April 2022

The Friends of Wanstead Parklands is once again urging visitors to stick to the paths when viewing the bluebells in Chalet Wood.

“The bluebells in Wanstead Park look wonderful after a very warm Easter. Please stick to the log-lined paths as creating fresh ones amongst the bluebells kills the plants. Children are encouraged to balance on the logs lining the paths, just as the little girl in the picture here is doing. Treading on the leaves harms the plants and means there will be less to see next year,” said Gill James.

The Wanstead Village Dog Show will return to the grounds of Christ Church next month following a two-year absence during the pandemic.

“We are very much looking forward to hosting this popular event once again. Categories include best puppy, waggiest tail and best lookalike,” said a spokesperson for the Friends of Wanstead Parish.

The event – which will take place on 1 May from 11am to 3pm – is sponsored by Petty Son & Prestwich and Goddard Wanstead Veterinary Hospital, which will provide the judges.

From high hedges to boundary positions, Derek Inkpin from Wanstead solicitors Wiseman Lee explores some of the common disputes neighbours can find themselves engaged in

Going to court to resolve a neighbour dispute should always be a last resort. If the dispute concerns a statutory nuisance, say loud music or barking dogs, a complaint to the local council could result in a Noise Abatement Order being issued. If this does not result in a peaceful outcome, the person breaking the order could be fined up to £5,000. Noise from a factory or business could incur a penalty of up to £20,000.

If the neighbour is breaking the law by violence or harassment, the police could be contacted and, if serious enough, could involve the issue of proceedings through the Magistrates’ Court.

If you have a problem with a neighbour’s high hedge that can’t be settled informally, then a complaint to the council could be made if two or more evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs are over two metres tall and these are affecting the enjoyment of your home or garden. It is in order to trim branches or roots if they cross into your property from your neighbour’s home, but only if you trim up to the property boundary. More than this and your neighbour could take you to court. If you live in a Conservation Area, or the trees or hedges are protected by a Tree Preservation Order, you will likely need the council’s permission to trim them.

The resolution of a boundary dispute can be really tricky. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has free advice on boundary disputes. This will involve checking the boundaries of your property by looking at the Land Registry Title Plan, but its red line only indicates the general position of the boundary and does not define it exactly. There is a Boundary Disputes Mediation Service designed by RICS and the Property Litigation Association to help neighbours resolve disputes about boundary lines, which will hopefully achieve an outcome satisfactory for all.

Where there are several issues, the appointed mediator will work with the parties to narrow the issues and help find solutions acceptable to both sides. Although an RICS mediation will cost somewhere in the region of £2,500 per party, it is a lot less expensive than litigation.

A recent boundary dispute in the county court over an encroachment issue involving nine inches of land resulted in costs being incurred on each side of about £90,000 plus VAT. Determining the position of a boundary will likely involve the instruction of surveyors, solicitors and barristers. Each case turns on its own facts after the assessment of all available material. Disputes of this nature provide a salutary tale.

Wiseman Lee is located at 9–13 Cambridge Park, Wanstead, E11 2PU. For more information, call 020 8215 1000

Ruth Martin of the Aldersbrook Horticultural Society has compiled a potted history of the garden. In the third of a series of articles, she guides us from Victorian times to the modern era

The Victorian era was a time of innovation and technological change, the British Empire, travels abroad by plant hunters and the building of glass houses on large country estates and in public gardens led to the cultivation of tender plants and the introduction of many new plants. These were transported safely back from Asia and the Far East in a newly invented Wardian case.

The pre-eminent garden designer of the Victorian period was Charles Barry, who designed very formal gardens with stone balustrades and edges filled with bedding plants. The tender bedding plants were used as carpet bedding in formal beds in the new public parks that were built to give people living in towns the opportunity to breathe fresher air, exercise and play in green spaces.

The Industrial Revolution resulted in people moving to towns for work and the enclosure of land meant country folk lost their right to graze their animals and grow crops on common land. For ordinary people in town and country, allotments were introduced on which they could grow vegetables and flowers. In the Midlands and the North particularly, this saw the beginning of growing specific flowers for competitions, such as auriculas and hyacinths. Flora Thompson in Lark Rise to Candleford describes how the majority of cottagers in her village were largely self-sufficient in food, growing vegetables on allotments and in gardens.

Locally, the period from the end of the 19th century to the First World War saw new estates being built like Woodgrange, Aldersbrook and Lakehouse. Gardening and market gardening were significant in the area, and old maps show plant nurseries, market gardens and large glasshouses. The garden design of these houses was planned formally, with square beds or ponds surrounded by paving. The original Aldersbrook Horticultural Society was founded in 1909 with an annual show at St Gabriel’s, monthly lectures and outings.

The Second World War and the Dig for Victory campaign meant every bit of land was cultivated, including allotments on Wanstead Flats. More advice about gardening was made available, and houses built after the war by local authorities, such as pre-fab and council houses, had large gardens. Since the 1970s, gardening has become increasingly popular with improved transport allowing people to visit the gardens of large country houses. The most visited gardens, such as Beth Chatto’s garden near Colchester, were developed by gardeners who really knew and loved their plants. The 21st century has seen a return to more natural ways of gardening, getting rid of insecticides and pesticides, wildlife meadows and growing vegetables in containers.

The Aldersbrook Horticultural Society was re-established in 2018 and meets monthly at Aldersbrook Bowls Club. The group will be hosting a visit to The Beth Chatto Gardens in June. Visit wnstd.com/ahs

Redbridge Museum will open a new permanent exhibition later this year exploring 200,000 years of local history. In the third of a series of articles, Museum Officer Nishat Alam looks at some of the items on show

For centuries, much of what is Wanstead Park today formed the grounds of a large manor house. Wanstead House was built to display the wealth of its owners, and in 1673 was purchased by Sir Josiah Child, who turned it into one of the grandest buildings in the country. But how did Child make his money? This article looks at the opulence of Wanstead House and the story behind its wealth.

Josiah Child focused his attention on the gardens of Wanstead House, which he saw as an important feature to be viewed and talked about for miles around. He employed the most famous garden designer of the time to achieve this. Great avenues of trees were planted and the River Roding was diverted to form beautiful ornamental ponds. After his death, Josiah’s son Richard rebuilt the house in a fashionable neoclassical style. It was 260 feet long and three storeys high; it boasted over 50 rooms, including a ballroom, library and billiard room. Keeping with the latest styles, Richard moved away from the formal gardens his father had laid out to a more natural-looking landscape with lakes, woodland areas and a grotto.

The wealth of money Richard spent on Wanstead House was inherited from his father, which is a common enough story with grand estates. But Josiah Child had made his own fortune and not in the most honourable ways.

Josiah came from humble beginnings as a merchant’s apprentice and first grew rich supplying the Royal Navy with food. He later invested in the transatlantic slave trade, buying sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans in Jamaica. In 1677, he became a director of the East India Company, and within a few years, was running the entire Company. This was a hugely powerful position he maintained through bribery, corruption and aggression. Child even led one of the first wars against the Mughal Empire, eventually resulting in British colonial rule in India. It was via colonial ventures and with disreputable tactics that he became one of England’s richest men and by which Wanstead House became the estate we see in the painting above, which illustrates how the estate looked in 1715 just before Richard Child began transforming it.

Wanstead House was not the only grand house built with colonial wealth in what is now the London Borough of Redbridge. These places and themes will be explored in new displays in Redbridge Museum, reopening later this year.

Redbridge Museum is located inside Redbridge Central Library on Clements Road, Ilford. Visit wnstd.com/rm

To complete a survey about what else should go on display, visit wnstd.com/rms

Decades of rubbish removed, 14 tons of soil added, 180-plus plants rehomed. Job done. Marian Temple of the Wanstead Community Gardeners tells the story of the new Snaresbrook Station car park patch

Last autumn, we were approached by someone involved in the station car park at Snaresbrook. Did we know there was a neglected strip of earth there? Might we be interested in doing something with it? We went to have a look.

The strip runs half the length of the car park. It was a dry trench. It would need a lot of work to create a border there, but if we decided to take it on, we would be introducing greenery into an area of hard surfacing. Good for people, good for insects. Since we are street gardeners, we always ask ourselves with a new patch: “Who is going to see this?” In this case, it would be seen by people on the trains, on the platforms and the car park users.

It was going to be a big project for us, but it was impossible to know just how big until we started. Liaising with TfL and NCP, the car park people, we got going. With the help of 20 volunteers, many working parties and much earth shifting, the job has recently been done.

As with all the neglected patches we take on, the first task was ‘mank’ removal. We took out decades of detritus: plastic, cellophane, foil, food cartons and bottles. It was endless, but it all came out along with 20 metres of plastic pipe and a section of chain-link fence. All to the dump. Once cleared out, we had to think about filling the trench level with the car park surface. How much filler would we need? None of us knew. A learning curve. We put in 60 rubble sacks of leaf mould. Good stuff but it didn’t go very far. Redbridge Garden Centre brought along three tons of topsoil. That didn’t make much difference either. In the end, 14 tons of topsoil went into the trench.

As with all our patches, we plant stuff that, once established, can more or less look after itself. We cannot water. It was important to plant early so that good root systems could be established before the summer dry spells. We favour old-fashioned cottage garden plants and Mediterranean ones. They are tough, don’t get eaten by slugs and come back year after year.

The new border – all 35 metres of it – is in full sun, backed by a brick wall with the old concrete posts for the long-departed chain-link fence still in situ. How useful those posts are going to be! They will support the tall hollyhocks and mulleins we have planted. We have threaded wire through the holes in the posts the length of the border to support other plants: 180 plants have gone in, still counting. They are a mix of walking woundeds from the garden centre, plants sourced from our own gardens, the Corner House garden and our other local patches. Half of Wanstead is there. They are just waiting for more rain and sunshine before springing into growth.

Job done.

For more information on the work of the Wanstead Community Gardeners and to get involved, visit wnstd.com/gardeners

Redbridge Music Society will host Italian classical guitarist Emanuele Addis at Wanstead Library’s Churchill Room on 19 April as part of its ongoing project of supporting young musicians.

“Emanuele has won many international awards and prizes and currently holds Making Music’s coveted Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artists award. He will perform works by Bach, Torroba, Tárrega, and Benjamin Britten,” said a spokesperson.

The recital will begin at 8pm (tickets on the door; members: £7; visitors: £10).

Call 07380 606 767

In the 10th of a series of articles by plot holders at Redbridge Lane West allotments – which are under threat from the adjacent gas works – Jason Edwards provides an update on the site’s future

Readers may know that back in March 2021, Cadent put forward plans to take over the allotments at Redbridge Lane West for two years while carrying out works on their adjacent gas site. The plans included building a large compound and car park, which would have meant closing the allotments to all of us, the destruction of many plots and of wildlife habitats.

The plot holders were dismayed at these proposals, many of us having put years of work into our allotments. We came together to organise a public campaign, not only in defence of our rights, but of the principle that as an important public resource and service, allotments should be valued and protected. We started a petition that raised over 4,000 signatures, and we lobbied the council, our MP and ministers to push back against Cadent’s plans. We achieved a degree of success when, at a council meeting last September, Cadent revealed they had dropped their plans to take over the whole site.

Just before Christmas, however, we learnt Cadent was still planning to take over almost a quarter of the site. This includes seven plots adjacent to the fence on their site – which they say has to be replaced under government regulations – and a further two plots nearby that will also be decommissioned for the duration of the work. Their current plans also propose four of the plots on the fence line being significantly diminished in size with a permanent transfer of allotment land to Cadent, something we had understood the council were committed to preventing.

We agonised over whether to continue our public campaign of opposition or to negotiate with Cadent. Disappointingly, it became clear that, although local councillors have been supportive, the council would not back us further in continuing to fight the plans and we felt we had to relent. The plot holders’ working group are now in discussions with Cadent to minimise the timescale and long-term impact of the works. We’re conducting the negotiations in good faith, and we sincerely hope Cadent stick with any promises they make. Particularly important for us is that we ensure the preservation of the wildlife environment and allow Sprout There! to continue their brilliant therapeutic work on site with adults with learning disabilities.

We are very saddened that a number of us are losing our allotments in this way. These allotments have been a haven for many of us in very difficult times and we are deeply attached to them. But we are proud of how we have worked together to push back against the worst of Cadent’s plans and we encourage others who find themselves in similar circumstances to organise and fight! We are vegetable growers, not revolutionaries, but our working group’s unofficial slogan has helped keep us going through dark times: No pasarán!

To view the petition to save the Redbridge Lane West allotments, visit wnstd.com/sta

Redbridge Council joined forces with the police recently to run an operation targeting vehicles transporting waste in a bid to weed out potential fly-tippers.

“Under the joint operation, commercial vehicles carrying waste were stopped to identify rogue waste removal services transporting waste in the borough without the relevant waste carrier licences and associated documentation,” said a council spokesperson.

The operation took place in Cambridge Park and Dangan Road in Wanstead in late March and resulted in two commercial vehicles found to be removing waste illegally without a valid Waste Carriers Licence. Both were given a notice to produce their documents and failure to do so will result in a £300 fine each. A similar operation in Seven Kings resulted in large fines totalling £2,700 for those who were stopped and failed to produce their Waste Carriers Licence.

Robin Payne, Redbridge Council’s Operational Director for Civic Pride, said: “We want to send a message, loud and clear, that illegally operating waste removal services are not welcome or tolerated in Redbridge and we won’t hesitate to use the full weight of the law against those caught fly-tipping in the borough.”

If hiring a private contractor to remove household, garden, or construction waste remember to check the individual or company being hired is registered with the Environment Agency and has a valid Waste Carriers Licence. This can be done online here. You can check using either their registration number, business name, or postcode, or call the Environment Agency on 03708 506 506.

Wanstead’s shopkeepers will feature in a two-week outdoor photography exhibition on Christ Church Green from 13 April.

The portraits – taken by local documentary photographer Russell Boyce – will be accompanied by messages from the business owners about their thoughts on the future of the High Street. It will be the second opportunity for residents to view the images, having been on show in Wanstead Park last month. A book of the photos is also available.

Visit wnstd.com/highstreetportrait

Wanstead Park has been described as the jewel in east London’s crown. In the first of a series of articles documenting restoration work on the park’s 18th-century Grotto – a gem in its own right – John Sharpe of the Friends of Wanstead Parklands reports on phase one of the repairs to the structure’s landing stage. Photo by Geoff Wilkinson

As previously reported in the Wanstead Village Directory, the Wanstead Park Grotto has been declining and is on the Heritage at Risk Register, despite partial attempts at repair in previous decades. The edges of the landing stage have been crumbling, major stones have been dislodged and some sections have collapsed.

In 2020, the charity Heritage of London Trust commissioned a condition survey and have been working closely with the Friends of Wanstead Parklands and the City of London Corporation to develop a repair package of works. The Heritage of London Trust has raised £24,000 towards restoration of the historic landing stage.

The conservation contractor working on the Grotto is London Stone Conservation and the project is being managed by the City of London Corporation.

Initial phase one works will ascertain the exact build-up of the landing stage materials. The retaining wall areas at the front of the landing stage will be rebuilt from the ground up to give structural integrity to the stage. The next phase is to consolidate the landing stage in sections, carefully removing plant and root growth, soil and rubble build-up and exposing the underlying core. The landing stage core will then be rebuilt in each section. Missing elements will be replaced using the surviving stone sections. The stones have recently been salvaged and stored by Epping Forest from the area surrounding the Grotto.

This planned work for 2022 will be undertaken by specialist conservators. The restoration of the landing stage is the first part of the project to restore the upper levels of the structure, including the front elevation, and it is hoped this phase will include restoration of some of the lost historic elements of the Grotto’s façade. This work will also include assessment and possible replacement of unsuitable materials, such as modern brickwork, to return the façade to its historic appearance as much as possible.

Heritage of London Trust has been running educational visits to the Grotto through its Proud Places programme with great success. Over 50 young people have visited the site to learn about its history and take part in creative workshops.

Nicholas Munday, Epping Forest Verderer and Chairman of the Wanstead Park Liaison Committee, confirmed the City of London Corporation will also be carrying out detailed pre-restoration work to stabilise the structure and lay the foundation for detailed surveys and analysis to enable the restoration of the structure to be assessed.

The aim is to restore the Grotto’s existing structure and establish around it a new setting with improved public amenities and access. Work will also be done to investigate the foundations of an original bridge across the Ornamental Water. This broader project will be the subject of a feasibility study and consultation in the second half of 2022.

It should be a very active year for the Grotto and its surroundings. The City of London Corporation is working closely with Redbridge Council, Natural England and Historic England, with the Friends of Wanstead Parklands and Heritage of London Trust very much involved.

For more information on Wanstead Park’s Grotto, visit wnstd.com/grotto

As the newly formed Wanstead Theatre Co prepare to perform their inaugural show this month, founder and professional actor Fiona Gordon talks about her plans to bring the West End to Wanstead

I think we are very proud of the fact that we rarely have to venture outside of Wanstead to find something we need. Two notable exceptions, however, are when you need a swim or when you need a night out at the theatre.

But even these two pastimes are about to be catered for. The long-awaited swimming pool is under construction and we have just launched Wanstead’s very own professional theatre company.

Born out of the pandemic, in response to all the theatres being closed, all theatre actors being out of work and most activities taking place on our doorsteps, we spent a lot of last year exploring the reality of starting Wanstead Theatre Co.

We are a team of local actors and arts professionals passionate about bringing the quality of the West End to Wanstead. Having tested the waters at the Wanstead Fringe for the last few years with successful productions, including The Secret Garden, The Railway Children and We Must Throw The Cows Down The Ravine, we know local residents love and deserve to see quality theatre! And we are hoping in the future you will let us know what kind of plays you would like to see us perform.

But what of our first official show as Wanstead Theatre Co? Well, after the last two years, we think you would agree, our community just needs to laugh! So, what better than a comedy by Sue Townsend of Adrian Mole fame?

Bazaar & Rummage is a play about a self-help group of agoraphobics who put on a jumble sale, and it couldn’t be more timely. After all, aren’t we all nervously emerging out into the world at the moment?

And it’s not just a play, it’s a proper night out! There will be comedy, 80s tunes, a bar and an actual jumble sale in the interval. The ticket even includes chicken in a basket and a glass of fizz.

It is only because of the support of our wonderful community that we are able to do this. Our Lady of Lourdes have donated their church hall so we can make the production site-specific. Our official sponsor is Petty Son & Prestwich and we are being supported by the Wanstead Fringe.

The play is set and was written in 1982, and was first performed at the Royal Court. So, this will be the 40th-anniversary professional revival in our very own Wanstead.

Sadly, the late Sue Townsend is not around to see it, but her estate has not only granted us the rights, they are so delighted with what we are trying to achieve for our community that they have given us them for free!

Wanstead Theatre Co will perform Bazaar & Rummage at Our Lady of Lourdes church hall from 21 to 30 April. For more information and to book tickets, visit wansteadtheatreco.com