Two neighbourhoods, two kinds of street
De Beauvoir and Stoke Newington sit at either end of Hackney’s western edge. They feel different, and so does their ironwork.
De Beauvoir Town
De Beauvoir Town was planned in the 1820s. A developer named William Rhodes took a lease on the land in 1821, the year after the Regent’s Canal opened. He planned four squares around an octagon. Work stopped in 1823 after a long legal fight, and the land went back to the de Beauvoir family in 1834.
Richard Benyon de Beauvoir then laid out a smaller estate, centred on De Beauvoir Square, from the 1830s. Hackney says it was the borough’s first large housing scheme built to a formal plan. The houses around the square are in a picturesque Tudor and Jacobean style. Look for shaped gables, carved chimneys and leaded windows with diamond panes. Further south, Benyon Cottages on Hertford Road are Italianate pairs from 1839.
The area nearly disappeared. In the 1960s Hackney cleared a large part of the old estate for new flats, including the east side of the square. Local people formed the De Beauvoir Association in 1968 to fight the demolition, and much of what they saved is now protected.
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is older. Much of Church Street was built up in the 18th century, and a builder named Edward Newens is credited with a good deal of it. Nos. 75 to 93 form a listed group, and No. 89 is a late 18th century house with Gothic cast iron area railings from the 19th century.
Albion Road came later. It was built after the Pulteney estate was sold for building in 1821, to link Newington Green with Church Street. At Nos. 147 and 149 a low brick wall with cast iron spear-head railings and a gate survives from around 1840. It is listed in its own right.
What the railings look like here
On De Beauvoir Square the houses do the talking, with their gables and chimneys. Railings there need to stay simple and well proportioned, so they do not fight the architecture above them.
Stoke Newington is more varied. Some Church Street houses, like No. 89, have basement areas, where railings guard the drop to the lower floor. On Albion Road the listed boundary at Nos. 147 and 149 shows another pattern: a low brick wall with spear-head railings and a gate set into it.
What we make for De Beauvoir and Stoke Newington
Railings and gates
We forge front railings and gates in mild steel, matched to the bar size, spacing and finials of the surviving examples on your street. For an Albion Road house that might mean spear-heads set into a stone coping. For Church Street it could mean a heavier area railing with a decorative top.
Restoration of old ironwork
Old cast iron can crack and rust, and wrought iron bars thin out where water sits. We take out damaged sections, forge new parts to match, and reset them. Where a listed railing is involved, we keep as much of the original as we can.
Staircase balustrades
A forged balustrade on the main stair can suit a Georgian hall on Church Street or one of the gabled houses on De Beauvoir Square. Inside a home, guarding on a stair must be at least 900mm high, and gaps must not let a 100mm sphere pass through.
Building work around the railings
The railings sit on walls, and on houses from the 1830s and 1840s those walls have had a long life. Copings crack where old bars rusted inside them. Brick piers can lean, and patched walls often use the wrong brick.
Our team rebuilds dwarf walls in matching London stock brick, resets or replaces stone copings and drills fresh holes for the new bars. We can also repair front steps and paths. In De Beauvoir, front garden walls are protected by the Article 4 direction too, so we draw the wall and railings together for one planning application.
Planning in Hackney
Hackney designated the central and southern parts of the De Beauvoir Conservation Area in 1971 and 1977, and extended it in 1998. A conservation area is a place the council protects for its history and character. In 2008 Hackney added an Article 4 direction. That removes some normal building rights, so many houses now need planning permission to change railings, metalwork, gates, fences or walls. Not every house is covered. Hackney keeps a database where you can check your address.
Stoke Newington Church Street is in the Stoke Newington Conservation Area, designated in 1983. Nearby, Clissold Park and Albion Square are separate conservation areas. If your house is listed, you will need listed building consent, which is permission from the council to change a protected building. Always check with Hackney first.
How a commission works
You can start from the craftsman’s design album and adapt a pattern to your house. Or we draw a fully bespoke design in CAD. We do not forge anything until you approve the drawings.
We survey first, measuring the wall, the old bar holes and the neighbours’ ironwork. The pieces are then hand-forged in our own workshop by a craftsman with 20 years of hand-forging experience. Our London team installs them.
To get started, request a quote with our short online form, or call us.