An Elegy to Lordship Road
It’s already Autumn. I spent my much of the summer getting somewhat fixated on a strange little house between the reservoirs in Stoke Newington.
Next to the water and a little way from other houses, it has this almost mythic quality, of being out-of-place, of living a life apart from the rest of the city.
This ordinary-looking house was originally built to service the reservoirs, and was once known as The Waterman’s House. It was later extended (unsympathetically, according to Hackney’s Local List), following the 1980s preference for DIY Victoriana.
The neighbouring Woodberry Down Estate was a post-war utopia of social housing, schools and public facilities (my mum used to work at the health centre). By the 1990s it had become a wilderness of used needles and rats. The good intentions of the 2006 masterplan – which I know intimately – have since been maligned – part of London’s turbid housing crisis. A 3 bed flat is on sale for £945K.