About Tudor Hackney

The Village

In the early twenty-first century Hackney is part of inner London. In 1537 it was a country village about three miles outside the city.

Clapton, Homerton and Dalston were all separate hamlets as well, reached from Hackney by muddy lanes.

Tudor Hackney was a fashionable place for City merchants to live - it was within an easy ride of their London offices, but it was much healthier and safer. The air was better, and there was less crime and disease.

The area was also well known for its good vegetables and milk and butter, and much of the land was given over to the farms and market gardens that produced these.

Homes

There were many fine houses in Hackney - (several are shown on the map). The only one left now is Sutton House, Ralph Sadleir's home. But there were many others, and the biggest and most important building in the area was the King's Place, one of a number of homes of Thomas Cromwell, the King's chief minister.

Across the fields in Shacklewell, (where Seal Street now stands) there was a manor house belonging to the Heron family, and along the length of Church Street (now Mare Street) were a number of grand houses belonging to the gentry.

But most people lived in small cottages. Only big houses for the well-off were made of brick; cottages were mostly timber framed and thatched. Glass was expensive, so the windows of poorer people had shutters instead. The smaller houses would have only one or two rooms upstairs and down, with a steep staircase and very little furniture.

Jobs

The commonest kind of work in Hackney was connected in some way with producing food, either on your own land or working for one of the bigger landowners.

However, there were also lots of servants working in the big houses.

Many people earned a living by keeping small shops or by making and selling ale to their neighbours.

There were some prosperous landowners, and the larger houses were inhabited by City merchants and their families.

Children

Only rich or fortunate children went to school.

But there were lots of schools of different kinds, from grammar schools like St Paul's to small schools kept in church porches (there was one of these in Hackney).There were also dame schools, run by one woman in her own house, charging a few pence a week to teach perhaps half a dozen children a bit of reading and writing.

For the many who got little or no formal education, life was mostly work - and many children started to earn money at seven or eight.

And lots of children were homeless - there were many people wandering from place to place, and they often had their children with them. When there was no casual work, they would beg.