South Hackney is an area of Hackney in London, England within the Borough of Hackney. It is about northeast of Charing Cross. The Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy on the corner of Victoria Park Road and Lammas Walk utilises the buildings of the former French Hospital (La Providence), a home for elderly Huguenots. The French Hospital was built in the 1860s in the style of a French-Flemish chateau, designed by Robert Lewis Roumieu. The area just south of Well Street features social housing such as the Kingshold and Shore Estates. The former New Kingshold Estate (built 1966, demolished 1996) was subject of a 1990 Channel 4 documentary Summer On The Estate highlighting some of the problems on the estate with crime and disrepair, and residents fight to improve it. A follow-up series aired in 1995 as the two tower blocks on the estate, Thornhill Point and Halston Point were demolished in July 1995. History In Tudor times, South Hackney consisted of two small settlements. One around the modern Grove and Lauriston Roads; the other where Grove Street and Well Street meet. There were two moated houses, the one on the north side of Well Street belonging to the Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller, in 1416. The house survived into the 18th century, but by then it was in decline and the tenants included chimney sweeps. This was commemorated by the name of the Two Black Boys public house. which stood on the site now occupied by Bernie Grant House in Well Street. In Church Crescent, near the church are six almshouses, created by a bequest from William Monger in 1669, and funded by land on Hackney Marshes. This land subsequently came into the control of Sir John Cass. The almshouses were rebuilt in 1849, with funds from Sir John Cass's Foundation. A second almshouse was founded in 1857 in memory of South Hackney's first rector, Henry Handley Norris (1771–1850). Norris was a leading member of the Hackney Phalanx, a group of early nineteenth-century Anglican High Churchmen. His portrait hangs in the parish church. South Hackney originally had a chapel of ease in Well Street, but became an independent parish in 1825, with the parish church of St John of Jerusalem erected in 1848 near Well Street Common. Geography Demographics Demographic data is produced by the Office for National Statistics for the Victoria ward. In