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.
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.
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’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…
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.
Read more…
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.”
The Your London Website carries hygiene ratings and reports for food businesses across London. Ratings are based on the good old Amazon style star system, zero (very poor) to five (excellent). Looking at E11, there are quite a few surprises….
- The Walnut Tree (four stars)
- Costa Coffee in Tesco (four stars)
- McDonalds (four stars)
- Singburi (three stars)
- Golden Curry (three stars)
- Meze Patisserie (three stars)
- Elche (three stars)
- Petch Sayam (two stars)
- Star of India (one star)
- Chopsticks (no stars)
- Tesco Supermarket (no stars!)
Big shock there for Tesco – their staff canteen is rated at four stars by the way. Also a big shock to see Star of India, Waltham Forest’s Restaurant of the Year in 2005 rating so poorly. Hopefully those with lower scores have now addressed any issues raised.
In Wanstead, things seem to be somewhat better…
- The George (five stars)
- Applebees (four stars)
- Loon Yee (four stars)
- Gioberti (four stars)
- Starbucks (four stars)
- Hadley House (three stars)
- Somerfield (three stars)
For more info, visit the excellent http://www.yourlondon.gov.uk/.
Currently, despite being the birthplace of one of the greatest film directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock, E11 can’t boast a single cinema, not one. However, things were not always that way. In fact Leytonstone once boasted four large cinemas, how times have changed…
Rink Picture Palace/Rialto/Granada
Originally opened in October 1909 as a roller skating rink located next to St. John’s Church, Leytonstone. The owner, Mr. James White enlisted architect P. Cornish to convert the building into a cinema and ”The Rink Picture Palace” opened on 15th June, 1911.
Seating capacity, after some modification to the interior in 1913, was 1000 all on a single floor. The main entrance was next to Bearman’s department store on Leytonstone High Road and was reached via a long arcade.
In 1926 the cinema was purchased by Bernstein Theatres, a successful chain headed by Sidney Bernstein who, in 1921, had inherited control from his father, Alexander. The Cecil Masey and Theodore Komisarjevsky re-designed “Rialto” opened on 6th January, 1927.
Capacity had been increased to 1760, still all on one floor. Stage facilities and a cinema orchestra, including a Compton theatre organ, allowed for variety shows as well as films. The Compton from the Rialto is still in existence today – see www.wizardcompton.org.uk for further details.
Read more…
We went to St. Andrew’s Church for the Christmas Day service this year – normally we go to midnight mass, but with a couple of youngsters in tow that’s a bit impractical at the moment. Now, we’re not exactly regular churchgoers by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, to be honest, outside of weddings, christenings and funerals, a couple of times a year is about as much as we manage (at best). We do try to make an effort at Christmas time though as, at the end of the day, that’s what its really about (isn’t it?). Anyway, the point is, we were quite shocked to see the lack of numbers in the congregation there – I counted about 35 people which, for the big day itself, seems like a pretty poor showing. The service itself was great, the church looked fabulous inside (St. Andrew’s has some very nice stained glass windows), everyone was in good voice for the carols, all in all a thoroughly enjoyable part of our Christmas Day experience.
St. Andrew’s has played a major part in the history of Upper Leytonstone, its development as a community, and is also an important (grade 2 listed) building in its own right. At the risk of sounding “preachy” (and possibly somewhat hypocritical to boot), if you think that’s worth preserving, then consider supporting it!
For more information on St. Andrew’s, their website can be found at www.standrewsleytonstone.org.
“Stratford City”, the lesser-known twin of the London 2012 Olympic development will completely change the face of East London. In the hands of Westfield (they’ve just opened another huge shopping centre in West London), Stratford will be transformed, providing major retail outlets including John Lewis and Marks and Spencer, hotels, restaurants, as well as a huge new shopping mall. Now, while this is all good news as far as I’m concerned, I am wondering what the impact is likely to be on Leytonstone.
Read more…
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