Hackney London: what's on and things to do

Hackney is where a lot of London's music and art actually happens, in railway arches and converted warehouses rather than purpose-built venues. It is spread out in a way the tourist map does not capture: Dalston, London Fields, Hackney Central, Hackney Wick and Homerton are all Hackney and all feel different.

Daytime

Broadway Market on a Saturday is the fixture, running from about nine to five, with London Fields beside it for the afternoon. The Hackney Empire is a genuinely beautiful Victorian theatre, and its pantomime is one of the few in the country adults go to willingly. Hackney Wick has the highest concentration of artists' studios in Europe and opens them to the public a few times a year.

The canal from Islington through to Hackney Wick is flat, free and the best walk in east London, with pubs at intervals along it.

Evening and night

Dalston is the late end: small venues, Turkish restaurants that serve past midnight, and bars on Kingsland Road that run to two or later. Hackney Wick's warehouse venues run all night at weekends. Hackney Central has the Empire, the Picturehouse and a growing number of places that were pubs and now do small plates.

Getting home

The Windrush line on the Overground runs all night on Friday and Saturday through Dalston Junction, Haggerston, Hoxton and Shoreditch High Street, which is the single most useful fact about a night out in Hackney. The rest of the week, the Overground stops around half past midnight and the 38, 55 and 149 buses run all night.