HISTORY

In the Beginning

The Ordnance Survey map of 1871 (above left) shows the Listraban area as a formal garden, possibly a public park, with open space and tree-lined paths. Bordering it to the west and south is Abney Park Cemetery, founded in 1840 on the estate of the late Sir Thomas Abney. To the east lie the back gardens of houses lining the Cambridge road, at whose southern end lay the City of London. By the 19th century Stamford Hill (once Sandy Ford Hill) was becoming home to wealthy bankers, to whom its elevation offered the first relatively smokeless air to be found between here and the City. Large villas lined the hill, and the presence of an elegant park is not surprising.

By 1894 (above right) Listria Park and Martaban Road had arrived, offering more modest housing for the humbler classes. And so, by 1872, had the railway. Note two gaps in Listria Park’s housing, one on the east and one on the west. A possible explanation is that they mark the path of the Hackney Brook (see below) as it headed off towards Mare Street and Old Ford.

Residential Listraban can be traced back a little further still, to the census of 1891, which recorded a population of 539. More about that here.

Only at a very casual glance do Listraban’s streets appear to be anything like uniform. At a closer look they bear the hallmarks of having been built, like much of London, by speculative builders. The landowner would issue a lease to a builder, specifying the type and quality of the houses to be built. The builder would finance the development and in return would take the rents for the duration of the lease, after which ownership would pass to the landowner. Listraban was clearly split between a number of builders. The northern side of Martaban Road is in a radically different style from everything else. Division between builders is seen clearly where 49 Listria Park ends one row and 51 begins another, breaking the usual back-to-back pattern which gives front doors in pairs.

One oddity is 89 Listria Park. To the eye it looks a little wider than the others. The truth is more complicated. Up to the 1990s there was an archway to the right of the house, with a room above it. The purpose of the archway has never been explained, because it gave access only to the tiny back garden. The room overhead, which looked like part of No. 89 in fact belonged to 87. By the mid-1980s No. 89 had been partly destroyed by fire. It was eventually compulsorily purchased and auctioned to a builder who substituted an extra room for the not very useful archway. This has resulted in Listraban’s only vertically stacked neighbours.

Hackney Brook

Almost certainly Hackney Brook accounts for Listraban’s distinctive shape. But for the natural boundary formed by the river, the Listraban area might well have been part of the Abney estate. Today one of London’s lost rivers, the Brook was still partly overground in the mid-19^th century. By that point London’s swelling population had made it into an unsavoury open sewer. Around 1860 the Metropolitan Board of Works enclosed it in a brick-built sewer designed by its chief engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette. its precise course isn’t easy to establish today, but it is presumed to run beneath at least some of the back gardens of Listria Park. A planning issue at the beginning of this century established that the Bazalgette sewer lies underneath the adjacent 17 Manor Road site, beside the north-west corner of Listria Park.  

Later Development

If it was geological considerations that accounted for the vacant lots in Listria Park, they had become irrelevant by the 1990s, when rocketing property values made it economic to build on piling. That resulted in one very noticeable change: previously the site of Nos. 61 and 63  Listria Park was used as a park for removal lorries owned by the Jeakins family, at least two generations of which lived in Listria Park. Jeakins Removals expanded by buying J.A. Coles, and their maroon and pale blue vehicles are still often seen in the area. Today, to the relief of some, only the arrival or departure of a household brings them to Listraban.

The house shown on the 1894 map at 44 Listria Park is something of a mystery. It disappeared at some point, and the building that now stands there is a modern addition. It occupies a smaller site than its predecessor: over the decades owners of houses backing on to the lot had extended their back gardens, a land grab that the developers chose to accept as a fait accompli.

Earlier additions to the original layout are Nos. 23 and 25 Martaban Road. No. 25, now enlarged and divided into five flats, was originally an industrial building of very basic design. For many years the upper floor housed the Hackney Pakistani Women’s Welfare Centre. Operated by the Qureishi family, who were resident in Listria Park, it provided dressmaking and computer training for young women as well as health advice and drop-in lunches for the elderly. Listraban’s Community Association used the premises for meetings and yoga classes.

23 Martaban Road, a much earlier building, used as a garment factory up to the 1990s, has now been enlarged, embellished and converted to flats, but its elaborate original design and the curious feature of a symbolic ram’s head below the apex of the roof hint that it may once have served some kind of community function.

The final addition to the housing was 135 Listria Park. Built on a tapering site, it faithfully echoes the style of its neighbour, but on a smaller scale.

The Community Association

Some time in 1992 a Mr Stevens of Listria Park put a note through nearby letterboxes. There had been a burglary, and Mrs Stevens had lost all her jewellery. Mr Stevens wanted to warn his neighbours to be on the lookout.

From this came the idea of a Neighbourhood Watch. Better still, someone said, would be an organisation with a broader scope. Des Pritchard, Jenny Corner and John Harding put together a proposal for a Community Association, with a draft constitution based on a standard template for Council estate Tenants’ Associations. On the 8th May 1993 a meeting in the upstairs room at 25 Martaban Road authorised the steering group to organise election of the first committee and Listraban has never looked back.

Membership of the Community Association is automatic, the sole qualification being residence in Listraban. Such funds as it holds have been raised at annual street parties. Monthly meetings are open to all members. The Association represents residents’ interests through liaison with external bodies such as Council departments, the police and the management of Abney Park, and on rare occasions it has provided a forum for discussion of contentious issues, as it did during the consultation which resulted in Controlled Parking, giving residents rights in not only Listraban but nearby streets.

The Association organises an annual Big Lunch, monthly Playing Out for children and annual carol singing. A quarter of a century of such regular activities has led to a level of connectedness not found everywhere – a connectedness that proved its value when Covid-19 disrupted normality. The Association has been responsible for some of the streets’ plant life and bicycle parking. It has organised some sort of summer street party every year since its founding, and up to 2020 rain had only once forced it to retreat indoors.

For reasons of privacy and security, the Community pages of this website are open only to residents.

An Offshore Island

Just off the north coast of Listraban, in the middle of Manor Road, is a traffic island. It perpetuates the memory of a well-loved figure, Dennis Gardner of 21a Listria Park. Dennis, who in his time had been naval rating, safe breaker, carpenter and decorator, could be cantankerous, and he set out to nag the Council into doing something about the dangers of crossing the road at a point where curves block visibility. Armed with the knowledge that a child from Listria Lodge had once been killed there, he put the case to the Council’s Highways Department. Characteristically, he never stopped putting it until Paul Douglas, the Principal Officer, gave in, declaring that he thought it a very unsuitable place for a traffic island, but that ‘your Mr. Gardner won’t stop pestering us so I’ve reluctantly agreed.’

A small brass plate engraved with the words ‘Den’s Crossing’ was pressed into the wet concrete, and on the afternoon of Sunday 6th November 1994 Councillor Brian Marsh cut a ribbon and small crowd of Listrabians marched back and forth, shamelessly impeding the traffic and sipping plastic cups of warm Liebfraumilch purchased at the Marus’ shop opposite. (see note). Paul Douglas said he thought it was the only traffic island in London to be named after someone.

(Note: George Maru, an immigrant from Kenya, is one of those who story is told in Inside the Inner City by Paul Harrison, published Pelican, 1983. Subtitled ‘Life Under the Cutting Edge,’ and a sequel to his Inside the Third World, it is a portrait of the Borough of Hackney, chosen because the author felt it exemplified some of the problems and hardships described in his earlier book.)

One small step for a man… Identifiable in the photo are: (1) Marsaili Cameron (2) Sonja Ruehl (3) Nemone Lethbridge O’Connor (4) Dennis Gardner (5) Councillor Brian Marsh (6) Graham Morrison.

Also present were the Community Association’s co-founders: (1) Jenny Corner (2) Des Pritchard (3) John Harding.

The brass plate is still there, though nowadays needing a polish.

Listraban v Hitler

No history is complete without mention of the wars. Listraban has little to report. It escaped direct bombing, although folklore maintains that blast from a bomb in Abney Park accounts for the poor quality stippled wartime glass found in some of Listria Park’s kitchen windows. And of course Listraban, like most of Britain’s streets, sacrificed the cast iron railings that originally graced its front yards. A few pools of lead and embedded iron still mourn the loss.