Curiosities of Old Ilford

East London walk in search of a mystery

I love ‘following the scent of a clue’, to borrow one of Gordon S. Maxwell’s types of topographical rambles as described in The Fringe of London (1925). And this was an incredibly enticing clue sent via an Instagram DM. TimeWandererChris asked me what I knew about the holy well in Valentines Park, Ilford. What?, I thought. On all my countless walks through Valentines Park, and the reading for those explorations, I’d neither come across references to a holy well nor seen anything that looked remotely like a holy well. Not even when presenting a radio show on Ilford with Nick Papadimitriou for Resonance fm in 2011. This would surely be a wild goose chase.
The resulting walk a couple of weeks ago, in the video above, proved to be a revelation.

Secrets of the East: along a Hidden River to a Medieval shrine in Ilford

This January walk takes us once again back into the past, where the landscape reveals the deep history of this area and tells us its stories. We start by exploring two Possible Prehistoric ditches on Wanstead Flats near Centre Road/north of the Jubilee Pond and running Southeast to Centre Road.

You can read the archaeological report here: https://bit.ly/2KLv5ZG

Then we pass through the uncanny suburb of Aldersbrook to pick up the River Roding. We follow the Roding as it runs beside Ilford Golf Club and find the mysterious little Alders Brook, a beguiling rivulet that for some of the year is little more than a muddy ditch hidden in the undergrowth. The dramatic January floods and the high tide filled the Alders Brook with water and revealed it as a flowing river. We follow the Alders Brook as it passes beneath the railway bridge at the Butts (possibly named after the rifle butts on adjacent lands in the 19th Century) and then runs parallel to the Roman Romford Road and returns to the River Roding at Ilford Bridge beneath the North Circular flyover.

The final stretch of our walk takes us up Ilford Hill to the Hospital Chapel dedicated to St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury. The Chapel was established around the year 1140 by the Abbess of Barking as a leper hospital. It became a stopping place for pilgrims and medieval travellers passing through the area. It’s a wonderful hidden location.

A walk along Loxford Water and Seven Kings Water

A river walk following two tributaries of the River Roding

Our walk starts at Barking Park where the Loxford Water flows beside the boating lake. Barking Park opened in 1898 and is fine example of a late Victorian park. We then walk along South Park Drive where the Loxford Water flows along a culvert to South Park, where the river starts its journey to the Roding.

Our walk along the Seven Kings Water begins on the other side of the lake crossing Green Lane and then walking along High Gardens and Aldborough Road South to Seven Kings High Road. The river leads us into Westwood Recreation Ground where we see the Seven Kings Water flowing above ground for the first time. Our river walk then takes us through Seven Kings Park, around King George’s Hospital and across the A12 Eastern Avenue. We have to leave the side of the river for a while here as it runs across inaccessible land and rough ground and our route takes us up Hainault Road. We are re-united with the river in Elmbridge Road, Hainault where it flows into the Garden of Peace cemetery. We walk parallel to the course of the river along Huntsman Road to Peregrine Road where we again find the Seven Kings Water.

Loxford Water

Loxford Water at Barking Park

Loxford Water

South Park Lake

The last section of the walk takes us into Hainault Forest Country Park where the Seven Kings Water has its source in the lake. Thanks to Paul who suggested this walk in a comment on my video of a walk along the Cran Brook, and Diamond Geezer for his description of the course of the Seven Kings Water and Loxford Water.

A walk through Ilford along the Cran Brook

This walk follows the course of the Cran Brook through the streets of Ilford in East London to its source near Barkingside.

This was a walk suggested by Vincent Goodman who emailed me after watching my video of a walk along the Loughton Brook. We had a great chat on the phone and Vincent sent me a map he’d made of the course of the Cran Brook and photos of its source near Barkingside Station, and the point where the brook makes its confluence with the River Roding.

The video starts on Wanstead Flats, my approach to the confluence of the Cran Brook and the Roding where my walk would start. We pass through Aldersrbook, a model Edwardian suburb that is seen as a great example of the vernacular revival. Down Empress Avenue we look for the site of the Redbridge Nuclear Shelter near Empress Avenue Allotments. These allotments were used as a location in the Mike Leigh film Another Year. The path takes us around the outer perimeter of the Wanstead Park, through the Epping Forest Exchange Lands and near the site of an isolation hospital.

Beneath the shadow of the pylons is the River Roding and we progress into the streets of Cranbrook. The Cran Brook makes its confluence with the Roding on Ilford Golf Course which I was unable to access, but the course through the streets here is marked on the map in the video. The name, Cranbrook has its earliest use in 1233 as Cranebroc. We follow the Brook along Empress Avenue, Ilford, through an area called The Wash and into Valentines Park. Vincent told me this was the location of the Wash Lodge where travelers would pay a fee to the Wash Lodge Keeper to wash their horse and carriage before continuing their journey.

Cran Brook

Valentines Park boating lake

Valentines Park was featured in an episode of the radio show I produced and co-presented with Nick Papadimitriou on Resonance FM, Ventures and Adventures in Topography. It’s one of my favourite London parks. Author Thomas Burke described it as ‘The Eastern Queen’ in his 1920’s book, The Outer Circle – rambles in remote London. The Valentines Estate had existed before Valentines Mansion was built in the 1690’s for the widow of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Park once had a Lido which was demolished in 1994 and it is said to be the inspiration for the Small Faces song Itchycoo Park. Roman era burials were excavated in the grounds of the house in 1724. The Cran Brook can be seen flowing through the Park into the boating lake.

From Valentines Park we walk along Quebec Road, then go along the A12 Eastern Avenue and turn into Horns Road. We can see the shape of the river valley from Netley Road, Birkbeck Road and Perkins Road where the river runs beneath the Sainsburys Car Park. We follow the alleyway that takes us over the Central Line behind Newbury Park Station and into Oaks Lane. From Oaks Lane we go into a field that leads us to where the springs gurgle to the surface giving birth to the brook not far from Barkingside Station.

Many thanks to Vincent Goodman for sending me a map showing the course of the Cran Brook and for suggesting this walk.

 

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Wanstead to Barking along the River Roding

A Friday morning at the end of September and the chance to walk along the River Roding from Wanstead to Barking. Finally I hunted down the elusive Alders Brook near the City of London Cemetery. A dog walker who has been strolling this way for 30 years told me he’d never heard of it and I had to show it marked on my old A-Z. But there it was, overgrown and clogged up but still running free through the undergrowth.

Uphall Camp Barking

source: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 2, Central and South west. Originally published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1921.

The other side of the construction carnage around Ilford town centre I stood on the streets where the Iron Age settlement of Uphall Camp stood, near the banks of the Roding. Today lines of terraced houses named after periods of British History cover the site.

overgrown football pitch at Wanstead

football pitch at Wanstead

Ilford new buildings

Ilford

The River Roding at Barking

The River Roding at Barking

I passed the Quaker burial grounds at Barking before picking up the riverbank path down to the wharfside developments that have temporarily created tumbleweed wild west outposts. After breaching the A13 sadly it was time to head back to Leytonstone before I had reached Beckton which was the aim for the day. But I had surveyed more of the land the lies along one of our sacred Eastern rivers, and seen parts of the London of the distant past and got a glimpse of one of the new Londons taking shape.

Lost Pavilion – eastern mysteries of Plashet and Little Ilford

It wasn’t my intention to go for a walk, merely to try a new breakfast spot that opened recently near the Jubilee Pond on Wanstead Flats. But perhaps starting my day by crossing that first section of open ground triggered something in my noggin because as soon as I’d digested my croissant I was off.

Plashet Park

Plashet Park

I dropped by the Wanstead Tap but it was too early and the shutters were down, so I thought I’d take a look at what some gentrifiers are trying to brand Forest ‘Great’ (I kid you not, soon to be as galling as ‘Awesomestow’). Forest Gate was the first place I lived in London as a callow bumpkin of 18 and I loved it straight away, although that was on the other side of Romford Road near West Ham Park. The Woodgrange Road hub was a slightly obscure adjunct, particularly with Stratford equidistant.

I counted 4 posh coffee shops but otherwise the area looks little changed from other recent visits. When recounting this to a friend who lives near the Flats they told me the new bakery with its mortgageable loaves of artisan bread had been the focus of Cereal Killer Cafe style anti-gentrification protests, which on further research (i.e asking facebook friends who live in the area) manifested itself as some graffiti spray painted on the windows at night.

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After crossing Romford Road and discovering that I’d superglued the zoom rocker on my camera I decided to walk in a straight line to Ilford – sort of in protest at my own stupidity and to finally spend a Waterstones voucher I’d had in my wallet for a year.

I soon found myself wandering through the gates of Plashet Park where a strong gale battered the trees and bushes. Undergrowth that a couple of years ago was found to be harbouring a couple of adult boa constrictors.

Passmore Edwards Library East Ham

On the far side of the park is the majestic Passmore Edwards Public Library, today used as the Newham Registry Office. The foundation stone was laid in 1898 and the mosiac flooring at the entrance still radiates civic pride.

Sri Mahalakshmi Temple East Ham

Sri Mahalakshmi Temple

The Sri Mahalakshmi Temple on East Ham High Street North is an unavoidable beacon that lit up my eastward alignment to Ilford. Not far away by Little Ilford School stands an even grander Hindu place of pooja – Sri Murugan Temple.

Sri Murugan Temple

Sri Murugan Temple

Music wafted out onto the street, I loitered by the door for a bit before kicking off my trainers near the steps and tentatively going inside. Various forms of worship were taking place in the huge space, some people just sat cross-legged on the floor praying-meditating, there was a feeling of total peace. Sadly my messed up knees prevent me from sitting on the floor so I sat on one of the scooped plastic school chairs placed by the wall for old people, and soaked up some of the good vibrations.

Little Ilford Church

Little Ilford Church

Continuing along the straight track brought me to the door of the ancient church of St. Mary the Virgin Little Ilford. The stone church dates from the 12 Century but replaced an older timber church that could have been established in the pre-Conquest period. It was at this point I realised I was accidentally following a route I’d planned for This Other London Book 2 – a work still in progress – but had shelved when other avenues appeared. My interest in Little Ilford had been sparked by reading about the 18th Century antiquarian Smart Lethieullier who is buried somewhere in the church.

Lethieullier was descended from wealthy French Huguenot refugees who’d settled in nearby Aldersbrook. Lethieullier carried out some of the first surveys of the Roman villa at Wanstead Park and recorded explorations of the Ambresbury Banks earthwork in Epping Forest.

Little Ilford Park

Little Ilford Park

The gale force winds now brought a smattering of freezing rain along for the ride as I entered Little Ilford Park – an odd pear shaped open space with pylons hugging the border with the North Circular Road. I toyed with finding a crossing to the River Roding and working my way down to Barking, as per the itinerary I now recalled planning 2 years ago, but Little Ilford Park is reluctant to let those who enter leave.

Little Ilford Park pavilion

This squat concrete pavilion seems to have been inspired by Soviet bus stop design – or maybe it was the other way round in the manner that the Moscow Metro was inspired by Charles Holden’s Piccadilly Circus station with Holden returning the favour with his Russian influenced station at Gants Hill.

I watched the rain for a bit from the shelter of the pavilion trying to imagine playing any kind of cricket on whatever pitch lay beneath the thick clumps of grass before walking the length of the park and exiting for Ilford High Street beneath the grand North Circular fly-over.

That original exploration could now be back on the itinerary.

Newbury Park – an unexpected adventure

Newbury Park Bus Station

I can think of fewer fine introductions to a place than the bus station that greets you outside Newbury Park Tube. This vaulted modernist masterpiece designed by Oliver Hill and opened in 1949 illuminates an otherwise unpromising stretch of the Eastern Avenue with its green cooper-covered roof.

Ilford War Memorial Park
Once I’d finished marveling at Hill’s bus temple I wandered into the peaceful haven of Ilford War Memorial Gardens serenaded by lusty choruses of birdsong from the bare boughs of small-leafed Lime trees that flank the pathways around the garden’s edge. Robins, Blackbirds and Blue Tits make their homes in the trees here which also support clumps of Mistletoe (apparently a rarity in London these days) and bats are known to forage among Lime trees.

Ilford War Memorial Hall
The information board says that the gardens form a ‘Connectivity’ with nearby green spaces at Fairlop Plain, Fairlop Waters, and Valentines Park – providing a stop-over for migrating species.

The Memorial Gardens opened in 1922 and the fine hexagonal Grade II Listed Ilford War Memorial Hall followed in 1927 with its slightly Masonic vibe going on in the brickwork and corner carvings.

Bilbo Baggins action figure

I’m not entirely sure what drew me in to the enormous Toys ‘R’ Us behind the McDonalds on the crossroads but I came away with a Bilbo Baggins action figure for 96p – to inspire future ‘Unexpected Journeys’ such as this one.
Fags and Mags

I pass a trophy shop and a newsagent called Fags and Mags on Ley Street and come to an inscrutable Local Government facility ominously named ‘Redbridge Resource Centre’. It sits opposite a grand monolithic electricity generator humming away. With the Ley Street Depot just along the road this is clearly an important part of the civic infrastructure of the London Borough of Redbridge, soon to celebrate its 50th Anniversary since being formed from the amalgamation of the Municipal Boroughs of Ilford, Wanstead, and Woodford, while absorbing Hog Hill from Dagenham and Hainault from Chigwell.

It’s leaden grey and chilly by the time I walk through a side gate of Valentines Park. For some reason I think of Patrick Keiller’s Robinson films  – perhaps it’s the birdsong which is even more sonorous here than in the Memorial Park. I lurk beneath some trees and attempt to make a recording on my phone.

Pavilion Cafe Valentines Park Ilford

The Pavilion Park Café deserves a Grade II listing of its own with its formica tables and plastic bucket seated school chairs. There’s a photo of the café from 1910 which means it might have provided refreshment for Thomas Burke when he visited the Park in 1921 and declared it, “the most beautiful of London’s natural parks”. I’m the only customer as I tuck into my bacon roll and cappuccino, Bilbo Baggins on the table beside me. This is the perfect place to stop and stare out at the world for a bit. To the extent that I don’t notice the café filling up and by the time I leave there’s a decent smattering of parents with young children ordering plates of chips and babycinos.

Gants Hill Tube Station
Every passage through the glory of Charles Holden’s majestic Gants Hill tube station is a treat to savour. Holden designed the station as a tribute to his work on the Moscow Metro. Here beneath the golden Valhalla-like curved ceiling you happily dwell as trains pass through, a place more to pass the time rather than a point of transit. Lingering here you realize Hope resides in the Eastern suburbs.