Meanwhile i found a collection of Napoleonic canons acting as Ley Markers between Hackney Downs and Clapton Square. Located right next to the church...
I found some other information from another blog...
'The problem with this is that metal is a precious commodity, and I found it difficult to believe that such a valuable lump of metal would be so casually dumped as street furniture. I wondered if it was an urban myth based on a somewhat more mundane truth. A bit of research later, and these valuable captured cannons were indeed scrapped by the British government following the Napoleonic Wars – as a result of political lobbying by the arms industry. It seems that the armaments manufacturers were worried that the government would reuse the captured cannons for its own military forces, and hence the firms wouldn’t be able to sell more cannons to the government. After representations to the government, it was agreed that the loss of business would close several companies and as a healthy arms industry was (and still is) considered to be vital to national security, Parliament agreed to scrap the French cannons.
In actuality, they ended up being buried muzzle down to act as road bollards. Later they were buried muzzle upwards with the classic cannon ball stuck on top. So, in order to save the British arms industry, hundreds of valuable cannons were unceremoniously taken over by local authorities for street furniture. However, there is a side-effect of this, as street bollards were largely unknown in England at the time, and the use of the captured cannons as “new” bollards would have reminded the populace of the recent military victory in France and probably been something of some pride for the populace'.
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