Stoke Newington Area Guide

Stoke Newington is the ultimate London village, and North London’s “nappy valley”. Young couples are drawn here by the large selection of mainly Victorian terraced houses, open spaces, good state primary schools and great local shopping street. Period properties abound in all shapes and sizes, and many are divided into apartments. Modern purpose built or new build developments are relatively thin on the ground and are therefore quickly snapped up when they come onto the market.

Stoke Newington was the first neighbourhood in Hackney to gentrify, discovered in the 1980s by media types keen to be close to fashionable Islington but lacking the budget to live there, or maybe just looking for a quieter place to live. These days new residents are more likely to come from Shoreditch or London Fields but are driven by the same motives.

Stoke Newington Church Street has a great selection of independent shops, cafes and restaurants, whilst nearby Stoke Newington High Street is a busier road with a more urban feel and increasing number of bars and night-time venues. There is a popular farmers’ market on Saturdays – the first in the UK to have only organic and biodynamic producers. There is plentiful open space, from the traditional 56 acre Clissold Park, to the West Reservoir with 30 acres of open water and wetlands, and Abney Park, a small but charming model garden cemetery.

Bus services are good, but otherwise public transport is limited to two Overground stations on the eastern edge of the neighbourhood, both on the same line into Liverpool Street.