Exasperated residents were kept awake until the early hours of Monday morning by workmen – and their pneumatic drill.

Transport for London has apologised for the disruption and said emergency work overran outside the Three Crowns pub, High Street, Stoke Newington at the junction with Church Street.

Resident Joe Goulcher, 30, said the noise was “absolutely insane”.

The entertainment agency worker, whose Church Street flat overlooks the area, told the Gazette: “It started at about 10pm across the whole corner street and it was really, really loud. People were outside and leaning out of their windows.

“It could have been emergency works but they should have communicated that to the residents.”

Joe said it was the second time in six months he’d been kept up by workmen late at night.

A TfL spokeswoman said: “We apologise for the disruption caused by the work we were doing to re-patch a small area of road surface to make it safer.

“We started this emergency work at 10pm to avoid peak traffic and worked hard to complete it as quickly as possible. “Unfortunately the work took longer than intended but we ensured all noisy work was complete by midnight and we were off site by 1am.”

She also admitted the work still needed to be finished off at a later date.