History
During the latter part of the Saxon era, Hackney was encompassed within the boundaries of the Stepney manor and did not have an individual listing in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its name was recorded in 1198 as “Hacas ey“, a Saxon word meaning “a raised place in the marsh”. The first evidenced settlements among the fields of Hackney include villages to the north of present-day Victoria Park at Grove Street and at Well Street.
During the medieval period, south of the hamlet at Grove Street, lay a deer park belonging to Bishop Bonner. Following the Dissolution, the park became agricultural land and Rocque’s Map of 1745 shows the area populated with small fields and market gardens, and was eventually known as Bonner’s Fields by the 18th century. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that the urban area around Grove Street began to expand as a result of the creation of Victoria Park just to the south.
Victoria Park was created after a mass petition signed by 30,000 people was presented to the Queen. It requested an open green space be made available for the ‘healthful recreation’ of the working class in the East End. In 1841 the Government passed the York House and Victoria Park Act, which allowed them to purchase 218 acres of land on which to lay out the park. Victoria Park was the first and largest of the new London parks of the era, designed by James Pennethorne of the Office of Works and opened to the public in 1846.

