Kingsland, London

Kingsland was a small road-side settlement centred on Kingsland High Street, on the Old North Road (the present A10), Middlesex. It has now been subsumed within inner city London, principally as part of Dalston in the London Borough of Hackney and has lost its separate identity. Kingsland derives its name from being the hunting grounds of a Tudor royal residence at Newington Green—hence King's Lands. At the time, the area was still heavily forested—as part of a forest stretching from Shoreditch to Enfield Chase—and roamed by wild bulls, stags and wild boars. Deforestation occurred quickly – as the demands of the nearby City took wood for building and firewood; and the cleared land was quarried for brick clay. There were many wells and...