Wanstead
Coordinates: 51°34′40″N 0°01′43″E / 51.577792°N 0.028589°E
Wanstead (/ˈwɒnstɪd/) is a suburban area in the London Borough of Redbridge, North-East London (formerly in Essex). The name is from the Anglo-Saxon words wænn and stede, meaning "settlement on a small hill".
The town has a largely suburban feel, containing open grasslands such as Wanstead Flats, and the woodland of Wanstead Park (part of Epping Forest). The park, with artificial lakes, was originally part of the estate of a large stately home Wanstead House, one of the finest Palladian mansions in Britain, from its size and splendour nicknamed the English Versailles, and the architectural inspiration for Mansion House, London. It was demolished after the bankruptcy of the owner, William Wellesley-Long, in 1824. It is also home to Wanstead Golf club, which has hosted many of the major events in the Essex County calendar. A notable landmark towards the northern edge of Wanstead is the former Wanstead Hospital building, now a housing complex. A small annex of the old Burns Unit is now used for research on Flu vaccines and bovine diseases.
The main road going through Wanstead is the A12. Wanstead High Street includes pubs and independent retailers.
History
The name Wanstead is first recorded about 1050.
Wanstead was a part of the Municipal Borough of Wanstead and Woodford in Essex until 1965, when Greater London was created.
Astronomy
In 1707 the astronomer James Pound became rector of Wanstead. In 1717 the Royal Society lent Pound Huygens's 123-foot focal length object-glass, which he set up in Wanstead Park. Pound's observations with it of the five known satellites of Saturn enabled Halley to correct their movements; and Newton employed, in the third edition of the Principia, his micrometrical measures of Jupiter's disc, of Saturn's disc and ring, and of the elongations of their satellites; and obtained from him data for correcting the places of the comet of 1680. Laplace also used Pound's observations of Jupiter's satellites for the determination of the planet's mass; and Pound himself compiled in 1719 a set of tables for the first satellite, into which he introduced an equation for the transmission of light.
Pound trained his sister's son, James Bradley, and many of their observations were made together, including the opposition of Mars in 1719, and the transit of Mercury on 29 October 1723. Their measurement of γ Virginis in 1718 was the first made of the components of a double star and was directed towards the determination of stellar parallax.
In 1727, Bradley embarked upon a series of observations using a telescope of his own, erected at the rectory in Wanstead, now the site of Wanstead High School. This instrument had the advantage of a large field of view and he was able to obtain precise positions of a large number of stars that transited close to the zenith over the course of about two years. This established the existence of the phenomenon of aberration of light, and also allowed Bradley to formulate a set of rules that would allow the calculation of the effect on any given star at a specified date.
The George public house
Although The George is not a particularly old building, there has been a pub on that site for hundreds of years. Set in to the side of the pub is a plaque dating from 1752 which was formerly part of an older pub building. The plaque is inscribed with the eccentrically spelled verse:
- In Memory of
- Ye Cherry Pey
- As cost 1/2 a Guiney
- Ye 17 of July
- That day we had good cheer
- I hope to so do maney a Year
- R C 1752 D Jerry[1]
There are various local legends explaining this curious plaque, including a tale of the theft of a cherry pie by local workmen who were caught and fined half a guinea (52.5p). However the most likely explanation is that it was placed there by the landlord of 1752, David Jersey (corrupted by centuries of repainting and re-cutting the inscription to D Jerry on the plaque), commemorating a feast which included a huge cherry pie. Monstrous pies were a feature of 18th-century Essex rural festivals; the Tollesbury Gooseberry Pie festival is still in existence, and other inns around the edge of Epping Forest were famed for pies (rabbit pie at The Reindeer, Loughton, now Warren House, and pigeon pie at The King's Head, Chigwell). Wanstead was well known for its cherry orchards as late as the 1830s, when they were mentioned by poet Thomas Hood, who lived in Wanstead 1832-5.
Royal Commercial Travellers Schools
The Royal Commercial Travellers Schools were founded in 1845 by John Robert Cuffley, first in Wanstead, moving to Pinner in 1855. The schools at Wanstead provided housing, food, clothing and education for up to 130 children of commercial travellers who had died or became unable to earn their livelihood.[2]
The Royal Merchant Navy School
The Royal Merchant Navy School was founded in St George in the East, London in 1827 before moving to Hermon Hill, Wanstead in 1862. The new building provided for 300 orphans of Merchant Navy seamen. It moved again to Bearwood near Wokingham in 1921.[3] The building then became a convent refuge for women and girls and later Wanstead Hospital.[4]
St Mary the Virgin church
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The church of St Mary the Virgin located on Overton Drive was designed by architect Thomas Hardwick and completed in 1790. It is now a Grade I listed building, and contains a large monument to Josiah Child.[5]
Christ Church
Christ Church was built at the height of the Gothic revival and the architecture is the geometric style of the late 13th century. It was designed by George Gilbert Scott, who also designed the nearby Infant Orphan Asylum, now Snaresbrook Crown Court. The foundation stone was laid on 18 May 1860 by the Bishop of Rochester and it was consecrated on 19 July 1861 by the Bishop of London. It shares its parish with St Mary the Virgin.[6]
United Reformed Church
St Luke's Church, Camden, demolished for the building of the original St Pancras Station was re-erected piece by piece in 1867 as a Congregational church in Wanstead, and still exists (now a United Reformed church).[7]
Local flora and fauna
An area near the A12 M11 Link Road (which was built in the 1990s) beside the section from Blake Hall Road to Selsdon Road was in 2008 preserved by local residents as a Wild-Flower Meadow with a year-round display of wild and naturalised plants, shrubs and trees; starting in spring with oxlip (P. elatoir), cowslip (Primula veris), primrose (P. vulgaris), and meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris), followed by many species including the grass vetchling (Lathyrus nissolia). The meadow is listed as one of the main Primula species meadows in Greater London. The fauna of the area includes birds, foxes, Muntjac deer, and squirrels.
Education
Wanstead is home to a large comprehensive school, Wanstead High School. There are six primary schools in Wanstead: Wanstead church school, Our Lady of Lourdes, Aldersbrook, Nightingale, Snaresbrook and St. Joseph's Convent school which is an all-girls private school.
Transport and locale
- Nearest places
- Underground stations
The nearest London Underground stations are Snaresbrook and Wanstead on the Central line.
- Nearest railway stations
- Wood Street railway station for London Liverpool Street station on the Lea Valley Lines route.
- Leytonstone High Road railway station
Notable residents
- Clive Burr, Drummer (ex-Samson/Iron Maiden)
- Charles Bressey, civil engineer
- Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and favourite of Elizabeth I, had a house here, in which he died, much to Elizabeth's intense sorrow, on 4 September 1588, three days before the Queen's 55th birthday.
- Thomas Hood, the poet.
- Peter Goddard, physicist and journalist.
- Rodney Gordon, architect
- William Penn, the Quaker.
- James Pound, astronomer.
- Max Raison (1901–1988), cricketer
- Richard Sheridan, the dramatist. Sheridan lived in the right hand house of the Georgian Terrace in the High Street near to the George. For many years now there has been single storey shop premises built in the front garden of the house
- Mark Stephens (solicitor) - Lawyer, mediator, writer & broadcaster
- Colin Ward, social historian, writer and anarchist
- Jessie Wallace, Actress. Lived in Wanstead until late 2006.
- Tom Watt - Actor
- Joseph Wilton, sculptor
See also
References
- ↑ Plaque details accessed 24 April 2007
- ↑ http://www.royalcommercialtravellersschools.org.uk/history.html
- ↑ http://www.merchantnavy.org.uk/about.htm
- ↑ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42785
- ↑ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1081008)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
- ↑ "Parish of Wanstead - History". Official website. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
- ↑ Article on Wanstead United Reformed Church (formerly Congregational church), Wanstead
- Pewsey, S (2005), The Wanstead Cherry Pie Stone, Wanstead Historical Society
External links
-
Media related to Wanstead at Wikimedia Commons - Parish of Wanstead
- Wanstead Village Directory
- Wansteadium
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