Is the Gothic a thing of the past? Or does our contemporary culture haunt us the same way that the anxieties of the Victorian age bled out onto the pages of titles such as Frankenstein or Dracula? How do our worries about the future connect with those who lived through the Age of Reform? You…
Tag: Nonconformists
Hackney Changemakers: Amy Todd
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…
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…
Journey to Future Hackney
If the exciting radical past of radical Hackney was the pizza of conventional tourism where I started, then eventually I would always end up with a big long stringy piece of cheese stretched out between it and my face. This was the future
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
Finding the Gold in Hackney
Finding the gold on the streets of Hackney with William Blake and the curious of London…
Never the Bride: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Crash of Wedding Symbols
Symbols matter. There’s a serious bit of state theatre going on this weekend apparently (Hackney Tours is too busy being out on the street to follow the media) and it’s all about reinforcing the ancient (feudal?) concept of monarchy. Apparently we’re paying for an elaborate spectacle that is designed to reassure us that being Subjects…
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…
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…
Hackney Tours: East LDN Creative Exploration 