Since 2012, I’ve been telling the remarkable story on walks of the Dissenters of Newington Green and a remarkable ‘church’ where anybody and everybody is welcome. You don’t even have to believe in God to attend the Sunday service (motto: “Believe in good”). Many of us will be familiar with the Enlightenment icon Mary Wollstonecraft…
Tag: Newington Green
Look Up For Inspiration: Alternative Statue Tour
We’re very lucky in Hackney to have a tradition of changemakers and pioneers. The history here is full of brave figures who stood up for everything from the Abolition of Slavery through to gender equality and no war. It carries on today, with a river of consciousness that manifests itself in contemporary activism and also…
Focus on the Positive – IWD 2019
This International Women’s Day, I will be offering another walk featuring the heroic Mary Wollstonecraft and other inspiring female writers and fighters in Hackney for social justice who don’t get the recognition they ought to, like
Mary Wollstonecraft: Transcending Gender
Why is a man leading walks about Mary Wollstonecraft in Stoke Newington and Newington Green and why does he think it’s important that she has a monument? Saturday’s walk (see below) sees half the funds go to two local causes including the campaign for a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft. Why? Many of us broadly accept…
Frankenstein, Freedom and Suffragettes: Forged in Hackney
Like a little radical history? Love books? Enjoy big ideas from famous Hackney figures who rocked the boat for reform? On London Bookshop Crawl Weekend, we celebrated 100 years since women entered Parliament for the first time, 200 years since Mary Shelley published Frankenstein and
Hackney Tours Tomorrow’s World
It’s apt that the exhibition Tomorrow’s World at Atom Gallery on Green Lanes– opening tomorrow, naturally – should explore ideas of Utopia and Dystopia so close to Newington Green. This is where
Really Discover East London!
Radical History Lover? Curious Local? Love Photography? Something for Everyone… It’s been a busy summer, so you may have missed the Hampstead Heath walk for Hackney Council or the literary adventure that was our trip to a Margate book festival in the guise of Half Day Holidays. I took some Wickers around Hackney Wick to…
Mary Wollstonecraft: Celebrating Heroines of Hackney on IWD
The most amazing woman you never heard of? Single mum; war correspondent; businesswoman; writer; educator; activist; political radical; patriarchy-smasher: if you’ve read “In Search of Mary” by Newington Green resident Bee Rowlatt you’ll know that Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman ahead of her time (and still is? Discuss…).
The Original Suffragette – Hackney Hero Mary Wollstonecraft
The big movie release this week is Suffragette, but 100 years before the Pankhurst-led push for suffrage, a Hackney-based hero was scandalising the establishment by suggesting a woman could be a man’s equal. She is the star of our polemical walk ‘Feminist (Or Is It?) Stoke Newington’. Often referred to as the ‘founder of modern…
Feminist Stoke Newington – Or Is It? Special IWD 2015 Guided Walk
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2015 WALK Special fundraising edition of the ‘Feminist (Or Is It?) Stoke Newington‘ guided walk (see here for usual walk): Sun 8th March; meet 10.30am main gates of Abney Park cemetery N16; cost £8 with 50% of proceeds to fund for Mary Wollstonecraft statue in Newington Green (see here); just turn up….
Typical: nothing for months then three events come at once…
Radio silence is broken. Apologies for the silence. Or apologies for breaking it, depending on your point of view…?Hackney Tours has news of three great events coming up for you in the next few weeks, so please read on. Thanks for reading and hope to see you soon! You can also stay up to date…
October Walks & Runs with Hackney Tours
Autumn is upon us, judging by those clouds outside. All the more reason to get out and enjoy the changing of the seasons as the leaves turn brown and thoughts turn to Halloween, Bonfire Night and our other rituals marking the passing of time. As mounting research shows, it’s good to be amongst nature; you’ve…
Hackney Tours: East LDN Creative Exploration 