Let’s Fill Leytonstone With Art!

A request from Leytonstone Arts Trail…

“Leytonstone Arts Trail is organising a drive to ‘Fill Leytonstone with Art’ during the dates of the Trail: 27 June to 19 July.

To help with this, we would like members of the community to put a piece of art in the front windows of their houses. The main request is that the art is produced by someone within the household.

Children produce many excellent works of art in school, so do encourage them to put those creations on display for the period of the Trail. It will serve to brighten the streets of Leytonstone as
people go about their daily business.

Although we are driving this through schools, we encourage everyone to put their artwork on display - not just children - so please join in!”

Summer Steam Trains

Slightly outside E11, but…

One of the best kept secrets in Chingford is the 2 model train tracks at the back of Ridgeway Park, Peel Close, off Old Church Road, Chingford (just after the Green Man pub near the top of Chingford Mount). Alternative entrances off Endlebury Road and Chingford Avenue, E4.

Every Sunday and Bank Holiday afternoon between 2pm and 5:30pm during the summer (up to the end of September) train rides are available at 50p or £1 depending on the train track in use. During the school summer holidays,
rides are also available on Wednesday afternoons. Private hire events can also be arranged.

The Chingford & District Model Engineering Club, formed in 1945, run the trains, tracks and rides. There is a 1000 foot long 5″ raised level track and a 3000 foot long 7¼” ground level track. The respective rides are 50p and £1 per person per ride.

For further information: see http://www.chingford-model-engineering.com/diary.htm#public for running days or http://www.chingford-model-engineering.com/index.htm for the home page.

This year the Chingford Day at the park on 5th July will be celebrated by the use of both tracks. Something not to be missed!

Many (grand) parents would probably love to take their children along for a lovely Sunday (Bank Holiday) afternoon out, but just don’t know about it.

New Council Leader

With Clyde Loakes stepping down because he plans to run for MP in the next general election, our new council leader in Waltham Forest is Chis Robbins from Grove Green ward.

The Art of Woolworths

The ex-Woolworths in Leytonstone has been secured by The Leytonstone Arts Trail for use as a venue - the arts trail runs from 27th June till 19th July 2009.

As a matter of interest, presumably that means that the council have not yet found anyone to take over the store on a permanent basis. The Woolworths in Stratford is now a “99p Store”, the one in Wanstead is a Tesco Metro and South Woodford’s is some kind of “International Supermarket” (doesn’t seem particularly popular with the locals apparently, see this Guardian article for further info).

Calling all Artists…

Are you an artist with work to show? Or a venue with space to offer?

Leytonstone Arts Trail is a great chance for local artists to show their work, and for residents to see the talent that’s on their doorstep.

The Trail runs from 27 June to 19 July and involves many different visual arts events, from photography to painting to sculpture to textiles. The aim is to get art into as many venues as possible, so that artists can show their work, and venues can benefit from added custom. More information at http://www.leytonstoneartstrail.org.

Belgique

After driving past a few times and noticing the packed tables outside, I finally popped into Begique, the new patisserie near Wanstead Tube Station on Cambridge Park Road. Seems to be rather good - very nice inside with a huge selection of cakes, some unusual sandwich combos, coffee and tea and some warm dishes too. Having googled them, discovered that they are in fact a small chain based in East London, with shops in Woodford Green, Epping and a new one opening up in Chingford. Well worth a visit.

Their website can be found at www.belgique.co.uk.

LARA - Leytonstone Area Residents Association

Residents in the Upper Leytonstone Area now have their own Residents Association, LARA. There are already a number of Residents Associations covering various parts of Leytonstone (BARA in Bushwood, FARA around Ferndale Road and FORA in the “Forest” Ward), but one for the Leytonstone Ward has long been noticable by its absence.

The domain name www.leytonstoneresidents.org.uk has been registered and I’m pleased to say I’ll be helping out with the website. We’re still to switch over the domain name to the “new” site - but it can currently be viewed at leytonstoneresidents.wordpress.com.

The next meeting is at 7:00pm on 28th April at the St. John’s Ambulance building on Queen’s Road.

Google Street View

Google’s Street View which adds street-level 360 degree imaging to Google Maps has gone live in the UK, including full (well, almost) coverage of greater London. E11 is included, so you can now stroll virtually down our local streets.

Here are a few examples…

• Welcome to Leytonstone
• The High Stone
• Eagle Pond
• Wanstead High Street

Stratford City Update

It’s quite amazing going through Stratford every day on the train and witnessing what amounts to a whole town rise up from nothing. Work on Stratford City seems to be progressing apace with much of the steelwork for the major buildings now in place. One of the many conundrums facing the planners was how to link in “Old Stratford” (i.e. Stratford Centre and the bus station), given that numerous railway lines will lie between it and the the new development. The solution is a bridge, a big bridge, spanning all of the existing railway platforms and leading directly into the heart of the new shopping area.

The initial piece of the bridge on the City side has been carefully winched into place…

Work has also commenced at the Old Stratford end, next to the main station building…

This is how it will all look when its finished…

Tesco Invades Wanstead

The Woolworths in Wanstead has been taken over by Tesco - they’re currently fitting it out as a “Tesco Metro”. Bad news for existing local shops as they’re sure to feel the squeeze once the new store opens. One of the best aspects of Wanstead is its almost village-like charm, partly due to the wide range of local shops and cafes and the relative absence (bar Somerfield) of the big supermarkets. Hopefully this isn’t the start of the slippery slope towards a high road like Leytonstone’s.

Speaking of Leytonstone, the Conservative Party have been sending flyers out regarding the Woollies shop there, concerned what the council are planning to do with it. One of their suggestions, a book shop selling coffee was already attempted on Church Lane a couple of years back - Prospero I think it was called. Nice enough place, but didn’t last very long. Their other suggestion, a shopping arcade, sounds more promising to me - maybe something along the lines of the arcade near Liverpool St. Station, sympathetically built in an art deco style to match Leytonstone Library. Well we can dream can’t we … I’m betting it ends up as a cheap supermarket like Aldi or another 99p store

UPDATE - At the January Leytonstone Community Council meeting, Cllr Jenny Gray “assured residents that the site, which was owned by the Council, would be turned into good use. She added that the Council was in contact with a number of companies (including Peacocks, Argos and Sainsbury) and Woolworth’s administrators in order to ensure that quality shops would come into the area.”