De Beauvoir Town
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
De Beauvoir Town [dē bō-vwär' toun] is a district in the East London Borough of Hackney, England. Its historical borders are Kingsland Road in the east, Southgate Road in the west, the Regent's Canal in the south and Tottenham Road in the north.
It shares the northern London postal district of N1 with Islington, Barnsbury, Canonbury and Hoxton.
Some of the residents refer to the area as De Beaver [dē bē'vər], while others prefer to use the traditional French pronunciation.
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[edit] History
[edit] 19th Century
Until 1820 the area now covered by De Beauvoir Town was open country with a few grand houses. In 1821, stimulated by the opening of the Regent's Canal the previous year, developer William Rhodes secured a lease for 150 acres of land from Peter de Beauvoir. Rhodes planned to build residences for the upper classes in a grid pattern, with four squares on diagonal streets intersecting at an octagon. However, work stopped in 1823 when Rhodes was found to have obtained his lease unfairly and after a court case spanning over 20 years the land reverted to the de Beauvoir family in 1834.
The delay in building had meant that Rhodes' clientele had since moved on to the new suburbs of the West End. The scheme was scaled down and of the planned squares only the southeastern was built, as De Beauvoir Square, although the diagonals partly survived in Enfield Road, Stamford Road and Ardleigh Road. Occupied in the 1840s by the newly emerging middle classes, the estate was almost wholly residential, except around Kingsland Basin and the south-west corner where a factory was leased from 1823.
[edit] 20th Century
In 1937, due to its easy access to Kingsland Basin, the south-east corner between Downham Road and Hertford Road was re-zoned for industrial use. Soon after all the area south of Downham Road was included. This distinguished it from the north side of Downham Road, which was already zoned for business and acted as a buffer for the mainly residential streets beyond. In 1938 De Beauvoir Crescent was suggested as another business zone to protect housing to the north.
In the early 1960s the northern part of De Beauvoir Town, between Buckingham Road and Tottenham Road was rebuilt as the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney's Kingsgate estate. In the late 1960s a larger area, west of the canal basin, which contained many small factories, made way for the De Beauvoir Town council estate. The east side of De Beauvoir Square was also lost to the Lockner Road estate. In 1968 the De Beauvoir Town association was formed and the rest of the square with the area bounded by Englefield Road, Northchurch Road, Southgate Road, Hertford Road, and Stamford Road became a conservation area in 1969. This area was later extended to cover most of De Beauvoir Town; the eastern edge, however, is in the Kingsland conservation area.
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[edit] Famous residents
[edit] The Mole Man of Hackney
For the past 40 years De Beauvoir Town has been home to William Lyttle, a 75-year-old retired electrical engineer. During this time Mr Lyttle has been digging a series of tunnels under his property on the corner of Mortimer Road and Stamford Road. In 2001, his tunnelling caused an 8ft hole to appear in the pavement on Stamford Road. Reports that the tunnelling had started again in 2006 were confirmed when Hackney Council found a web of tunnels and caverns, some 8m (26ft) deep, spreading up to 20m in every direction from his house.
In August 2006, the Council succeeded in getting a court order banning Mr Lyttle from his property while they carry out emergency repairs.
[edit] Transport
The area is currently not very well served by the London Underground network, the nearest station taking 20 minutes to walk to, depending on where you live and how fast you walk. Nearby Haggerston station, on the northern extension of the East London Line, is due to open in 2010 and will improve this situation. Fortunately the area is well served by buses.
[edit] Nearest railway stations
- Dalston Kingsland railway station
- Highbury & Islington tube station
- Angel tube station
- Old Street tube station
[edit] Nearby bus services
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[edit] Nearest places
[edit] External links
- Old Maps - De Beauvoir in 1882
- The De Beauvoir Association - includes further information and image of William Rhodes' original plans
- Guardian - After 40 years' burrowing, Mole Man of Hackney is ordered to stop
- Times Online - Mole Man faces £100,000 bill for undermining the neighbourhood
[edit] References
- 'Hackney: De Beauvoir Town', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney (1995), pp. 33-5. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22699. Retrieved: 14 August 2006.
- Building Exploratory. 'Brickfields: Georgian landscape' (n.d.). URL: http://www.brickfields.org.uk/text/georgian-landscape.html. Retrieved: 14 August 2006.
