Rectory Road

 

In the early centuries of its life the road was the northern part of Shacklewell Lane, which looped from Dalston to Stoke Newington Common. In 1864 the Great Eastern Railway Company gained permission to build a branch line running to the east. Builders quickly grabbed the opportunity to replace market gardens with houses along this section of the lane, which was renamed Rectory Road. In those days the road connected with Stoke Newington Church Street, which led on to St Mary’s church and its rectory (both rebuilt in the 1850s). The railway line opened in 1872, as did Rectory Road station, which is actually on Evering Road. It is in the Borough of Hackney. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Place Names (fourth edition) discusses the origin of the name. Our first surviving records of the place name are as Hakney (1231) and Hakeneye (1242 and 1294). The ‘ey’ suffix almost certainly refers to an island and so the dictionary favours the interpretation that Hackney means ‘Haka’s island’ with Haka being a notable local person and the island (or inaccessible place surrounded by marshes) lying close to the River Lea which was once a much wilder place than today.

 

The village of Hackney flourished from the Tudor to late Georgian periods as a rural retreat. The first documented "hackney coach"—the forerunner of the more generic "hackney carriage"—operated in London in 1621. Current opinion is that the name "hackney," to refer to a London taxi, is derived from the village name; Hackney, through its historical fame for its horses and horse-drawn carriages, is also the root of the French word haquenée, a term used for a small breed of horse, and the Sardinian achetta horse. Trains run south to Liverpool Street and north to Enfield Town and Cheshunt. The ticket office, street buildings, staircases and platform shelters were all built in the mid-1980s in works funded by the Greater London Council (along with other stations in the 'tube-less' Borough of Hackney). These elaborate structures were very different from the low-maintenance changes further up the line at the same time and feature the British Rail logo worked into the brickwork at Street level. On 31 May 2015 the station and all services that call here, transferred from Abellio Greater Anglia to London Overground Rail Operations. The station is in Travel Card Zone 2. The station has wi-fi, payphones, a waiting room and help points, but no toilets.

 

Connections: London Buses route 276 serves the station.

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