September 2025

The Woodford and District branch of the National Trust has announced its new season of talks.

The programme begins on 24 September with a presentation about the wildlife of Epping Forest by retired biologist and photographer Peter Warne.

Future talks will include a look at the art of John Constable (15 October), the history of Walthamstow (12 November) and the restoration of Waltham Abbey Church (3 December). Events take place at All Saints’ Church hall in Woodford Wells from 2.30pm (visitors: £3).

Call 07774 164 407

A guided bird walk will take place on Wanstead Flats this month.

“This time of year can yield summer migrants as they head back south. Skylarks can still be seen on the open ground and Little Owls can sometimes be found in the small copse. We’ll also be checking the ponds for various waterfowl species,” said a spokesperson for the North East London Local Group of the RSPB, which will be leading the walk on 27 September from 9am (non-members: £3; booking required).

Email nelondonrspb@yahoo.co.uk

Wanstead High Street will be closed to traffic between Grove Park and Wanstead Place from 7am to 7pm on 14 September to create a car-free Wanstead Festival.

A market will be in place on the High Street from 10am to 5pm, with the annual festival taking place on Christchurch Green from 11am to 6pm. “Our biggest outdoor event of the year is just around the corner! Invite your friends and family to Wanstead for a brilliant day out with great entertainment,” said a spokesperson for Vision RCL.

Visit wnstd.com/festival

Chess has come a long way recently but there is still a missing piece, says 18-year-old Jay Demetriou, whose membership of Wanstead and Woodford Chess Club has helped him connect with the community

With social media providing us all with quick-fix entertainment with little need for thought, it could have been assumed that thought-provoking pastimes like chess would fade into irrelevance. Instead, chess is more popular than ever before; chess.com now has more than 4.5 million active UK users. Many of these new players come from the younger generation, and at Wanstead High, I’ve watched this phenomenon first-hand.

More and more young people are playing chess! Chess has flourished, not because it is so different from other activities, but because it has moved with the times and adapted for the modern world. Chess can be played online, like a video game. The game-mode Bullet Chess (where each player has one minute to make moves) has proved particularly popular in an entertainment landscape which prioritises quick dopamine hits. Streaming series like The Queen’s Gambit have also breathed new life into the game. The boom is great for chess, turning what was once seen as unfashionable into a game for everyone.

This online integration, however, leads to the exact problems we always hear about social media and video games: a loss of a feeling of community; a loss of true connection. While this is frequently used as a way of attacking young people, it is rarely followed by a solution. This is why local chess clubs are important, and why the social atmosphere of Wanstead and Woodford Chess Club is so valuable for us; a way to bridge the gap between the internet and true community.

Our chess club creates this atmosphere through its location, the welcoming Wanstead House, and the accessible nature of chess as a mental sport. A game for all ages. There are two sections of the club: the junior section, which runs every Tuesday from 5pm to 7pm, and the broader club session which runs from 7.30pm to 10pm. The bar is a key reason for the lively feel! From here, teas will be brought to the players during their games. When matches are over, players will often return to the bar to chat. It’s also a meet-up point for a trip to the pub for some!

For juniors, whose first experience of chess may have been from behind a phone screen, playing games over the board with their friends – learning and improving together – allows them to maintain their love for the game. The social aspect of chess should not be overlooked.

While chess is alive and well, it could be livelier if more people were to join clubs and enjoy the social aspect. Providing an answer, though not the answer, to the broader 21st-century problem of a lack of community. So, next time you think of a night-in, why not think of a knight out?

Wanstead & Woodford Chess Club meets at Wanstead House, 21 The Green. For more information, visit wnstd.com/chess

The Friends of Wanstead Parklands is seeking volunteers to help maintain and improve the park’s woodland play area.

“Would you like to be part of a team of local parents and carers who love our play area? Could you come up with ideas for future play equipment, fundraise to make it happen and help complete basic safety checks? If you would like to be a play area champion, please get in touch,” said Roger Woodhouse.

Located behind the Temple, the play area first opened in June 2023.

Email rogwoo@googlemail.com

The Wanstead Book Festival, part of the Wanstead Fringe festivities, is once again hosting a wide range of talents and authors working in various styles, writes Giles Wilson

The link between places and memories is a subject we have covered in a couple of different ways during the years of the Wanstead Book Festival, not least through the work of E11’s resident psychogeographer, John Rogers.

So, it’s fitting that John will be kicking off this year’s book festival as he speaks to another local, Joanna Pocock, whose book Greyhound has just been published. It recounts a journey she made across America by bus and what she learned by repeating the trip 20 years later. She found a country that had become more atomised and on the brink of environmental calamity, but which nevertheless found her memories and experiences overlapping with each other.

A changing society is one Stephen Colegrave chronicles in his daily work as executive editor of independent media outlet Byline Times, and his major work on the history of Punk, which is to be published in the autumn, will remind people of how society was initially horrified but later came to embrace the ethos of punk. He will be speaking to Lord Victor Adebowale.

Tom Shakespeare is a distinguished thinker in the field of bioethics, often broadcasting on the BBC, but his current focus is rather softer – it’s a series of witty feel-good novels, the first of which was described by Alexander McCall Smith as “beautifully observed and highly entertaining.”

For years, Rory Cellan-Jones was a fixture on our TV screens as the BBC’s technology correspondent, and in fact, when he spoke at the Wanstead Book Festival three years ago, social media was the topic. Thanks to the very social media he observed, he has unexpectedly become one of the country’s most celebrated dog owners for the way he has gently coaxed his rescue dog, Sophie from Romania, out from behind the sofa into everyday life.

Alan Connor has yet to write about dogs, but he’s covered an incredibly varied range of subjects, including crosswords, quizzes, the shipping forecast and, recently, the huge range of words we have for rain. He’s a comedy writer, quiz guru and is also crossword editor for The Guardian. And as described by Rory Cellan-Jones, he is “the man with the contents of the Oxford English Dictionary stored just above his left eyebrow… and he’s quite funny too.”

These are just some of the speakers. And right in the middle of the festival is another family book day with three authors – Sophy Henn, Nima Patel and Crystal Sung – who will be engaging young readers, hoping they will come to love books as much as some of the adults around them do.

For more information on Wanstead Fringe events, visit wnstd.com/fringe

The music programme at Wanstead Fringe 2025 brings a rich mix of community and creativity, with events taking place at what are turning into some of the area’s most beloved Fringe venues. Giles Wilson reports

Opening the festival at St Mary’s Church on 5 September is the much-loved, eve-of-Fringe musical charivari, with Joe Walters again turning impresario. This event has become something of a Fringe tradition – a lively and informal programme bringing people together to enjoy an eclectic mix of musical styles and tastes. It’s the perfect way to set the tone for the days ahead: warm, welcoming and full of Fringe spirit.

The Duke street party – which takes over Nightingale Lane for one marvellous afternoon each September – will have live music featuring their house band The Dukes of Duke, with everything from classic crowd-pleasers to hidden gems to discover.

In the Crossing Continents concert at Wanstead United Reformed Church, the talents of two accomplished soloists will combine to take listeners on a vibrant and exciting journey with music from Latin America, Spain, France and beyond. Ricardo Curbelo will be playing harp, cuatro and maracas, and Fiona Harrison will play classical/Spanish guitar.
We also have pianist Yuki Negishi, who will be playing as a soloist at Holy Trinity Church – a programme including Ravel, Chopin and Beethoven. Yuki will also lead two performances of the Saint-Saëns classic Carnival of the Animals, which paints musical portraits of the lion, swan, elephant and others; a real treat for families who love music.

Another treat for families will be Alice in WonderBand at St Gabriel’s Church, a whimsical journey through the curious world of brass bands as seen through the lens of the classic children’s story. Each part of Redbridge Brass band will take on a different character to bring the story to life. They’re going to be warming up with a selection of tunes based on famous stories: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Matilda, Harry Potter and more.

On 20 September, The Friends of St Gabriel’s present Harmony Happening, a relaxed singing workshop led by Jenny Goodman, whose warm, inclusive approach has made her a favourite among the community choir.

One of the musical highlights is something completely new. Wanstead-based composer Simone Spagnolo has worked with harpist Clara Gatti Comini to create something you will never have heard before. Reveries, taking place at St Mary’s, is a headphone-based immersive play, which combines harp music, narrative text and what is described as “spatial sound design.” It’s going to be a full audio experience that creates an atmosphere where recollections dissolve and truth intertwines with imagined lives – a personal and intimate experience that unfolds inside your own mind.

Finally, the festival draws to a close at St Mary’s on 27 September with the return of the much-loved Natural Voices Choir, an uplifting finale that captures what’s at the heart of the Fringe.

For more information on Wanstead Fringe events, visit wnstd.com/fringe

Local residents helped raise £8,750 for charity by opening their gardens to the public this year.

A number of homes across Wanstead, Woodford and beyond took part in the National Garden Scheme, which raises money for cancer charities, such as Marie Curie, Macmillan Cancer Support and Hospice UK.

“Ten homeowners volunteered their time and invited visitors to enjoy their gardens. Please continue to support this wonderful initiative,” said local volunteer organiser Teresa Farnham.

Visit ngs.org.uk

Don’t only enjoy viewing the art achievements of others. Take delight in helping to produce some community artwork yourself, suggests Donna Mizzi, founder of Art Group Wanstead

Members of Art Group Wanstead are preparing to show their work at the Wanstead Festival on Christchurch Green on 14 September. But this year, they will also be reaching out to local festivalgoers of all abilities and ages to help create a new piece of community artwork they can all be proud of.

Local residents and visitors, including children, will be encouraged to each create their own small piece of art on blank postcard-sized paper to go with this year’s Art Group Wanstead theme: Colour Me Happy. Participants will be able to create art focusing on any subject using any materials in any colours or tones – do whatever makes you happy. Photos will be taken of each of the postcard artworks. Art Group Wanstead artists Theresa Hardy and Sharon Quinton, who formulated the idea, will carefully knit the artwork together digitally to create a ‘patchwork’ banner that can be displayed in and around Wanstead. The Stow Brothers estate agents will be helping to produce it.

“It’s thrilling to see your own art on display in public,” says Sharon Quinton. “Contributing to a community artwork that will be shown again and again will be particularly rewarding.”

These pages show some of the works local artists have been inspired to create by the ‘Colour Me Happy’ theme, which will also be displayed at the festival.

There will be free workshops and demos on the Art Group Wanstead area of the big event throughout the day, ranging from mosaic to botanical painting to calligraphy and collage. If you believe you lack the ability to paint, watercolour tutor Brenda Coyle will help instil confidence with her one-to-one ‘Painting for the Petrified’ mini-sessions. Students from her Wanstead House classes will also exhibit their work.

Many local residents will have viewed some of Art Group Wanstead artists’ work last month at a pop-up gallery on Wanstead High Street. Local artists are always looking to display work, and this much-appreciated shopfront space was generously made available by Alan Patient & Co accountants.

Wanstead Festival runs from 11 am to 6pm on 14 September on Christchurch Green.

For more information on Art Group Wanstead, visit wnstd.com/art

A local gardener is urging residents to help prevent the spread of two problematic weeds.

“Guernsey Fleabane and Knotgrass have become widespread across Wanstead. Pulling them up by the roots early is simple, but once established, it’s much harder. These thuggish weeds suppress the germination of wildflowers and other species and reduce the capacity of young plants to grow. Please look out for these damaging weeds in our streets and your gardens,” said Sally Parker, a Pollinator Pathway volunteer for Warren Road.

Woodford Pantomime received an award for the best production of a traditional pantomime at the NODA London Awards, held in June.

The honour was in recognition of the amateur company’s January production of Sleeping Beauty, with preparations now underway for their next show.

“Rehearsals have begun and excitement is building as we prepare to bring the tale of Dick Whittington to life in 2026,” said a spokesperson. The panto will take place at Sir James Hawkey Hall from 1 to 11 January.

Visit swvg.co.uk/wpanto

Live theatre is one of the main pillars of any fringe festival, and Wanstead is no different. Camille Leadbeater runs through some of the plays she’s looking forward to this September

This year’s Wanstead Fringe once again does, for theatregoers, two things: it continues to develop our local dramatic enterprises while bringing in a raft of creatives from out of town, transforming the neighbourhood. The programme at our two theatre venues – upstairs at The Bull and at The Wanstead Curtain on Hermon Hill – is bold, diverse, and brimming with unforgettable performances for all ages.

An Evening with Jack the Ripper reimagines the East End’s most infamous true-crime mystery for the stage, as award-winning broadcaster Steve Morgan leads audiences through the foggy streets of Victorian London in search of the elusive killer. Love and Human brings a chilling sci-fi twist to the programme, while in Quiet Light, a shipwrecked stranger and an eerie lighthouse keeper confront their pasts.

And for younger theatregoers, Myths, Maps and Monsters: Zeus’ Birthday Bash! promises high-energy, interactive fun as children race to save Zeus’s birthday by solving puzzles. Also at The Bull: Screwloose Improv returns with a five-star, prison-themed hit, fresh from a sell-out run at Colchester Fringe.

Over at The Wanstead Curtain, audiences can embark on an epic musical voyage with Resurrection: The Musical, an adventure inspired by The Buccaneers Legend trilogy. Families will also love The Magic Bookmark, in which panto dame and Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Mama G leads a lively and heartwarming mission to protect the world’s stories from vanishing forever.

Three local favourites are returning this year. Wanstead Theatre Co is staging a screening of its behind-the-scenes mockumentary once at City Place. At The Curtain, Baloney Theatre Company is also back with a must-see production, BuzzFest, an immersive and wickedly funny journey into the heart of British festival culture. Equal parts chaotic and heartfelt, it blends live performance, multimedia and razor-sharp character work to capture the highs and lows of a weekend in the fields – booze, bad decisions, awkward tent flings and all. But beyond the laughs and mud-splattered antics lies a deeper commentary on connection, mental health and community.

And following the success of Miss Julie at last year’s fringe, East London Theatre Company return with Constellations by Nick Payne, a brilliantly inventive and emotionally charged play that explores love, time and the infinite possibilities of choice. The company brings its signature clarity and intimacy to a modern classic, staged in the round for an immersive and emotionally resonant experience.

Wanstead Fringe 2025 proves yet again that local theatre can be daring, dynamic and endlessly inventive.

For more information on Wanstead Fringe events, visit wnstd.com/fringe