A station of the same name on the North London Line previously occupied a site immediately to the south of the modern station from 1865 to 1940. It was served by local services from Broad Street to Poplar on the City Extension of the North London Railway. Haggerston is first recorded in the Domesday Book as Hergotestane, possibly of Viking origin, and an outlying hamlet of Shoreditch. On Rocque's 1745 map of Hackney, the village is shown as Agostone but by the 19th century it had become Haggerstone, and part of the growing urban sprawl, with factories and streets of workers' cottages lining the canal. The proximity to Hoxton and Shoreditch has made the area popular with students and workers in the creative industries, as these nearby areas have grown more expensive. In recent years, escalating property prices have driven commercial art galleries further into east London, which has exacerbated this effect. For the same reason, Haggerston has been attracting tech start ups over Silicon Roundabout in Old Street, with some people calling the area "Hackerston".
Many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people have formed communities in Haggerston and nearby Shoreditch. Outside the area, the most visible sign of this is the profusion of Southeast Asian restaurants on nearby Kingsland Road in Shoreditch and on Mare Street in Hackney. There is also a notable Russian community focused on bars and cafés along Kingsland Road. Besides the Regents Canal, Haggerston Park, on the site of a demolished gasworks on Hackney Road, provides much-needed open space in the area. Also in the area is the Hackney City Farm. This area of Hackney has a long association with clowning. Holy Trinity Church still hosts an annual clowns' service to commemorate Joseph Grimaldi and All Saints Centre at one time housed the Clowns Gallery and Museum, including props and a unique collection of painted eggs, serving as the 'registration' of clowns' make-up. Much of the collection is now on display at Wookey Hole. The station was opened to the general public on 27 April 2010 with a limited service running between Dalston Junction and New Cross or New Cross Gate. On 23 May 2010 services were extended from New Cross Gate to West Croydon or Crystal Palace. The design features towers that serve to strengthen the station's urban presence and recall the language of London's stations of the 1930s designed by Charles Holden. The building is clad externally in precast concrete with screens of cast glass planks. Internally, the building features orange mosaic tiling and a large mural to Edmond Halley, who was born in the area. The station is in Travelcard Zone 2 and has lifts and help points but no toilets.
Connections: London Buses routes 67 and 243 serve the station.
