Ecstatic Dance & Sound Baths: Keeping the Community Healthy
When an area changes as rapidly as Hackney Wick today, it can place a range of stresses on our wellbeing. But help is close at hand
Olympian Desiree Henry on her own London 2012 legacy
Being asked to light the torch at the opening ceremony inspired a glittering career
On Park, Off Grid: Grassroots sports in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Find out how informal sports are flourishing happily alongside the big facilities
What happened next? Exploring the legacy of London 2012
A standing legacy is a rarity; it’s easy to talk about, but a challenge to implement. Although London is world-renowned for a myriad of things, hosting the 2012 Olympics remains one of its larger-scale and undeniable achievements. Many of us were active spectators ten years ago, showing up in the thousands to cheer on Team […]
Eton Mission Rowing Club…a proper Eton Mess
The once historic rowing club has sat mothballed for a decade in a standoff over redevelopment and the changing use of local waterways
Unstoppable Green Shoots
At first glance it might not appear to be the greenest of places, but Hackney Wick is bursting with plant life. From the roof gardens of Oslo House to the jostling pots atop narrowboats on the River Lea, plants are thriving. As we transition into spring, nature is gently unfurling, sending our urban landscapes into […]
The Great British Bathing Revival
It’s a Sunday morning, 8am, and I’m squinting into a dark black abyss in the middle of a Hackney Wick building site. And yet, I am filled with pure joy: this abyss is the ashy guts of a sauna stove. I’m opening the shift at the Hackney Wick Sauna Baths. I’ve got two hours to […]
MEUS turn White Post Lane Orange
In early 2021, just as the world was opening up again, a good friend of mine Kevin – who owns A Balanced Life here on White Post Lane – told me they were building a third layer to his plot, and I liked the look of it. I knew that I wanted to be in […]
The Wicked One: Gordon Fryer
How long have you lived here? I was born in Woodford Green and went to school there. Then I joined the Navy for 10 years, came back and got married, and my first wife was from Hackney so we ended up here. We’ve moved around a couple of times, not away from the area, but […]
Wellbeing in the Wick
Kevin Hempsted is a born and bred Eastender, and runs White Post Lane therapy and counselling centre A Balanced Life. He talks about how the pandemic has impacted health, and why the local community is so essential to all our wellbeing. We’re still processing the trauma of the past year… Lockdown has taken away part of community we all need – that contact with […]
