London's East End group

I have been trying to find which photograph you are referring to. I am assuming it's probably one of the Ilford aerial pictures with Manor Park in the background but I cannot determine which one it is.

Fantastic site...great find!
I loved it as I spent many years living in Walthamstow and Highams Park.

That’s a lovely programme cover Tony, with a vaguely art nouveau - Alphone Mucha look to it.
According to the theatretrust.org.uk website East Ham Palace was demolished in 1958 and replaced by a featureless brick box which appears to have lasted longer on the site than the Palace did.

Being born just after the war, I was one of that generation of children denied sweets due to sugar rationing that continued for some years. I was seven years old when my mother gave me a tube of "Refreshers" made by Trebor which I took to school unopened to proudly show to my classmate who sat next to me on a double bench type desk. My teacher saw me showing this unopened tube of Refreshers and promptly confiscated them. This left me fuming as it meant I still had never tasted a sweet in my life. I told my mother about this when I went home for dinner, (we call it lunch now), and during afternoon classes, the classroom door burst open as my mother unexpectedly marched in and demand my sweets back. My teacher who was normally something of a martinet meekly handed them over and my mother promptly left. I was expecting terrible retribution from my teacher but not another word was ever said, presumably because she was fearful of another visit from my mother.

Later in life when I first left school I became a telegram boy on a motorbike based at Telephone House in Forest Gate. When I first passed Trebors not knowing at the time it was located in Katherine Road, the memory of my tube of Refreshers and my teacher came flooding back.

Alternatively, just go to Flickr.com and put Davis Christie's name in the search box....I love his portfolio.

It does appear that the speed of change is accelerating. I recall this same site when it was the medical offices of West Ham Borough Council, then your photo which I think was nicknamed the pyramid and now a supermarket. Who knows what is next.

This site does appear to have difficulties in displaying long URL's, hence part of your Flickr URL has been lost. Although you probably know the answer, one way to overcome this problem is to visit a site like http://tinyurl.com/ By pasting a long URL into a box, it coverts it into a small URL which a site like this can then cope with.

This picture certainly brings back memories. As children our mother occasionally took us on a day trips to Southend which involved getting on a Green Line bus at the Bell Corner, Walthamstow. The route of the bus was along the Eastern Avenue but it detoured into Romford Market via North Street. On some occasions it was market day with stalls everywhere.

It may be hard to appreciate now but in the 1950's Romford was still considered a small country town. As London expanded it simply became engulfed by the expansion of Greater London in the same way the growth of East London engulfed smaller villages.

It's quite surprising but if one look on Google Earth, with the exception of a five mile gap between Upminster and Basildon, the blur on the map caused by buildings runs continuously between Slough and Shoebury. Along the line of the Thames there is no building gap at all. It does make one wonder if within a few years, Southend and Shoebury will not be considered the new East London.

What a great clip of Petticoat Lane, it almost makes one feel like your there.

The phrase "The slums of South Kensington" just doesn't sound right today does it!

You are right mate....I was shown that slider about a year ago and have had great fun with it.
Strange you should mention the prefabs at Wanstead Flats....I grew up in Manor Park and spent many happy hours on that estate in the prefabs of schoolmates who lived there. It was opposite the Golden Fleece pub and as you say, you see it clearly on Google Earth when you slide to 1945.
Let's see if we can upload some screenshots from it to this place.
:-)

This is a wonderful photo, redolent of the dirt and delapidation that seemed to sum up much of London at that time.

Thanks for the heads up mate....I think you may be right.

At the start it pans across Bishopsgate goods yard and station, which were still in use at the time this was shot. It lay derelict for years until 2004 when most of it was demolished. I believe the ornamental gate however survives (the white structure on the left at 0:13), it was cetainly still there looking very sorry for itself a few years back.

I did watch this series and although as you say it did not cover the East End, two of the location, Deptford High Street and Camberwell Grove I know quite well and which I personally found of special interest. The series made great use of Booth's Poverty Map of London comparing his original colour/class classifications to how they are now. I have seen a copy of Booth's map for East London and although I cannot recall any particular street, there was a lot of what he deemed the Vivious or semi-criminal class.

One thing the programme did not directly mention but which was there as a clear undertrend, is how regeneration of an area does not normally benefit the poorer elements of society already living their. The process of regentrification be it by public of private money tends to attract the more affluent elements of society whom in turn displace the poorer elements. This has happened so many times, the Isle of Dogs, Islington to name but a few. It does appear to me that is exactly what is happening in Stratford now which as a result regeneration due to Olympics has clearly come under the spotlight. The newly incoming affluent or moderately affluent are pushing the less fortunate out.

I watched with great interest.I found that it wasn't on long enough and the great East End could of easily filled an hour long programme.Hope you are OK.Take care BP

Hi Roy,
I too went to Beal, actually I was part of the last grammar school stream before it went comprehensive. Beal is totally unrecognisable now, the original buildings being the core of a much larger school about 4 times the original size and 2,000+ pupils.
In my time they stopped swimming lessons in the late 70’s as a cost saving measure by which time they had moved to the baths at Fullwell Cross. However, when I attended Redbridge Junior’s we also used to go to the Victorian swimming baths on Ilford High Road (though it had a nasty modern entrance block covering the front). These were closed in 2008 after the building was condemned as unsafe as the council had failed to spend anything on maintenance for years. The council also failed to maintain the Valentines Lido and it was filled in a few years back as another cost saving measure and turned into tennis courts.
Matt

Tony, many thanks for that picture of the old Carlton cinema. Strangely enough, it looks in a better condition boarded up than it did when it was open. The Carlton was always on the lower flea bit end of the cinema scale and it was clear it was nearing it's end when the numbers of the few staff they had there gradually reduced. In the end, the man in the ticket box would also come out of the box to tear ones ticket in half instead of the customary usherette before you entered the cinema. It ended up showing adult films mainly of the titilation variety in an attempt to attract more custom, all to no avail. It then joined the long list of cinemas in Walthamstow and the surrounding districts killed off by television.

Many thanks for the links to the Charlie Browns roundabout, they certainly brought back some nostalgic memories. Although like many others I was sad to see the tarmac jungle that replaced it, the film showing the large volumes of traffic was taken 40 years ago so clearly something needed to be done there. I hate to think what that roundabout would be like with todays traffic. The boarded up houses in Mayfield Road reminded me of a similar sight in West London before the A40 was improved. Good houses boarded up and left to decay for some years.

Now converted into apartments, the factory is one of the few surviving features in this photo, apart from the railway line into Liverpool Street. Those that survived the war didn't survive the urban planners. The area to the northeast was swept away by the Blackwall tunnel approach in the 1970s, the A12 extension in the 1990s and now the Olympic stadium complex. Even many of the 1930s industrial buildings constructed after this photo was taken are now long gone.

This picture was taken from near the present day Redbridge Station looking east. The road in the foreground running from left to right is The Drive with the large square being the Port of London Authority recreation ground. The road on the left of the picture is Redbridge Lane East.

Hello Historian.....were you based opposite the Princess Alice when you were on the motorbikes?