I was enchanted by Hackney and Abney Park when I discovered it around 1988, which is when I went to live in Hackey. The park and local area always seemed magical to me. It’s a very special place. The whole of Hackney is rich with the history of rebels, revolutionaries, and dissenting characters, and I’d like to think those people are the ancestors of my fictional characters.
Let’s pop an ancient vampire into the story.
As an immigrant and most definitely a non-conformist, Varu would have been at home among the people of Hackney and Stoke Newington.
I like to think that Varu the Vampire knew the people who lived in and visited the grand houses along Stoke Newington Church Street, such as the owners and inhabitants of the magnificent manor house, Fleetwood House, and those who stayed in the Summer House, which was a building on its grounds.
In my imagination, Varu has a history with the Summer House, and it was his part-time residence.
For convenience and for underground parties, he had a ballroom and magnificent quarters for vampire guests constructed below the Summer House, and when the building was demolished in the first half of the nineteenth century, the subterranean layers were concealed and survived. Varu and his friends bought several of the local houses that were subsequently built on the site, where he housed his human servants.
He then settled permanently in Stoke Newington, spending most of his time in the grandeur and darkness below ground rather than in the dangerous modern world above.
You can see an illustration of Fleetwood House and read its interesting history right here:
Now, luckily I can help you get a sense of the magic of Abney Park and Cemetary:
Not everyone can get to visit it, and you may have never seen a cemetery like it. So, I’m delighted to be able to share that YouTube with you.
And there is a detailed history of the residents of Stoke Newington Church Street right here, complete with a map c1848: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp163-168
helen J Perry 