The Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, is located in former 18thcentury almshouses in Hoxton. Located outside the museum is a statue of Robert Geffrye, an English merchant who helped fund the original almshouses and partly built his wealth through investments in transatlantic slavery. Recent controversy surrounding the statue has led the museum to examine its own connections to the legacies of colonialism. The museum commissioned Michael McMillan’s film Waiting for Myself to Appear. The film explores Caribbean migrant history, emotions, identities and gender in Shoreditch, Hoxton and Haggerston whilst reflecting on the history of the museum’s establishment.
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Autograph champions artists who use photography and film to explore race, representation, human rights and social justice. It values, cares for, and amplifies the diverse stories of marginalised people, offering a platform where their narratives are presented, published, discussed and shared.

BRAFA Square, newly named in 2021 to commemorate the British Reggae Artists Famine Appeal (BRAFA), memorialises the group’s efforts in the mid-1980s to raise thousands for Ethiopian famine relief through the charity song Let’s Make Africa Green Again and a concert in Shoreditch Park. Stories and photographs displayed on information boards in the plaza are a lasting reminder of BRAFA’s significant history.

Café Caribbean was started in 1993 from a small outlet in Covent Garden by Warren Richards, an ex-professional boxer. Warren took the culinary path to bring the traditional dishes of Spanish Town, St Catherine, Jamaica, to London. Now based in Old Spitalfield Market, Café Caribbean is twenty minutes walk from Peer. Recommended dishes: Jerk Chicken and Fried Yellow Plantains.

Hackney Museum collections shed light on the borough’s diverse range of residents from the earliest anglo-saxon settlers to the present. Hackney has been the home of carnival groups since the 1970s when Caribbean communities settled in the borough. The museum’s Making Carnival exhibition explores fifty years of carnival history through costumes, photos, and videos. The museum website also offers online resources on African and Caribbean history whilst showcasing the diverse culture of London’s East End.

The Hackney Empire, established in 1901, became a notable music hall in early 20thcentury London. Belle Davis, who has been said to be the first black woman to record, performed here. Her performance was a pioneering moment within the British art scene at the time.

Hackney Church holds invaluable archival records relating to black British histories in the borough. For example, the baptismal records from 1709-1829 show that before the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1833, many black women were only baptised by the church after reaching adulthood; shedding a clear light on living conditions in the borough in Georgian London.

In 2022, on National Windrush Day, Hackney Council unveiled this permanent public artwork, Warm Shores by artist Thomas J Price in Town Hall Square. Price’s largerthan-life figures are based on digital 3D images of over thirty Hackney residents with a personal connection to Windrush. The work was commissioned by the council, in partnership with Create London, with the intention to demonstrate a commitment to supporting the Windrush generation through honouring the borough’s Windrush community.

This sculpture by Veronica Ryan, Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae), and Soursop (Annonaceae), 2021, depicts three fruits drawn from the artists’ memories of shopping with her mother on Ridley Road market as a child. It is the first permanent monument by a black female artist in the UK. Ryan says, “People are, rightly, questioning how things have been commemorated and the relevance of certain monuments. Part of addressing that is by having different kinds of work in public spaces.”

As Stuart Hall has stated, ‘major intellectual and political figures’are ‘not honoured by simple celebration’ but rather ‘by taking his or her ideas seriously and debating them, extending them, quarrelling with them and making them live again.’ The CLR James Library, named after renowned Trinidadian author and historian CLR James, honours this thinker. People can visit the library’s CLR James Archives by appointment to view the collections spanning a wide range of audio-visual and printed matter.

The Hackney Peace Carnival Mural—designed by Ray Walker after the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival—celebrates Hackney’s cultural diversity and was intended as a symbol of harmony at a time when Cold War ban-the-bomb marches were common. The mural vividly portrays marches against nuclear weapons and represents transnational anti-colonial movements, linking to themes explored in Onyeka Igwe’s film, A Radical Duet.

Hackney CVS is a not-for-profit local infrastructure organisation focused on addressing health and social inequalities in Hackney by fostering partnerships and acting as a bridge between the community and public bodies. Their ongoing work includes embedding anti-racist commissioning principles across the organisation, the project ‘Female Hackney’, and supporting refugees and migrants in the area.

The Four Aces Club was established by Newton Dunbar and open from 1966-1997. The venue played a pivotal role in the black British music scene, particularly in the genres of reggae, ska, and later jungle and drum & bass. The venue was demolished in 2007, and its history was chronicled in the 2008 documentary, Legacy in the Dust: The Four Aces Story, directed by Winstan Winter.

Centerprise, a community bookshop and café on Kingsland Road from 1971-2011, was founded by Margaret Gosley and Glenn Thompson to support Hackney’s workingclass communities. It provided services including childcare, literacy, housing rights, and organising space for radical groups, with a focus on working-class history, black rights and feminism. It closed after losing an appeal against council rent hikes.

George Padmore was a key Pan-Africanist leader. He founded the Pan-African Federation and co-organised the Fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945. Padmore’s home became an important meeting place for anti-colonial activists in London during the 1940s and 50s. It served as a hub for political discussions, bringing together influential figures in the fight for African independence and global decolonisation.

Founded in 1966 by John La Rose and Sarah White, New Beacon Books was the UK’s first specialist bookshop and publisher for black literature, Caribbean thought, and African diasporic history. The bookshop has been at the center of many political and social projects and campaigns including Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-1972), The International Book Fair of Radial Black and Third World Books (1982-1995). For decades, New Beacon Books has offered a space for the promotion of black voices in literature, education and activism.

Many notable abolitionists are interred here, including Joseph Sturge (1793-1859), the founder of the Anti-Slavery Society; Josiah Conder, author of The Last Night of Slavery, 1834; and Amelia Opie, the first woman to sign the Women’s Anti-Slavery Petition. These prominent historical figures witnessed pivotal developments of the abolitionist movement and serve as reminders of the legacy of their struggle for freedom and equality.

This blue plaque honours the legacy of Claudia Jones. She was a political activist, feminist and black nationalist, who founded the Notting Hill Carnival. From this residence, she also founded the West Indian Gazette, a newspaper focusing on discrimination against London’s Caribbean community. Her work served as a vital platform for highlighting racial injustices and promoting Caribbean culture.

The Ayah’s Home, based here from 1900-1921, provided shelter for Indian ayahs and Chinese amahs (nannies) who worked as ‘travelling nurses’ for British colonial families during sea-crossings back to Britain. Once in London, they were often abandoned or foced into communal lodgings. The Ayah’s Home served as a critical support system. Marking its heritage today highlights its role in countering colonial, racial and gendered exploitation.

Phillis Wheatley Peters, born in West Africa and enslaved aged seven, became the first African-American to publish a poetry book in 1733, in London, with the support of the Wheatley family. The collection was titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. It faced scepticism due to Wheatley’s status as an enslaved African woman. Wheatley’s plaque offers a lasting tribute to her role in breaking barriers for future generations of black writers, particularly women.