The Mayor’s London Borough of Culture Walks

John Rogers walks Leytonstone

Come for a walk with me to celebrate Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019

I’m really excited to be leading a series of walks for Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture, running from June to October 2019.

The walks will explore various aspects of Waltham Forest from its topography, culture, overlooked heritage, and psychogeography. Local people of interest will join me on the walks – to contribute to the pool of knowledge. The aim will be not simply to impart information but to share a way of looking at the landscape and the built environment. In the words of the legendary music journalist Greil Marcus the walks will aim to reveal, “the unknown facets of the known, astonishment on the terrain of boredom, innocence in the face of experience”. A bespoke map of each walk is being produced by artist & printer Russell Frost of Hooksmith Press, Leytonstone, who created the fantastic artwork at the top of this post.

Here are the details of each walk with a link to book tickets:

 

Walk 1: Leytonstone’s Lost River – The Philley Brook (Fillebrook)

Book here

John Rogers Philley Brook walk

Philley Brook walk – photo by Vaseem Gill

An interactive walk that follows Leytonstone’s buried river, The Philley Brook (Fillebrook). The walk will not only trace the course of the river but also look at ways of identifying buried rivers and streams. We’ll explore aspects of the history and culture of the area as they relate to the meander of the Philley Brook. Participants will be encouraged to make a record of their journey as part of the experience. We’ll be joined by a Leytonstone film-maker and artist Ian Bourn. Includes bespoke printed map by Hooksmith Press/Russell Frost
Date: 9th June, 2pm
Duration: 2 hours
Price: £10/£8 concs

Book here

Walthamstow Marshes
Walk 2: Marshlands

An edgeland walk that explores Waltham Forest’s historic marshlands. We traverse the ancient Lammas Lands and explore the rich heritage of the area from the Bronze Age through to the birth of the aviation industry. Participants will be encouraged to make a record of their journey as part of the experience. We’ll be joined by local historian, David Boote from the Leyton & Leytonstone Historical Society.
Includes bespoke printed map by Hooksmith Press/Russell Frost
Date: 14th July, 2pm
Duration: 2 hours
Price: £10/£8 concs

Book here

 

Highams Park Lake

Highams Park Lake

Walk 3: The Ching

A meander along the beautiful River Ching that flows through Waltham Forest from Epping Forest through Highams Park and the streets of Chingford to its confluence with the River Lea near Banbury Reservoir. Participants will be encouraged to make a record of their journey as part of the experience. Includes bespoke printed map by Hooksmith Press/Russell Frost.
Date: 18th August, 2pm
Duration: 3 hours
Price: £10/£8 concs

Book here

Dagenham Brook

Walk 4: The Dagenham Brook

This overlooked stream that runs from Leyton Jubilee Park to Coppermill Lane Walthamstow, leads us through the streets of Leyton and Walthamstow weaving stories as it flows.  We’ll be joined by Leyton artist Lucy Harrison. Participants will be encouraged to make a record of their journey as part of the experience. Includes bespoke printed map by Hooksmith Press/Russell Frost
Date: 8th September, 2pm
Duration: 2-3 hours
Price: £10/£8 concs

Book here

 

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Walk 5: Over Pole Hill – Where Time Begins

The north-eastern frontier of both Waltham Forest and Greater London. This takes us up over Pole Hill, the highest point in the borough, which sits on Zero Longitude and was used by the Greenwich Observatory to set its telescope. We also explore the terrain of the forest fringe and the borough boundary. We’ll be joined by artist and illustrator Rachel Lillie who has a special interest in Epping Forest. Participants will be encouraged to make a record of their journey as part of the experience. Includes bespoke printed map by Hooksmith Press/Russell Frost.
Date: 6th October, 2pm
Duration: 2-3 hours
Price: £10/£8 concs

Book here

Waltham Forest Tours

More information about other Waltham Forest Tours events can be found here

 

 

Spring in Epping Forest

Leyton Flats, Leytonstone

Sometimes, in the absence of a better plan for a walk, you should alllow yourself to be guided by your feet. That’s what I did last Sunday, leaving home at 2pm, directionless.

Blackthorn, Leytonstone

My trotters led me up Leytonstone High Road to the Green Man Roundabout – gateway to the forest. The gorse (I think) was burning brilliant yellow in full bloom, the white blackthorn flowers waved at the early Spring picnicers nearby on Leyton Flats.

metal post near Birch Well

Metal Post Birch Well

I followed the path that runs behind Snaresbrook Crown Court, the borderlands of Leytonstone and Waltham Forest. Next to the Birch Well I spotted a metal post beside a low standing stone, the embossed text no longer legible. My best guess is that they are boundary markers, perhaps of the old Borough or the Parish.

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Birdsong rang out across Gilbert’s Slade in celebration of the arrival of Spring, and I sat on a pile of logs to savour the scene. This is a tract of land that is forever boggy and swampy, noted by Buxton in his Epping Forest book of the 1880’s and still very much the case. He laments the lack of beech trees here, where hornbeam, holly and oak dominate.

Highams Park Lake

The wildfowl were lively on the waters of Highams Park and I rested again, one of my favourite spots on this Forest walk. This is a route described and mapped by Buxton and one I’ve followed frequently over the years, memories of those previous walks and the churnings of my mind annotated into the footpaths, re-read and added to with each passing.

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From Epping Forest by Edward North Buxton

Although the end point of the walk would be determined by the sunset, the Royal Forest pub beside Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge always looms large in my mind around this point. Would I be able to get past it – or would all paths lead to the pub?

Daffodil Epping Forest P1100566

I picked up the course of the gentle River Ching and followed it along the lower reaches of the forest, downhill from Woodford. London is blessed with these meandering tributaries that often get overlooked in favour of the grand rivers of the city or the celebrated ‘lost rivers’ of London, buried but not forgotten. The Ching is a modest water course, going about its business flowing from the forest to the Lea.

Welcome to Waltham Forest Chingford

On Rangers Road, Chingford I pass a second Waltham Forest boundary marker of the day – on the other side this time is not Redbridge but the County of Essex. Today has not only been a forest wander but a borderland walk.

Royal Forest Chingford

Somehow I contrived to arrive on Chingford Plain as the sun started to set shortly after 6pm meaning the only logical thing was to progress to the bar at the Royal Forest Brewer’s Fayre where I processed the walk over a couple of pints and toasted the arrival of Spring in Epping Forest.

 

 

Pie, Mash, Eels, & Pale Ale

pie and mash

Friday night Leytonstone’s Noted Eel and Pie House was lit up and buzzing for the launch of Jake Green’s wonderful Pie and Mash book – extended 2nd edition. I had my first taste of eels and will certainly be back to the Noted Eel and Pie House for more – but minus the Pale Ale, DJ and dancing. Some of the photos from the book are now on permanent display at the Noted Eel and Pie House, Leytonstone.

Pie and Mash on the Leytonstone Arts Trail

Noted Eel and Pie House Leytonstone

Jake Green’s brilliant photographic Pie and Mash project is on display at the Noted Eel and Pie House during the Leytonstone Arts Trail. A couple of years ago, Leytonstoner Jake, set out to photograph all of London’s remaining Pie and Mash shops.

Noted Eel and Pie House Leytonstone

Pie and Mash was once a reliable cheap meal for working Londoners and their children. Wholesome, hot and filling, it took the traditional street food of the wandering pie and eel vendors indoors to tiled and wooden interiored cafes. But over the years the Pie and Mash shops have gradually died away – halving in number in the last 20 years. Jake documented 31 Pie and Mash shops during his project – some of which had closed before it was completed.

Noted Eel and Pie House Leytonstone

When putting together the photos for a limited edition publication, Jake asked me to contribute some text. Not being any kind of authority on Pie and Mash, I instead wrote an account of a walk I devised linking together the sites of former Pie and Mash shops – now variously Fried Chicken joints, a chinese restaurant, a housing estate etc. You can read, The Dead Pie Shop Trail at the exhibition.

Here’s a short extract:

The Dead Pie Shop Trail

It was stood outside A. Cook’s Pie and Mash on Goldhawk Road, boarded up along with an entire strip of small shops, that I decided to pay homage to London’s dead Pie and Mash Shops in the form of a walk—a Dead Pie Shop Trail.

Cook’s played a proud part in the impressive pop cultural history of Shepherd’s Bush. Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols ate there. Viv Albertine of The Slits and Mick Jones of The Clash studied at Chelsea College of Art around the corner in Lime Grove and could well have frequented Cook’s. Phil Daniels whizzed past on his Lambretta with Leslie Ash on the back in the cult mod movie Quadrophenia, in a scene shot directly outside the shop.

The red, drop-shadowed font on the hard white background of the shop front is starting to peel away. ‘Traditional’ in lower-case italics above PIE, MASH, LIQUOR & EELS in elegantly sign-painted capital letters. Like many Pie and Mash Shops it is a work of art in itself. The windows are now boarded up, plastered with bill posters for gigs and clubs.

Instead of a tour of some of the living Pie and Mash Shops captured in this book, I find myself on late winter’s day in West Ham Lane, Stratford, at the site of Lediard’s Pie and Mash shop. Steak Republic now occupies the site. The menu still boasts ‘World Range Pies’, along with milkshakes, gourmet burgers and traditional fish and chips. A fragment of carved stonework from the old building pokes through the gap between the plastic shop signage and First Impression Hair and Beauty Salon next door. The neighbouring stretch of West Ham Lane features numerous food outlets; Mummy Yum Chicken Ribs and Pizza, Top Chef Chinese Cuisine, a Polish Delicatessen, and Burj Chicken and Pizza. There is clearly still a market for cheap and simple food in the area despite Lediard’s demise.

The view West from here towards the next part of the Dead Pie Shop Trail is one of emergent skyscrapers, cranes looming over skeletal towers on the outskirts of Mega City Stratford. The grand old civic buildings of the County Borough of West Ham dating from the early 1900s are boarded up, abandoned. Change is sweeping not only through post-Olympic Stratford but London as a whole. What can we learn from the dead pie shops about the London that’s been lost and the city to come?

Pie and Mash Jake Green

Jake Green’s Pie and Mash runs at the Noted Eel and Pie House, 481A High Rd Leytonstone,  E11 4JU – until early August.

 

Exploring London on Foot talk at Leyton & Leytonstone Historical Society

exploring london on foot john rogers

It was an enormous honour to be invited to give a public talk by the Leyton & Leytonstone Historical Society last week. I joined the Society shortly after moving to Leytonstone and still have a binder containing editions of their brilliant ‘Understone’ newsletter. It was however pointed out to me on the night that I allowed my membership to lapse some years ago.

John Rogers film screening Leytonstone

We had a full house in St. John’s Church Hall for my talk on ‘Exploring London on Foot’, which I’d deliberately left vague enough to allow me to talk about pretty much anything. So I ranged from The Situationists to Alfred Watkins as an introduction to my walks with Iain Sinclair. And I managed to stray along the A40 to talk about the Remapping High Wycombe project I did with my sister Cathy between 2004-05, where I first applied some of the ideas about walking that I’d been thinking about for a number of years.

Fringe of London Gordon S. Maxwell

It also gave me an opportunity to emphasise the influence of the inter-war topographical writers on my work, Gordon S. Maxwell’s The Fringe of London being one of the most significant in spelling out a credo to which I still adhere:

“The border-line between folk-lore and fairy-tales is not more nebulous than that between topographical research and “nosing about.”
The former, in either case, is but a grander name for practically the same thing. I mean the outdoor part of topography, not the many hunts in the land of books that usually follows later.”

“The way of the topographical rambler is sometimes hard, often muddy, usually interesting; but never dull.”

 – Gordon S. Maxwell – The Fringe of London, 1925

geographia london atlas 1955

It was great to be able to enthuse to an audience about the everyday wonders that await on our doorsteps – whole other worlds just around the street corner. As Pathfinder wrote in 1911, ‘Adventure begins at home’.

New Year’s Day Walk 2018

Whipps Cross Leytonstone

Whipps Cross Leytonstone

Up through the backstreets of Upper Leytonstone emerging on Whipps Cross Road. Early pangs of mid-afternoon hunger are sated at the Lakeside Diner with a sausage baguette. I was only coming out for a local wander, now I need to walk this thing off.

Forest Rise Walthamstow

Around Whipps Cross – recorded from the 14th – 16th Centuries as Phips Cross/ Fypps Cross and literally referring to a cross erected by the Phips family. I cross Woodford New Road to patch of boggy rough ground and pass along St. Peter’s Avenue to Forest Rise. The dead tree stump I photographed in 2010 is still there – thriving in the afterlife.

Hale End Road

Hale End Road

Why did I have the urge to pass through Hale End? I have no idea but as I approached the North Circular crossing I realise how my relationship with the environment was formed by growing up within the acoustic footprint of the M40 – constantly humming out a white noise refrain throughout my childhood from the flyover that curved around the edge of the village. You passed beneath it to go on walks with my Dad in the woods heading up into the Chiltern fringe, and again it loomed ominously overhead walking to the doctors in the next village with my Mum dripping dark liquid down its vast concrete pillars. We viewed glorious sunsets on the other side of the 6 lanes of traffic from a pub garden we often used in my early years. It was an ever present. These motorway/aerterial roads link me to deepest childhood – particularly at sunset as now.

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Down a street of picture perfect suburban semis in the beautifully named Sky Peals Road. WG (I think the WG means Woodford Green but I have no clue as to why).

Forest Drive Chingford

Then along Forest Drive Chingford, Christmas lights twinkling at the bare forest trees over the road.

River Ching

I cross the River Ching – a candidate for my favourite tributary in the whole of London (I don’t think the Fillebrook counts as I believe it runs into the Dagenham Brook) – and when you consider that the River Lea alone has 30 tributaries (ok some are in Hertfordshire) that is quite an accolade.

Highams Park

Highams Park was the perfect place to end this New Year’s Day walk with its cosy parade by the station and the level crossing. I went into the Tesco megastore and bought some new half-price headphones and a packet of pens.

Walking in the Snow on Wanstead Flats

The overnight arrival of snow was announced early on Sunday morning by the excited screeching of my youngest son. I was initially less enthusiastic as I’d hope to head out on a long walk – perhaps even venture across the river, but a quick glance at the TfL website confirmed that a mere layer of snow had taken out several tube and train lines.

Snowman on Wanstead Flats

Just after midday, with my GoPro fully charged and the kids thawing out in front of the telly after a vicious backgarden snowball fight, I set out over Wanstead Flats. This has been my default location when it snows – the open expanses shielded by perimeter trees conducive to trapping in the snowfall – unlike the surrounding streets where it quickly turns into a grey sludge.

Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers Leytonstone

The football pitches on the Leytonstone side had the goal posts set out in anticipation of Sunday morning matches but the field was dominated by a squad of snowmen.

Louds squeals and hollers went up from a mound of the Alexandra Lake near Aldersbrook where families sledged down to the waters edge. Flocks of birds swooped in for whole slices of bread. Others took advantage of frozen pontoons to rest on the body of the lake.

Snow on Wanstead Flats

As the light faded towards the 3.50pm sunset the temperature dropped another degree or two so that the cold sought out those gaps around the edge of your clothing. I trudged over more snow cloaked football pitches and eventually to the path leading through Bush Wood from where I watched the twinkling lights of the distant city skyline foregrounded by Leytonstone’s iconic Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers.

Barrage balloon posts Wanstead Flats

WW2 Barrage balloon posts

Last night brought rain instead of snow. The kids didn’t get the hoped for day off school and as we made our way along the road this morning, we looked out for forlorn patches of the icy crystals that were the only remnants of winter wonderland of yesterday.

Alexandra Lake Wanstead Flats snow