The World in Microcosm

Acclaimed street photographer, Colin O’ Brien and award-winning travel writer, Jane Egginton are a couple of Hackney residents who love living just off vibrant Chatsworth Road. This strip of high street is important culturally, socially and historically. As one local jokingly commented: “You can live your whole life on Chatsworth Road, with no need to ever leave. You can be born in the hospital at one end, attend the school at the other and then be buried by the funeral parlour conveniently situated somewhere in the middle.“

There's a Turkish greengrocers, a Nigerian butchers, a French deli, a Caribbean supermarket, two West Indian take-aways, a boutique coffee shop and an Eastern European Social Club. Other local businesses include an electrical repair shop, a dentist, two greasy spoons, two glaziers, several hairdressers and three betting shops. It also boasts a Muslim prayer room, a Methodist church, and a massage parlour. A computer repair shop gives Koran lessons and a snooker hall is housed in a listed building.

Chatsworth Road is a unique high street made up almost entirely of independent shops. Once host to Hackney’s biggest market, and within a stone’s throw of the Olympic site, this road, with its increasingly gentrified population, is in a state of flux. The reintroduction of the market in 2010 and the Olympics in 2012 will see this fascinating stretch of road change dramatically – perhaps beyond all recognition.