Fassett Square, top left, was the original inspiration for Albert Square
(Picture: ES Composite)A Victorian terrace house on the Hackney garden square that was the inspiration for the fictional EastEnders location is for sale after a £76,000 price drop.
EastEnders creator Julia Smith planned to film the BBC soap opera in Fassett Square in Hackney, with homeowners reporting cash-filled envelopes put through their doors by the crew to keep residents on side. Ultimately Albert Square was recreated at Elmstree Studios instead.
Nonetheless, the BBC set created in the mid-Eighties is a faithful recreation of the Hackney original. The 56 homes in Fassett Square were identical, right down to the measurements, to those built for the show.
Now for sale for just less than £1.3 million through Dexters, the four-bedroom home in Fassett Square has been extended and modernised significantly since that fateful location scouting.
Its current owners, a family planning a move to the countryside after almost 12 years in the east London square, listed it for £1.375 million in June but it has more recently been reduced to its current asking price of £1,299,000.
Similarities between the two garden squares are less pronounced nowadays than they were when the series’ creators first discovered the location in 1985, given the rapid gentrification of Hackney in the 37 years since EastEnders was first broadcast.
There isn’t a pub like the Queen Vic in the E8 square, although the pub thought to be the inspiration for the EastEnders watering hole – The Cat & Mutton – is just a short walk away in Broadway Market.
“Many of the residents on Fassett Square have lived here since EastEnders was first broadcast in 1985. You can really feel the sense of local community,” said Jodie Ryan, director of Dexters Hackney.
“All the local homeowners have their own key to the communal garden in the centre of the square, and in the summertime, they host lots of parties and get-togethers.”
UK Land Registry house price records only began in 1995, 10 years after EastEnders first aired (February 1985 ), but in that time the average cost of a home in the London borough of Hackney has risen 786 per cent.
With current sold prices in the area now £542,886, according to the most recent ONS house price index, it’s a staggering climb from the first recorded average of £61,297.
Fassett Square’s residents have returned the communal garden to its former Victorian glory with winding paths and island beds and lawns and it is now a must-visit during Open Garden Squares weekend.
