Living and renting in Hackney: travel links, parking, schools, best streets — and the average cost of monthly rent

Cocktails, live music bars and Broadway Market characterise this area with edge.
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Ruth Bloomfield8 July 2019

Once a byword for deprivation and urban grime, Hackney has risen, phoenix-like, as the capital’s great property success story of the century.

A recent study by Halifax found that this small borough has seen the UK’s largest home price growth since 1997, pricing many of the young hipsters who would dearly like to live in this newly desirable area firmly off its property ladder.

This success story began in the late Eighties when a group of young artists adopted Hoxton and Shoreditch, turning them from dull backwaters into the heart of Britain’s contemporary art scene.

As these areas became unaffordable, young and creative Londoners simply rippled east towards Hackney, five miles north-east of central London, bringing bars, clubs, independent shops and great restaurants with them.

The lowdown

Who lives there? Recent graduates and young professionals, says estate agent Chris Manderson, of Foxtons. “You get a lot of creatives rather than the typical finance sector people.”

Although in many ways Hackney is a territory of the young, Manderson also sees a few families looking for homes to rent, “particularly with all the uncertainty surrounding Brexit”.

Parking, crime, gyms: residents parking permits range in price between £10 per year for emission-free vehicles up to £264 for high-emission diesel cars.

The Hackney crime rate is slightly above the London average at nine reported incidents per 1,000 population. However, this is only to be expected for a busy urban area.

Knife crime is still an issue in the borough: in a single week this spring a 15-year-old boy and a 29-year-old man were fatally stabbed in separate attacks.

King’s Hall Leisure Centre has a pool, gym and sports hall. Numerous local yoga studios and gyms include Fit This in Reading Lane, and The Refinery in Collent Street.

Average cost of renting in Hackney

Property size Average monthly cost
One-bedroom flat £1,550
Two-bedroom flat £1,914
Two-bedroom house £2,114
Three-bedroom house £2,734
Four-bedroom house £3,320

Best Hackney streets to live on

For grand homes Sutton Place, with its Georgian townhouses, is a beauty, says Manderson. Renters also gravitate south of Hackney Central in order to be close to the borders of Victoria Park.

Hackney travel links and accessibility

Commuters can pick up the London Overground from Hackney Downs for services to Liverpool Street.

Best schools in Hackney

A bit of a mixed bag, with some schools falling well short of Ofsted’s expectations. But there are also some excellent options. St Paul’s with St Michael’s CofE Primary School, London Fields Primary School and Mossbourne Community Academy (seniors) are all rated “outstanding” by the schools watchdog.

Supermarkets and food markets in Hackney

For supermarket shopping, there’s a Tesco, Iceland and Marks & Spencer near Hackney Central station. The food at Broadway Market tends to look yummy but be painfully expensive.

At Ridley Road Market the vibe is pure EastEnders and fruit and veg are super-cheap. For specialist food shops the E5 Bakehouse near London Fields is worth a trip for gorgeous fresh bread.

Nearby Brazilian Centre is a butchers and South American deli. And Violet is a bakery/café selling extraordinarily pretty cakes which are almost — but not quite — too charming to eat.

Downsides?

Estate agents don’t bother arguing with anyone who says Hackney isn’t the perfect option for light sleepers who might be disturbed by the noise of trains passing, police sirens or noisy partygoers trying to make their way to a Night Bus.

They also admit it can feel a little intimidating (rather than outright unsafe) walking alone at night. Foxton’s Manderson says the “unpolished” feel of the area won’t appeal to everyone. “It has got that edge that appeals to some and not to others,” he adds.

What the locals say:

'Hackney has got a really different vibe to the London I knew'

"Different vibe": Becs Catlow, seated, with flatmate Bethany Stone at home in Hackney
Adrian Lourie

Becs Catlow knows she can take little credit for finding her perfect London location. By the time she arrived in the capital, following a long period travelling the world after university, her friends had already trawled the city for the best spots and urged her to make Hackney her home.

“When I used to come to London from the north I just saw all the tourist areas,” says Becs, who is originally from Burnley in Lancashire.

“My friends showed me some really different areas I’d never seen before and I just really liked east London and Hackney in particular. It is very atmospheric, and although I hate the word ‘hipster’ it has got a really different vibe to the London I knew.”

Despite the concerns of her parents, whose image of Hackney was stuck in the crime-ridden Eighties and Nineties, Becs and her friend Bethany Stone have been sharing a two-bedroom flat in a modern block close to Hackney Downs for the past six months and have fallen in love with the area.

Becs, 27, web content manager for Vision Express, pays about £1,000 a month in rent and bills but saves money by cycling to work in Camden along the Regent’s Canal towpath.

Shopping in Hackney

Becs finds Mare Street fine for basics. She also loves to trawl the vintage stalls at Broadway Market a mile down the road.

Paper Dress, a vintage boutique that becomes a bar by night, is another local Mare Street favourite.

Hackney Walk designer outlet features brands including Matches Fashion, Joseph and Nike.

Culture in Hackney

In Mare Street, Hackney Empire has an eclectic programme of live music, comedy, dance and drama and there is a Picturehouse Cinema.

The Castle Cinema, independent and crowdfunded, is in Brooksby’s Walk. The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities is a museum/bar with creepy exhibits heavy on taxidermy and erotica.

Eating and drinking in Hackney

A real strong point in Hackney. Becs likes Palm Vaults — with its quirky décor, pet bulldog and rainbow lattes topped with edible glitter — for a coffee; Tuyo for a dinner of tapas; cocktails and live music at Oslo, and brunch the morning after at L’eau à La Bouche, a healthy deli with a prime position at Broadway Market.

Green space in Hackney

For such an urban area there’s a surprisingly generous amount of greenery, led by Hackney Downs, which has sports pitches, an athletics track and tennis courts.

Becs tends to walk a little further south for her fresh air, however. “Victoria Park really comes alive as soon as the sun shines,” she says.

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