Homerton

Homerton is the bit of Hackney that estate agents sell by pointing at somewhere else: usually Victoria Park, sometimes Hackney Wick, almost never the name on the station sign. The neighbours got the warehouse parties and the colour supplements, and Homerton got the Overground stop and the buses everyone takes to get to them. This is a place that spent centuries cleaning cloth with urine and making paint out of lead and cow dung on the marshes so the City could look respectable, and it has never really stopped doing the unglamorous work. The people who live here worked that out years ago and are in no hurry to tell the listings.