Hackney, London: the Museum of the Home, Sutton House, the Hackney Empire and Abney Park Cemetery

Kingsland Road, Hoxton Street and Old Street carry the almshouses, churches and civic halls of Hackney's City fringe, and they predate the nightlife.

The Museum of the Home occupies the Geffrye almshouses at 136 Kingsland Road: fourteen four-room houses of 1714 for up to 56 pensioners, built for widows of ironmongers with a large garden behind. The London County Council opened them as a museum on 2 April 1914 to serve the local furniture trade with a reference collection of furniture and interiors. The building closed in January 2018 for an £18 million redevelopment and reopened in June 2021 with 80 per cent more exhibition space and 50 per cent more public space. It opens 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday and on Bank Holiday Mondays, and the operator states: "Entry is free. No booking is required to visit." The almshouses are Grade I listed, NHLE 1226772; the forecourt wall, gates and railings are Grade II, NHLE 1265688, the niche in the north-west corner of the forecourt Grade II*, NHLE 1265687, and the two K6 telephone kiosks outside Grade II, NHLE 1235680 and 1235681.

St Leonard's Shoreditch stands at the junction of Shoreditch High Street and Hackney Road, a working parish church by George Dance the Elder and one of the eight Grade I entries inside the borough boundary, NHLE 1235382. No source states its opening hours, so none are given here. Shoreditch Town Hall at 380 Old Street, Grade II listed, NHLE 1235232, is let as eight distinct hireable spaces and runs on its programme rather than on general opening hours. Hoxton Hall at 130 Hoxton Street was built in 1863 by James Mortimer in the traditional music hall architectural style, bought by James McDonald in 1866, and enlarged in 1867 with a new upper balcony and the rear balcony extended on both sides; it is Grade II* listed, NHLE 1226830.

Two playhouse sites lie beneath the streets here: The Theatre Playhouse, NHLE 1433271, and The Curtain Playhouse, NHLE 1463328. Both are scheduled monuments, which carry a list entry number and no grade.

Mare Street and the Narrow Way hold the civic and market core, and the ground runs south past London Fields to Broadway Market and the Regent's Canal.

Sutton House at 2 and 4 Homerton High Street was built in 1535 by Sir Ralph Sadler, Principal Secretary of State to Henry VIII, and was first known as Bryck Place. The National Trust bought it in the 1930s with the proceeds of a bequest from William Alexander Robertson, made in memory of his two brothers killed in the First World War. Its linenfold panelling was stolen in the 1980s while the building stood derelict and was returned by the salvage firm that recognised its quality; restoration was completed in 1993 and the house fully opened to the public in 1994. The Linenfold Parlour, the Great Chamber, the Georgian Parlour, a Tudor kitchen and a recreated squatters' room from the 1980s occupation are on show. The house is Grade II* listed, NHLE 1226810, with the gate and piers separately Grade II, NHLE 1226767, and opening comes as a per-date calendar rather than fixed weekly hours.

St Augustine's Tower stands in St John's Church Gardens off Mare Street and opens on the last Sunday of every month except December, 2pm to 4.30pm. It is all that survives above ground of the medieval parish church of St Augustine, Grade I listed, NHLE 1265635. The parish moved in the 1790s to St John-at-Hackney on Lower Clapton Road, James Spiller's church, Grade II* listed, NHLE 1226959, which works as a parish church and as a live-music venue. Five structures in its churchyard carry their own entries on the National Heritage List, among them the war memorial, NHLE 1391701, and the Beaufort, Hunter and Loddiges family tombs, NHLE 1391333, 1391334 and 1391335.

The Hackney Empire at 291 Mare Street opened on 9 December 1901 to a design by Frank Matcham and takes 1268 seated or 1631 standing across Stalls, Dress Circle, Upper Circle and Gallery. ATV converted it to television studios in the mid-1950s, broadcasting Take Your Pick and Oh, Boy!; the Mecca Organisation ran it as a bingo hall from 1963 to 1984; Roland Muldoon's campaign secured the freehold in 1986, and a £17 million refurbishment by Tim Ronalds Architects reopened it in 2004 with an orchestra pit and a studio theatre. The box office opens Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, or from two hours before all shows. Broadway Market trades 0900 to 1700 on Saturday and 1000 to 1600 on Sunday, 52 weeks a year, on a street that has held market traders since the 1890s and follows an old drovers' route into the City; F Cooke's eel, pie and mash shop there is Grade II listed, NHLE 1458716.

Kingsland High Street runs north into Stoke Newington Church Street, and the day divides between a working Art Deco cinema, a Victorian garden cemetery and Clissold Park.

The Rio Cinema at 107 Kingsland High Street is run by a private company limited by guarantee, registered charity number 277415, and the building is Grade II listed, NHLE 1244939. A cinema opened on the site in 1909 as the Kingsland Palace; the present building dates from 1915, when the Kingsland Empire opened, and F. E. Bromige designed the Art Deco remodelling of the frontage and auditorium in 1937. Screen 1 seats 402, 188 in the stalls and 214 in the circle, and a 28-seat Screen 2 opened in the basement in December 2017. The operator publishes a telephone line, 020 7241 9410, open 2pm to 8pm daily.

Abney Park Cemetery at 219 Stoke Newington High Street opened in 1840 and opens daily from 8am to dusk, including Christmas Day and New Year's Day. It is a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1000789, of 12.59 hectares, about 31 acres, laid out as a nondenominational garden cemetery with no dividing lines between religious groups and planted as an arboretum of about 2,500 trees and shrubs, arranged alphabetically and labelled. Roughly 200,000 burials have taken place, 196,843 of them recorded up to the year 2000. William Hosking designed the mortuary chapel with Joseph Bonomi the Younger and George Collison II and it was complete by 1840; the chapel is Grade II listed, NHLE 1265023. Fourteen monuments inside carry their own Grade II entries, among them William and Catherine Booth, NHLE 1257360, and Isaac Watts, NHLE 1235434.

Clissold Park opened as a public park in 1889 and is a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1000800, of 22.74 hectares, with the New River running through it. The council names an aviary and animal enclosures, a paddling area, tennis courts, a wheels park, a pond-dipping platform and an organic growing space among its facilities. Clissold House holds a café and hireable rooms and is Grade II listed, NHLE 1226509, under the list name Refreshment Rooms; house and park were restored in a project estimated at £8.9 million, begun in 2010 and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the council and the Big Lottery Fund. The park opens by 7.30am year-round and closes between 5pm in January and December and 9.30pm from May to August. On Green Lanes the Castle Climbing Centre occupies the former Metropolitan Water Board engine house, built in the form of a castle for the Stoke Newington reservoirs and Grade II listed, NHLE 1226755; it opens Monday to Friday 8am to 10pm, weekends 9am to 8pm and bank holidays 8am to 10pm, with a café and a garden.

East of Lower Clapton Road the streets give out onto marsh, reservoir and towpath along the River Lea.

The Round Chapel at 1D Glenarm Road is the former Clapton Park United Reformed Church, Grade II listed, NHLE 1265632, and one of the 38 Grade I and Grade II entries inside the borough boundary. Hackney Historic Buildings Trust runs it as an events and performance venue and hosts music, film and fashion productions there as well as community events. No source states general opening hours, so none are given here.

Hackney Marshes is free, unenclosed common land beside the River Lea with 24-hour access, addressed by Hackney Council at Homerton Road, E9 5PF. The council counts 82 football, rugby and cricket pitches across North Marsh, South Marsh and Mabley Green, describes the marshes as internationally known as the spiritual home of Sunday league football, and the site holds a Green Flag award.

Springfield Park opened as a public park in 1905, formed from the grounds of three private houses of which Springfield House survives, and slopes down to the River Lea and the Springfield Marina. It is a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1000839, of 13.44 hectares, while the council gives the managed park as 14.73 hectares. The park is open at all hours, and Springfield House and its café open 10am to 6pm from April to September and 10am to 4pm from October to March.

Victoria Park adjoins Hackney and is a Tower Hamlets park, a Grade II registered park and garden, NHLE 1000178, with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts drinking fountain inside it Grade II, NHLE 1235552.

London Overground runs three lines across Hackney. Catch the Mildmay line for Dalston Kingsland, Hackney Central, Homerton and Hackney Wick; the Weaver line, shared with Greater Anglia services, for Hackney Downs, London Fields, Rectory Road, Stoke Newington and Clapton; and the Windrush line for Dalston Junction, Haggerston, Hoxton and Shoreditch High Street. Old Street on the Northern line and Liverpool Street, which carries the Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Elizabeth lines, lie beyond the borough's southern boundary, and Manor House on the Piccadilly line serves the Clissold Park side.

For Shoreditch and Hoxton, take the Windrush line to Hoxton, 294 m from the Museum of the Home, or to Shoreditch High Street, 638 m from the centre of the area; Old Street is 823 m, Haggerston 1,084 m and Liverpool Street 1,263 m from the same point.

For Hackney Central and London Fields, Hackney Central is 74 m from the centre of the area, Hackney Downs 448 m, London Fields 678 m and Homerton 875 m. London Fields is 156 m from Broadway Market, and Sutton House stands 431 m from Hackney Central and 540 m from Homerton, both on the Mildmay line.

For Dalston and Stoke Newington, Dalston Junction is 16 m and Dalston Kingsland 244 m from the centre of Dalston, with Canonbury 1,228 m away on the Mildmay and Windrush lines. Stoke Newington on the Weaver line is 329 m from Abney Park Cemetery and Rectory Road 662 m from Stoke Newington's centre; Manor House on the Piccadilly line is 1,254 m from Clissold Park.

For Clapton and the Lea Valley, take the Weaver line to Clapton, 101 m from the centre of the area and the station to use for both the Round Chapel and Springfield Park. Hackney Marshes lies 1,192 m from Homerton on the Mildmay line and 1,201 m from Lea Bridge, which Greater Anglia serves. Hackney Wick, on the Mildmay line, is 78 m from Hackney Wick itself.