Mick Hartley

Photograph pasted on a hoarding on White Post Lane, Hackney Wick:

The writing at the bottom reads "View of the works on the west side of Hackney Cut, 1896-1898 © LB Hackney Archives."

Clarnico was based in Hackney Wick from 1879:

Clarnico, on Carpenter’s Road, was the largest sweet manufacturer in the country and employed 1,500 people.

Ideally situated for deliveries of sugar on the banks of the River Lee navigation channel, it was famous for mint creams as well as producing liquorice Chinese Pigtails, coconut-based Toasted Haddocks and the eclectically-named Pig’s Head & Carrots and Dolly’s Musical Bottles.

Founded in 1872 as Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs, its main product was candied peel though it soon diversified into making marmalade, jam and then sweets. By the 1900s the company had its own fire brigade, ambulance, a brass band that toured abroad and a 100-strong choral society.

Most of it was cleared for the Olympic Park, but it was already in a sorry state and the company, taken over by Trebor in 1969, had long since moved out.

Here's a 1921 aerial view of the works. The open ground towards the top is now the Olympic Park. Clarnico is centre right. Few of those terraced houses to the left survived the blitz.

I've no idea who was responsible for sticking the photo up there, but it's a nice reminder – in the spirit of last year's The Walls Have Ears mural – of the area's industrial heritage.