Stratford to Upton Park: On Wednesday 4th December I walked with two buddies from Stratford Station to the location of the previous West Ham soccer floor at Upton Park.
Although actually it wasn’t the soccer connection that us, however the implausible late Victorian pub on the nook shut the the bottom which we had seen some footage that prompted this pretty quick stroll, one among occasional strolls we meet to absorb London which all the time finish in a pub.
Having photographed London for the reason that Nineteen Seventies I’d been down all of the streets we walked alongside earlier than at numerous instances, in early years alone. And far of our route I’d walked down with teams of protesters extra just lately, protesting over housing with Focus E15 and marching from Stratford to protest on the DSEI arms truthful.
We met exterior Stratford Station and walked via the indoor market to Stratford Broadway the place I finished to take a few footage. On the Broadway we stood by the obelisk erected by fellow parishioners and buddies in 1861 to Quaker banker and philanthropist Samuel Gurney (1786-1856). Gurney got here from a Norwich banking household and made a vastly profitable profession in banking within the Metropolis of London. However his later years had been largely occupied with a variety of philanthropic causes, together with penal reform, the abolition of slavery, help for Liberia, schooling, the Irish famine, peace with France and extra.
In East London he was answerable for the primary hospital for staff injured in dock accidents in Poplar and St Paul’s Stratford, based as a mission by him in 1853. Whereas Gurney is lengthy forgotten, his sister who he labored with on jail reform, Elizabeth Fry, stays well-known.
We crossed the Broadway and continued down West Hame Lane, previous the housing affiliation constructing the place I photographed Focus E15 Moms partying towards their eviction in January 2014 on the star of their lengthy marketing campaign for “Housing for All” and on in the direction of Church Avenue.
All Saints West Ham Church was Grade I listed in 1984 and has been a spot of Christian worship since round 1130 although it was rebuilt in Early English type later in that century and has had numerous additions since, with its inside very a lot altered in Victorian instances by George Dyson and George Gilbert Scott. In !857 Lord Grimthorpe added a clock to the tower whose mechanism was the mannequin for Massive Ben.
We walked across the churchyard – the church like most in city areas was locked, although I visited it on Open Home Day some years in the past – after which went to go to The Angel pub a little bit method down the road.
There had been an Angel pub right here most likely for the reason that sixteenth or seventeenth century in a previous unspectacular timberframed constructing however it was rebuilt in its current half-timbered fantasy type by its landlord in 1910. Closed and boarded up in 2003 it re-opened shortly after as The Angel Cabaret & Dance Bar, described as a “Trashy run-down Stratford homosexual dance bar” whose license was revoked in 2010. Plans to show it right into a church had been dropped round 2014 and the constructing is now empty and in a really poor state, with an software in October this yr for a possession order.
We continued on down West Ham Lane, trying down from the bridge at Plaistow Station to Willow Cottage, the grade II listed former lodge to the demolished The Willows, courting from 1836. That is one among solely 4 listed buildings in Plaistow North Ward, together with a library and two public homes, neither nonetheless open as pubs.
However one older unlisted public home stays in enterprise and was effectively price a go to. The Black Lion was definitely there in 1742, and although it was largely rebuilt in 1875 nonetheless appears historical.
By then my colleagues had been flagging and it was approaching twilight. Two buses took us to the junction of Inexperienced Avenue and Barking Street the place we admired the surface of the Boleyn Public Home, inbuilt 1899-1900 by W G Shoebridge and H W Rising. An enormous and memorable pub with nice etched glass and inside furnishings, although it was nonetheless closed once we arrived.
That gave us time to {photograph} the bronze memorial celebrating the 1966 World Cup victory with Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson, and to stroll as much as the pathetic Boleyn Floor Memorial Backyard on Shipbuilding Means, a round patch of naked grass and a small playground space. There didn’t appear to be something to report the historical past of the location. Again in Augest 2015 I’d photographed native campaigners calling for West Ham’s Boleyn floor to be developed for among the 24,000 on Newham’s housing record fairly than as 838 luxurious flats with no social housing. The positioning has no actual social housing however contains 25% of so-called “reasonably priced housing“.
Ready exterior for the Boleyn to open we met a long-term Hammers fan and buyer of the Boleyn. The pub closed in 2020 for refurbishment and has been restored lovingly to “one thing like its former spectacular Victorian glory. Numerous expert staff using conventional strategies have been sourced to reinstate Victorian reduce glass, lay marble and tiled flooring and recreate the wood screens that divide up the 7 bars which embrace the Saloon Bar, Public Bars and the a lot wanted ‘Carriage Bar’ and ‘Girls Bars’…”
As they are saying “The Boleyn Tavern conjures up the look of a grand Victorian Gin Palace and is actually a sight to behold.” And we spent a while comfortably doing so.
See extra footage from this quick stroll right here.
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Tags: 1966 World Cup, All Saints West Ham, Bobby Moore, Boleyn Floor Memorial Backyard, derelict pub, DSEI Arms Truthful, Elizabeth Fry, Focus E15, homosexual bar, homosexual dance bar, Geoff Hurst, London, London Images, Martin Peters, Newham, peter Marshall, Plaistow, Ray Wilson, Samuel Gurney, Shipbuilding Means, Stratford, Stratford Broadway, Stratford Market, The Angel, The Boleyn, Upton Park, Victorian reduce glass, West Ham, West Ham Lane, Willow Cottage, wood screens
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