Anglican St Mary's Church, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1854–58, replaced the older parish church (also St. Mary's), which survives on the opposite side of Church Street.

St Mary's Lodge on Lordship Road, the 1843 home of architect and district surveyor John Young, is the last-surviving (though now ruined and derelict) of several grand detached houses built in the area around that time for well-off members of the new commuter class. Gibson Gardens, an early example of quality tenement buildings erected for the housing of 'the industrious classes', was built off Stoke Newington High Street in 1880 and still stands.

As a late Victorian and Edwardian suburb, Stoke Newington prospered, and continued in relative affluence and civic pride with its own municipal government until changes brought about by the Second World War.

Early 20th century

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Between 1935 and 1937, the curved brick and Portland stone Town Hall was built for the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington by J. Reginald Truelove.[10]

Second World War

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Abney Park Blitz memorial. Most of the space is taken up with the names of the victims of the 1940 Coronation Avenue incident.

During World War II, much of the area was damaged in the Blitz and many were made homeless, although the level of destruction was much lower than in areas of East London further south, such as Stepney, Shoreditch or even next-door Hackney. The death toll was also relatively low: almost three-quarters of civilian deaths were due to one incident on 13 October 1940, when a crowded shelter at Coronation Avenue off the high street received a direct hit. The memorial to all the residents of the Borough who died in the air raids, including local Jewish people, can be seen in Abney Park Cemetery. Like Hackney, Stoke Newington avoided most of the later V-weapon attacks, which fell disproportionately on South London; seven V-1s and two V-2s hit the borough.[citation needed]

Most of the historic buildings at the heart of Stoke Newington survived, at least in a reparable state. Two notable exceptions are the classically grand parish church of West Hackney, St James's, on Stoke Newington Road, which dated to 1824, and St Faith's, a Victorian Gothic church by William Burges. Both were so severely damaged, the former in the October 1940 bombing, and the latter by a flying bomb in 1944, that they were entirely demolished. St James's was replaced after the war by a much more modest structure, St Paul's, which is set well back from the street. Traces of the old church's stonework can still be seen facing Stoke Newington Road.

Postwar developments

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During the war, much residential housing was destroyed, and in the aftermath much was demolished, being considered beyond economic repair. Postwar redevelopment has replaced many of these areas with large estates, some more successful than others. Much of this residential redevelopment was planned by Frederick Gibberd, the designer of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

Political radicalism and terrorism

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Communist Party meetings were held in the Town Hall in the postwar years. From the 1970s onwards the area has experienced, or been associated with, a number of terrorist acts. The 'Stoke Newington 8' were arrested on 20 August 1971 at 359 Amhurst Road for suspected involvement in The Angry Brigade bombings.

Stoke Newington Bookshop, one of the many independent retailers in Stoke Newington

Stoke Newington residents Patrick Hayes and Jan Taylor (not originally from the area) were convicted of two IRA bombings and had substantial links to lorry bombs in the 1990s. Both were arrested, firing at officers in Walford Road and later sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment.[citation needed]

Muktar Said Ibrahim was convicted, as the ringleader, on an indictment of conspiracy to murder. He planted a failed bomb on a 26 bus that misfired on the Hackney Road on 21 July 2005. In February 2005, police had sought Ibrahim on an arrest warrant for an outstanding public order offence. After the attack, he was seen on the run in Farleigh Road and arrested in Dalgrano Gardens. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of 40 years before being considered for release.[citation needed]

21st century

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These days, Stoke Newington is very multicultural, with large Asian, Irish, Turkish, Jewish and Afro-Caribbean communities. The area continues to be home to many new and emerging communities, such as Polish and Somali immigrants.

Stoke Newington has undergone major gentrification, as have neighbouring Newington Green, Canonbury and Dalston. Church Street includes many independent shops, pubs, bars and cafes.[citation needed]

In 2022 traders formed the Stoke Newington Business Association and launched "See you in Stokey", a website dedicated to the area with event listings, articles, and area guides.

Open space

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The Castle Climbing Centre

In the north of the district is the extensive West Reservoir, now a non-working facility, but open for leisure and surrounded by green space. At the entrance is the Castle Climbing Centre, once the main Water Board pumping station. William Chadwell Mylne designed it to resemble a towering Scottish castle.

To the south of these facilities is Clissold Park, which contains a small menagerie, aviary and Clissold Mansion, a Grade II listed building, built in the 1790s for Jonathan Hoare, a local Quaker and brother of Samuel Hoare.[11]

East from here and past the two Church of England parish churches, both called St Mary's (Stoke Newington decided to retain the old one, unusual in a London parish), is Abney Park Cemetery, one of the most splendid and enlightened Victorian London cemeteries. It is the main London burial ground for 19th-century nonconformist ministers and William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, is buried here. It is now a nature reserve. Abney Park was scheduled in 2009 as one of Britain's historic parks and gardens at risk from neglect and decay.[12]

Across the high street to the east is the fragmented Stoke Newington Common, which has had an extensive and diverse programme of tree planting.

Reservoirs

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From the 16th century onwards, Stoke Newington has played a prominent role in assuring a water supply to sustain London's rapid growth. The artificial New River runs through the area and still makes a contribution to London's water. It used to terminate at the New River Head in Finsbury, but since 1946 its main flow has ended at Stoke Newington reservoirs. The river bank, the New River Path,[13] can be walked for some distance to the north through Haringey and on to its source near Hertford.

The West reservoir, looking north.

Stoke Newington East and West Reservoirs were constructed in 1833 to hold water prior to treatment in the New River Company's filter beds on the other side of Green Lanes, in the area now known as Brownswood Park. Water is now sent from here to the Lee Valley Reservoir Chain for treatment.

The West Reservoir is now a leisure facility, offering sailing, canoeing and other water sports, plus Royal Yachting Association-approved sailing courses. On its western edge stands the former filter house, now set out as a visitor centre with a café; some of the old hydraulic machinery can be viewed in the main hall. The pumping station at the reservoir gates, converted to a climbing centre in 1995 was designed in a distinctive castellated style by Robert Billings under the supervision of William Chadwell Mylne and built in 1854–56.[14] The site is still used as a pumping station for the Thames Water Ring Main.

Besides the water board facilities and the New River, Clissold Park contains two large ornamental lakes, a home to many water birds and a population of terrapins. These lakes—purportedly the remains of clay pits dug for the bricks used in the building of Clissold House—are all that is left to mark the course of the Hackney Brook, one of London's lost rivers, which once flowed from west to east across Stoke Newington on its way to the River Lea. In flood at this point, the brook was known to span 10 metres. The two lakes are not fed from the brook, which has disappeared into the maze of sewers under London, but from the mains supply.

Demography

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At the time of the 2011 census, there were 13,658 residents in Stoke Newington Central ward. Of these, 63.1% were White (44.9% British, 15.2% Other, 2.9% Irish and Gypsy or Irish Traveller, 0.1%). 16.6% was Black (7.3% Caribbean, 6.2% African, 3.1% Other) and 9.9% was Asian (4.2% Indian, 1.3% Pakistani, 1.6% Bangladeshi, 0.8% Chinese and 2% Other).

33.8% of the ward were Christian, 11.1% Muslim, 3.2% Jewish, 39% had no religion and 10% did not state their religion. [15]

Education

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Main article: List of schools in the London Borough of Hackney
One of the early London School Board schools: Stoke Newington High Street 1877, now a private residence.

Primary schools

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  • Benthal Primary
  • Betty Layward Primary
  • Grasmere Primary
  • Grazebrook Primary
  • Holmleigh Primary
  • Princess May Primary
  • Jubilee Primary
  • Simon Marks Jewish Primary School[16][17]
  • Sir Thomas Abney
  • Saint Mary's Church of England Primary
  • Saint Matthias Church of England Primary
  • William Patten Primary

Secondary schools

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Defunct schools

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  • Newington Academy for Girls, a Quaker school established 1824 by William Allen
  • Fleetwood Primary School
  • Palatine School, Palatine Road.
  • William Wordsworth Secondary School, Wordsworth Road (but official address Palatine Road). This was the old Palatine School.
  • Daniel Defoe Secondary School, Ayresome Road. William Wordsworth Secondary School merged with Daniel Defoe Secondary School in 1965 to become Clissold Park School. Both buildings were used until a new school building was built in Clissold Road. The school merged with Woodberry Down Comprehensive to become Stoke Newington School.

Architecture

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Stoke Newington contains only one Grade I listed building (St Matthias Church), and several Grade II* and Grade II buildings.[18]

Grade I
Grade II*
  • 187–191 Stoke Newington High Street
  • 81/83 Stoke Newington Church Street
  • 85/87 Stoke Newington Church Street
  • St Mary's Old Church
  • St Mary's New Church
  • Clissold House, Clissold Park
  • St Andrew's Church, Bethune Road
  • The Castle Climbing Centre, Green Lanes
Banksy in Stoke Newington
Grade II

There are many Grade II listed properties on Stoke Newington Church Street, the historical heart of the district, and two other notable residential streets to the west of the district, Albion Road and Clissold Road, are replete with listed properties.

Close to the local pub The Lion, local resident and property owner Sofie Attrill gave consent for pop group Blur to create some publicity for their 2003 single "Crazy Beat". The album's cover and single artwork were undertaken by graffiti artist Banksy, with the single featuring a spoof image of the British Royal Family, replicated as a mural on the building. By 2009 it had become a tourist attraction, but Hackney Council wanted to remove all graffiti from the area and tried to contact the building owner to gain her agreement to remove the artwork. Unable to reach her due to incorrect Land Registry records, they started painting over the artwork with black paint. They were stopped after they had partly covered the mural.[20]

Transport and locale

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Districts within the London Borough of Hackney.

About 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 kilometres) away, the nearest London Underground station is Manor House on the Piccadilly line.

It is served by bus routes 67, 73, 76, 106, 141, 149, 243, 276, 341, 393 and 476 and Night Buses N73 and N76. 149, 243 and 341 are 24-hour services.

Entertainment

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Stoke Newington is well known for its pubs and bars, lively music scene, including contemporary jazz, and open mic comedy sessions. The Vortex Jazz Club used to be on Church Street but has now moved to Dalston.

Since 2010, Stoke Newington has also had its own literary festival, created to celebrate the area's literary and radical history. It takes place in early June in venues across the area and was described in 2011 by Time Out magazine as 'Just like Hay-on-Wye, but in Hackney', by The Times as one of its 'Top 5 Summer of Books' and by Londonist.com as 'a literary festival that's thrown its pretensions in a skip'.

A Stoke Newington music festival began in 2015 at various venues around town in late October. The 2016 festival saw a performance by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the Mascara Bar stage on 23 October and by Hank Wangford the same evening at the main stage at St Paul's Church Hall.[21] For the 2017 festival, the main St Paul's stage was headlined from 20 to 22 October by The Cesarians, The Featherz and The Frank Chickens, respectively.[22] In 2018 the St Paul's stage was used only on the 21st, with the Mascara Bar serving as main stage, headlined from 19 to 21 October by the Cesarians again, Dodgy and Urban Voodoo Machine frontman Paul-Ronney Angel. Mediæval Bæbes also appeared on the 19th at the Abney Public Hall.[23]

People associated with Stoke Newington

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Historic

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20th and 21st centuries

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References

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  1. ^ The Buildings of London; 1953 "Stoke Newington is not entirely London yet"
  2. ^ Gelder, Sam (9 September 2019). "Stoke Newington historian surveys old street signs and calls for them to be protected". Hackney Gazette. Open Publishing. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  3. ^ Open Domesday Online: (Stoke) Newington, accessed May 2018.
  4. ^ "A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton and Patricia E C Croot, 'Stoke Newington: Manor', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes, ed. T F T Baker and C R Elrington (London, 1985), pp. 177-178". British History Online. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
  5. ^ Source describes common theme of parishes becoming fixed in the late 12th century as a result of emerging Canon Law, History of the Countryside by Oliver Rackham, 1986 p19
  6. ^ "Stoke Newington: Local government | British History Online". british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  7. ^ "Arthur Balfour, First Lord of Treasury, Hansard: Vol 71, Col 979".
  8. ^ "Stoke Newington".
  9. ^ "Quakers around Shoreditch". studymore.org.uk.
  10. ^ Architect and Building News, 8 October 1937, pp. 39–43
  11. ^ Clissold Park users group Archived 5 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine accessed 26 March 2007
  12. ^ English Heritage's 'At Risk' register accessed 5 July 2010
  13. ^ "New River Path" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2006. Retrieved 5 August 2006. thameswateruk.co.uk
  14. ^ Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, London 4: North, London, Penguin, 1999, p. 540
  15. ^ Stoke Newington Ward Profile Archived 4 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine (May 2014) Retrieved 4 September 2017. See p. 6.
  16. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (22 February 2020). "'It's fun – everyone is different': the Jewish school that unites all faiths". The Observer. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  17. ^ "Simon Marks Jewish Primary School - GOV.UK". get-information-schools.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  18. ^ "Homepage - Hackney Council". hackney.gov.uk.
  19. ^ "Stoke Newington Town Hall". The Wood Awards. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  20. ^ "Blur Banksy is ruined by mistake". BBC News. 4 September 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
  21. ^ "Stoke Newington Music Festival 2016 – 3 days of great music across multiple venues in Stoke Newington". 21 October 2016. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016.
  22. ^ "Browse venues - Stoke Newington Music Festival (Archive of 2017 line up)". stokenewingtonmusicfestival.com. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017.
  23. ^ "Browse venues - Stoke Newington Music Festival". stokenewingtonmusicfestival.com. Archived from the original on 16 October 2018.
  24. ^ Baggs, A P, Diane K Bolton, and Patricia E C Croot. "Stoke Newington: Education." A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes. Eds. T F T Baker, and C R Elrington. London: Victoria County History, 1985. 217-223. British History Online. Web. 27 October 2023. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp217-223.
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