The Romans are famed for their engineering and construction skills - they are credited with inventing the arch and concrete amongst others - and they built some magnificent houses, but these would not have been common in Hackney as it was outside of the City walls. Indeed there is no evidence yet of any Roman settlement in Hackney i.e. structural finds, perhaps because there has not been much excavation of the area.

If there were people living in Hackney, being such a rural area, houses would probably have looked like they did before the Roman invasion. These were roundhouses of timber structure with thatched roofs. They would have been dark and very cold in winter. Later in the Roman period they may well have adopted the rectangular style of house building favoured by the Romans.

Within the city walls the poorer houses and shops would not have been built of the stone and tile like the public buildings and affluent citizens' homes. Nor would they have benefited from the sanitation and heating that the Romans are famous for. They would have been single storey rectangular timber framed houses using the wood of the oak and hazel trees, which were both prevalent in London at the time. Walls would have been wattle and daub or mud brick, sometimes with plaster over the top, and roofs thatched.

In the later years of the Roman period some of these roofs would have been replaced with timber and some houses weatherboarded. Obviously these houses were a fire hazard and would often have burnt down. Indeed Boudicca, ruler of the East Anglican Iceni tribe, raised Londinium to the ground in AD 60 and it accidentally burnt down again in AD 120.

Only the richest houses would have furniture and even then by modern standards would have been sparsely furnished. Most interiors would have had little more than a fire to cook on and the floor to sleep on. As well as the smoke from fires the smell from rubbish and industry must have been intense; rich and poor, work and residential were altogether.