Living in Hackney Wick & The Olympic Park

What it's like to live here

Queen's Yard is where people meet: one cobbled yard in an old Clarnico factory, with Crate, Howling Hops, the Colour Factory and the Yard Theatre. The Yard started as a pop-up in 2011, put up by about fifty volunteers. It reopened in July 2026 as a permanent 220-seat theatre on the same spot.

Hackney Wick proper is north and east of the railway, in Hackney: Wallis Road, Berkshire Road, Hepscott Road, Prince Edward Road, Queen's Yard, Chapman Road, Felstead Street. South and west of the railway is Fish Island, which is Tower Hamlets. A lot of "Hackney Wick" sold prices online are Fish Island addresses. White Post Lane sits on the line. The station subway, opened in 2018, is what joined the two sides.

Wallis Road is where Alexander Parkes made Parkesine, the first man-made plastic, in 1866. There's a plaque. Many of the artists' studios that made the area's name have gone. There were more than six hundred at one point; Vittoria Wharf was demolished for a footbridge and Mother Studios closed, though creative spaces and canal-side venues like Two More Years (in the old Stour Space on Roach Road) carry on. The Lord Napier Star on White Post Lane is the only traditional pub, shut in 1996, back in 2021, covered in graffiti. Grow Hackney and Barge East are on the water. Hackney Bridge is a canal-side food and workspace hub on land earmarked for later housing. Here East, the old 2012 press centre, is a six-minute walk, and the reason a lot of people here work nearby.

Green space: Hackney Marshes to the north, and Wick Woodland just south of Homerton Road, planted from 1996 on old football pitches. It's now the second-biggest woodland in the borough. Victoria Park is about nine minutes. Day-to-day shops are a Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express, Co-op and corner shops. Westfield at Stratford is the big shop.

Most of what sells is flats. Warehouse and factory conversions, new-build from 2015 onwards on Wallis Road and Rothbury Road, and the Olympic Park schemes at East Wick and Sweetwater, which are on 990-year leases. Family houses are rare. Live/work units need checking. The council protects employment land here, so "live/work" can mean a proper residential consent or a short-term commercial let. Planning came back to the boroughs from the LLDC in December 2024. The two conservation areas have no listed buildings inside them, but windows, cladding and roofs are still controlled. There's more housing planned around the station.

The station is Zone 2, Mildmay line, step-free, four to six minutes to Stratford. About twenty minutes door-to-door to Liverpool Street. We cover the Wick from Chatsworth Road.

Last reviewed November 2026. Local businesses and services change — tell us if something here is out of date.