Quaker Burial Ground

From the late C17th there was a strong Quaker community in Stoke Newington who held their meetings in the City of London until 1698 and then established a regular fortnightly meeting in the Stoke Newington house of gardener Robert Walburton, although numbers dwindled and the house they met in became a parish workhouse. However, in the C18th and C19th the community was flourishing with a number of wealthy and influential inter-connected families living in Stoke Newington, with strong interests in philosophical and political issues, including the anti-slavery campaigners Samuel Hoare (d.1796) and his son Jonathan Hoare. The family lived in Paradise House, the largest house in Paradise Row, which fronted onto the New River, and was near where Clissold Park (q.v.) now is. In 1827 the decision was taken to build the Friends Meeting House in Park Street, now called Yoakley Road. The Meeting House was built in 1828 by William Alderson and seated 385 people, a classical style building with 3 bays with an open portico in brick and plaster, which was later enlarged in 1860.

The burial ground was opened in 1827, and enlarged in 1849; it continued to be used up until 1957. Writing in 1896, Mrs Basil Holmes described it as 'neatly kept, but not open to the public'. However most of the site was sold to the local Council in 1955 and the Meeting House building was demolished and replaced by a smaller brick building, which was in turn closed as a Quaker Meeting House in 1966. It was thereupon used by the Seventh Day Adventists from Holloway who bought the building in 1968, and continue to use it. The former Quaker Burial Ground is in two parts, the area to the north now a public garden. This small area of garden is accessed up a flight of steps behind Lister Court housing block, where a jagged path made up of concrete goes through the central lawn in which are planted five Irish yews, with some mature trees along the perimeter. Uniform tombstones are stacked against the boundary brick walls surrounding the site, which are topped with high chain link fencing along the west side. The remainder of the former burial ground to the south is behind the former Meeting House and appears to be no longer accessible.

Near the burial ground, on Yoakley Road, is Levy Memorial Ground, named after former Hackney Councillor, Morry Levy. It is mostly paved, with a few benches and new raised beds for food growing as part of a project by Transition Town Stoke Newington. A snake bark maple was planted here in 2001, when it was threatened with closure.