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.

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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.

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Shame to see that Long Chang, the Chinese supermarket on Leytonstone High Road appears to have closed down – it only opened earlier this year. Not sure why – probably (as with many local shops that have fallen by the wayside) lack of support and/or the impact of the nearby Tesco.

Two historic fountains which are part of Snaresbrook and Wanstead’s Victorian heritage have been spruced up by Redbridge Council’s Area 1 Committee.

The fountains began life as horse troughs for the mounts of thirsty travellers in an age when horses were the majority form of transport and are a well loved part of the local scenery and a reminder of a bygone age.

The earliest, which still has its trough, stands on George Green, Wanstead, and was built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond jubilee in 1897.

The other stands at the other end of the High Street at the junction with Holly Bush Hill in Snaresbrook, and was erected in 1872.

Councillors representing the two wards of Snaresbrook and Wanstead formally reopened the fountains following their makeover.

These included Councillors Michelle Dunn, Allan Burgess, both for Wanstead, and for Snaresbrook ward, Councillors Christopher Cummins, Peter Goody and Mrs Suzanne Nolan.

Chairman of Area 1 committee which covers both wards, Councillor Chris Cummins, said:

“It is great to see these beautiful features restored to their former glory. They help to remind us what a historic place this area is.”

There is to be a by-election in the Forest Ward of Waltham Forest on Thursday 12th June, 2008. The seat being contested was formerly held by the Lib Dem candidate, Imran Abrahim. More info here.

The Leytonstone Festival is rapidly approaching once again. This year the fun and games will run from Saturday 5th July 2008 to Sunday 13th July 2008. Once the schedule is firmed up, we’ll add it to the london-e11 calendar. For more information and the very latest news, you might want to pay a vist to the festival website (www.leytonstonefestival.org.uk).

As part of this years festival, the Ferndale Area Residents Association (FARA) are organising a photo competition. The theme is “My Leytonstone – things I like/dislike”. The competition is open to any Leytonstone resident, adults and juniors (age 12 and under).

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A tidbit for those interested in Wanstead House … happens that an early Georgian giltwood stool which came up for auction at Christie’s on April 24th turned out to originally be from the (now demolished) great house in Wanstead Park.

The seller originally acquired the stool from a 1980 contents sale at Wingfield Castle, home of the late connoisseur-collector Graham Baron Ash.

Initial estimates for the piece were between £15,000 – £25,000, but the Wanstead House provenance, unearthed after a pointer was given to Christie’s by architectural historian John Martin Robinson, resulted in a 5 way battle over the phones between private collectors. The stool eventually sold for a very impressive £135,000.

The contents of Wanstead House were originally auctioned off in 1822 after the then owner and richest woman in England, Catherine Tylney Long was bankrupted by her wreckless husband William Pole Wellesley. The auction was a huge undetaking, lasting for 32 days. As no buyer could be found for the actual house, it was demolished and sold piece by piece to pay Wellesley’s creditors.

Source: Antiques Trade Gazette.

Londoners seem to appreciate snow more than most people, probably because we don’t get very much of it -  and even when we do, it tends not to stick around for very long. The weather forecast yesterday had predicted the possibility of some snow showers this afternoon, but (suprise, surprise) they got it slightly wrong and we woke up this morning to the sight of a pristine white blanket covering the ground outside with big flakes of snow still fluttering down.

The dashing looking snowman pictured was sitting in the grounds of St. John’s Church, Leytonstone. More snowy pictures taken around E11 can be found here in the gallery. If you have any pictures you’d like to share, please send them to gallery@london-e11.co.uk.