Friday 10 July 2015

Essex hipsters?

Barking may soon have the cachet of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Dalston according to a recent piece in the Evening Standard headlined "Essex Hipsters? It's not such a Barking idea." Guess anything's possible, as I've just discovered a hipster coffee bar has opened at the Whitechapel end of the Commercial Road, near where my great great grandfather traded as a saddler. House prices (which used to be among London's lowest) are rising faster in Barking and Dagenham than in any other borough and there's just been a folk festival there with Barking's favourite bard, Billy Bragg. The Standard also discovered there's an artists' colony in a derelict warehouse on the River Roding, which is now known as the Ice House Quarter. Soon it seems Barking might be away with craft beer, beards and designer cereal shops.

5 comments:

  1. Barking is in London, not Essex.

    ReplyDelete
  2. But still spiritually (and formerly) Essex as the Standard's headline implies…

    ReplyDelete
  3. A 3 screen arthouse cinema is promised as part of a 50m flat development on Axe Street so it could happen...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmmm Billy had to trek in from Dorset didn't he? The real test will be if Broadway theatre can tempt back Neil Young (who recorded 2 tracks of his classic Harvest album there with the LSO and Glyn Johns when it was called Barking Assembly Hall.) Nobody could be hipper than Neil Young right? ... A visiting Ontarian

    ReplyDelete