From the First Hackney Marsh Fun Festival to the last Hackney Carnival: An Exhibition to celebrate 50 years of Chats Palace
Chats Palace will be showing unseen images from the first Hackney Marsh Fun Festival from 1974 alongside images from the last ever Hackney Carnival in 2024. Separated by fifty years the photographs have been taken by Hackney photographer Neil Martinson. The Hackney Marsh Fun Festival led to the creation of Chats Palace because the festival grew so large that its organisers desperately needed a permanent, year-round headquarters. In 1974, the old, Grade II-listed Homerton Library closed down when a newer library opened nearby. Rather than letting the building fall into disrepair or corporate hands, community activists and festival organisers marched on and occupied the building in 1976. They reclaimed it to ensure it stayed "for the betterment of East Londoners". By 1977, they officially named it Chats Palace. Once established, Chats Palace became the engine room for the festival, housing its carnival committee, building floats, hosting local pensioner clubs, and providing a legendary local stage for community theatre and music. The exhibition will be showing September and October 2026. For the duration of its stay, the Exhibition will be on display on Wednesdays, Thursday, Fridays, & Sundays from 11am-3pm.
