De Beauvoir Town

De Beauvoir Town
The distinctive Jacobethan styled gables and mullioned windows of houses in De Beauvoir Square
De Beauvoir Town
De Beauvoir Town shown within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ3384
• Charing Cross	3.8 mi (6.1 km) SW
London borough	Hackney Islington
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	N1
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
UK Parliament	Hackney South and Shoreditch
London Assembly	North East North East
List of places UK England London 51°32′37″N 0°04′50″W / 51.5437°N 0.0805°W / 51.5437; -0.0805Coordinates: 51°32′37″N 0°04′50″W / 51.5437°N 0.0805°W / 51.5437; -0.0805

De Beauvoir Town (/də ˈbiːvər/ or /ˌdiː boʊˈvwɑːr/) is an area of north London in the London Borough of Hackney.

De Beauvoir Town’s boundaries are Kingsland Road to the east, Regents Canal to the south, Southgate Road to the west and Ball’s Pond Road to the north; these last two boundaries are also part of the borough’s border with the London Borough of Islington.

Neighbouring districts include Islington, Barnsbury, Canonbury, Dalston and Shoreditch (Hoxton and Haggerston areas).

Until 1820 the area now covered by De Beauvoir Town was open country with a few grand houses. In 1821, stimulated by the opening of the Regent's Canal the previous year, developer and brick maker William Rhodes (1774-1843), a grandfather of Cecil Rhodes, secured a lease for 150 acres (0.61 km²) of land from Peter de Beauvoir. Rhodes planned to build residences for the upper classes in a grid pattern, with four squares on diagonal streets intersecting at an octagon. However, work stopped in 1823 when Rhodes was found to have obtained his lease unfairly and after a court case spanning over 20 years the land reverted to the de Beauvoir family in 1834.

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Wikipedia