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6
PHYSICAL FEATURES, SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND
VITAL STATISTICS
Hackney, one of London's 28 metropolitan boroughs, is situate in the north
eastern part of the County of London. Its southern boundary adjoins the
Metropolitan Boroughs of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Poplar; the Metropolitan
Boroughs of Islington and Stoke Newington lie to the west; the Borough of
Tottenham to the north, and the Boroughs of Walthamstow and Leyton to the east,
The total area of the borough comprises some 3,287 acres of which approximately
609 acres are public open spaces. The London County Council maintains
some 598.45 acres of open space and 10.9 acres are maintained by the Borough
Council.
The borough is residential as well as industrial in character. At the
1951 census the number of structurally separate dwellings, occupied and vacant,
was 40,041, and the number of households 57,654. At the end of 1954, rate
book records showed the number of inhabited hereditaments to be 40,182 and the
estimated rateable value of the borough at April 1st was £1,437,808. A penny
rate produced £5,860.
The types of dwelling throughout the borough vary from the terrace type of
urban dwellings of four to five rooms to the larger Victorian or Edwardian type
of basement house,, Development in recent years has in the main provided large
blocks of flats.