Property

Walk around Clapton on a Sunday morning and you can come across amicable lefties ambling towards Stoke Newington’s Church Street for their coffee and croissants, as well as hungover fashion students ingesting a greasy breakfast on Lower Clapton Road, or a colourful gospel singing congregation emerging from the Round Chapel, a thriving community arts centre. All roads do tend to begin and end with a frightening building though – and if you find yourself on the busier streets like Clapton Road, there are plenty of cars cruising noisily past with windows down and vibrating with bass, plus junk shops with fridges and beaten-up old sofas piled outside.
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It’s the new…
London Fields. Only three or four years ago, young, professional couples were settling for London Fields and Broadway Market after being outpriced in Shoreditch – now the spotlight has shifted to Lower Clapton.

Best for…
Young couples with a limited budget who want to live within walking distance of good food shops and gastropubs. Sports fanatics who want to take advantage of the area’s amazing facilities.

What else?
While local shops and restaurants on the main drag of Lower Clapton Road tend towards the southern fried chicken end of the market, you are a stone’s throw from Church Street, with its bijou shops and farmer’s market, and (in the other direction) the massive supermarket off Mare Street. It can only be a matter of time before the delis, cafés and shops arrive though – there’s already an organic health food shop and the trendy Biddles Bros bar on Lower Clapton Road. The Eclipse pub on Elderfield Road (No 57/020 8986 1591) is the local of choice for a friendly crowd of young professionals and doctors from the nearby Homerton hospital, who drink from the good wine menu and cocktail list. If you fancy a walk, you can follow the River Lea up towards Upper Clapton, near where the glorious Spark Cafe (020 8806 0444) serves fresh coffee and healthy brunches with a fine view of Walthamstow Marshes.

Local stereotype
A Shoreditch refugee who has outgrown his mullet, and reaquainted himself with the sight of children, grass and the occasional tree.

Your neighbours
The area isn’t yet gentrified enough to claim any resident celebs, but Clapton can claim to have spawned some famous creatives: Harold Pinter was born by Clapton Pond, Michael Caine went to Hackney Downs School, Johnny Rotten attended the (poor) local Brooke House School and chemist Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen, both lived in Lower Clapton and held the prestigious title of ‘Minister of the Gravel Pit’. Nowadays, you could easily tour the area and never hear the same accent twice, from affluent Jews in Stamford Hill to lively Jamaican families near the Downs.

What to tell your friends who don’t live there
Transport links are good here, and, in a few years, will be great. Today the 55 and 242 buses take you straight into town, while the overland rail link gets you to Liverpool Street and the City in eight minutes. 2010 is when it all gets interesting though, as that’s when the first phase of the impending East London Line is due to be completed. The line will stop at nearby Dalston and Stoke Newington, linking Clapton to the rest of London. All of this is likely to feed in to the regeneration of the whole area.

It’s also worth remembering that the Olympic village will border Hackney Marshes, so Lower Clapton is the nearest large residential area to the west of the Games… you still have time to get your B&B conversion up and running.

The real USP of the area, though, is its astonishing natural amenities. You can walk along the river to the Lea Valley Nature reserve with riding stables, rowing clubs, cricket pitches and ice rink. Locals enthuse about days spent observing dipping kingfishers and other wildlife, and scarcely believing they were still in London.

What to keep quiet about if you’re selling
The Clapton Road and the big estates surrounding are still sites for drug dealing and violent crime. While improving with the closure of the Chimes bar and the Palace Pavilion nightclub, these can be dangerous places to walk at night. Crime rates in the borough (Hackney) are double the national average.

What the estate agents say
‘An area that’s really on the up… loads of professionals move here because there are great links to the city, and there’s a very strong lettings market due to the nearby hospital.’ Lauren Thompson, Felicity J Lord, Clapton branch.

Did you know?
Until the eighteenth century, the area was known as Clopton, meaning ‘the farm on the hill’.

Historical claim to fame
Growing from Saxon settlements, Clapton was originally made up of a farm on the Lea Valley Hillock. The road that passed through towards Stamford Hill was the pilgrims’ route to Waltham Abbey. In 1409, Brooke House was built, (on the site of the current Brooke House school) and was the family seat of a succession of luminaries, including Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Samuel Pepys.

Schools
Generally speaking, primary schools are good, secondary schools a problem. Rushmore Primary School, a mixed primary at the junction of Rushmore Road and Chatsworth Road, has a very good reputation and is one that people move into the catchment area for. As for secondaries, there is fairly good provision for girls with Clapton Girls’ Technology College (020 8985 6641), but for boys the choice is much more limited. There are initiatives in place to improve secondary education in the area, with the introduction of Labour’s specialist Academys, but how successful they will be remains to be seen.

You know you’re a local when…
You’ve had a takeaway from the legendary Granny’s Kitchen (on Cricketfield Road), widely known to sell the best Jerk Chicken outside Jamaica.

Average property prices
One-bed flat £180,00
Two-bed house £300,000
Three-bed house £360,000
Four-bed house £450,000
One-bed flat to rent £800 per month