Home  Home St Augustine's Tower
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 St Augustine's Tower has stood in Hackney for over seven hundred years. It was built before World War One, the Victorians, the Great Fire of London or Henry VIII.
Hackney's oldest building is almost as old as Robin Hood! St. Augustine's was once the parish church in Hackney. Now its bell tower is the only part that is left. As the years passed, loads more people moved to live in the village of Hackney, just outside the city of London: the church became too small to fit everybody in. So just over two hundred years ago (about the time of the French Revolution) it was knocked down to make room for the big, new St. John-at-Hackney church. At first the bell tower was only saved because there was not enough money to build a bell tower for the new church. And by the time a new bell tower was added, the Victorians decided that they quite liked the old one - so they kept it after all! And there it still stands, opposite McDonald's and Primark just near to Mare Street in the middle of Hackney.
If you visit the tower now, you can climb up the ancient, steep, winding staircase, and take a close-up view of the clock that told the Hackney villagers the time for so many years (it is over 400 years now, but it still chimes and tells the time quite well). When you get to the very top of the tower, you can see right across London - from Epping Forest to Tower Bridge to the Arsenal Stadium.
The Hackney Historic Buildings Trust has finished a major makeover at St Augustine's Tower. As well as doing repairs to the actual building, the project has opened the roof up to the public for the very first time. They have created a virtual recreation of the old church, so visitors can see what it was like all those years ago when it stood next to its original bell tower. The Tower is open every last Sunday of the month (except December) and visitors are made very welcome.
If you would like to know more about the tower, send an e-mail to
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