Sometimes local strolls are the most gratifying. Particularly on late Sunday afternoons. If I don’t engage with my immediate territory for a while, I feel a sense of absence – a disconnection. So a couple of weeks ago I took off along Lea Bridge Road, half-planning to turn through Argall Way industrial estate then head across the marshes for Walthamstow. But in the end I got waylaid by the melancholy air hanging around the derelict stands of the Hare and Hounds Ground, once home to Leyton F.C – founded in 1868 and going out of business in 2011. I first stumbled across this relic in 2015 and since posting those photos here on this blog a number of clubs have come forward willing to take on the ground, with the funds to do so. However it continues to lie dormant, the undergrowth slowly consuming the seating, the pitch still a car park.

After paying homage to the Carnegie Library, George Coles’ Savoy Cinema, the Leyton Borough electricity substation, and the new Lea Bridge Station – my walk fittingly finished by the Lea Bridge itself over the River Lea.