Author: Wansteadium

…but in Shoreditch this would be a very expensive coffee table.

But then we are accustomed to having a better class of litter in Wanstead.

Having been hit by roadworks and flooding in the same place three times in 12 months, Wellesley Road has again been dug up at the same spot, this time reportedly because of a leaking gas pipe.

Long-suffering residents and shopkeepers are once again dealing with the road being closed. And spare a thought for anxious learner drivers leaving the Wanstead Test Centre and having to cope with diversions.

That poor, poor road. And if it is cursed, who cursed it? There can be only two candidates.

Either the man whose family gave the road its name – the wicked cad of Wanstead House, Mr William Pole-Tylney Long-Wellesley, noted Trump-style manhood bragger (he used to allow himself to be referred to as Mr Long Pole, we learned in Geraldine Roberts’ magnificent book on the subject*).

Or perhaps it is the wronged party, Lady Catherine Tylney-Long, the richest commoner in the British Isles, whose dedication and fortune were squandered by the ignorant oaf. There have been rumours of her tragic ghost wandering the grounds of her former estate in Wanstead Park. Perhaps she has at last sought revenge on the road, hoping perhaps to start a movement to have it renamed.

Or maybe it’s just bad pipes.

(* You can buy Geraldine Roberts’ book here from Amazon. It’s a great read.)

 

Not many places get new newspapers nowadays – in fact the opposite is true with more than 300 newspapers closing across the UK in the past ten years.

But Wanstead has bucked the trend with the launch of a new free weekly newspaper – the Wanstead and Woodford Recorder. Issues are being handed out on Wanstead High Street and there will presumably be some door-to-door distribution.

It will come as an unwelcome development for the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian, but is good news for readers – nothing sharpens journalistic ambition like competition.

Wansteadium reader Clive Power has been incredibly quick off the blocks by comparing the rival editions and offers the following analysis.

 

	W&W Guardian	W&W Recorder
Editions: Thurs 13 October 2016	Total size of stories (not including headlines & pix)
Wanstead & Woodford news	10.68m²         52%	11.99m²       52%
Other news: pan-Redbridge	1.36m²            7%	5.72m²        24%
Out of area news	8.45m²          41%	5.55m²        24%
	(100%)	(100%)
Wanstead & Woodford sport	0.93m²             8%	3.73m²        23%
Local sport, incl WHUFC, LOFC	6.37m²           53%	11.24m²       70%
Out of area sport	4.67m²           39%	1.07m²         7%
	(100%)	(100%)
Price	65p	Free (80p where sold)
Pages	80	56

He adds this note:

I measured the size of the news (including planning applications) and sports stories. I did not include headlines or photos or old stories reprinted.  So I did not include the many Reception class photos in this week’s W&WG (although only 10 out of 61 of these were from W&W schools).

I did not include the letters as there hasn’t been time for W&WR letters yet (although it is likely to print the same letters as the Ilford Recorder). W&WG had 4 letters (all ‘out of area’) this week; W&WR had 6 (from the Ilford Recorder) plus social media points.

 

Wanstead Tree week continues into an unprecedented third week with this rather perfect imprint left on a pavement. Anyone who can explain exactly why this happens is welcome to have a go.

 

The news, as reported in the Wanstead Guardian, that a mobile phone mast is to be installed on Hermon Hill despite the objections of residents has caused some angst.

The reason, the paper reports, is that the paperwork which would have prevented the installation needed to be filed by Redbridge Council within 56 days of the application. It was done on the 57th day, so the mast will now be built, and indeed the associated roadside green cabinets are already being installed.

Residents said the mast should not be sited so close to homes or the new Little Diamonds nursery which has been operating for the past year. Despite reassurances that they are safe, many people believe masts pose a danger particularly to young children.

The council told the paper that it was all down to a “technicality” and asked the telecoms company to reconsider. A spokesman said:

“We have made our objections clear to the company, we feel they should take their corporate and social responsibility seriously and reconsider whether they should build the mast.”

A glance at the planning application which is still displayed at the site does not inspire a huge amount of confidence that everyone is concentrating as hard as they should be. Two spelling mistakes in the first line of the notice?

This news will trouble many gardeners in Wanstead. It might be Wanstead Tree Week, but this is not good news.

There are literally hundreds of gardens in Wanstead which have lovingly tended box trees, slow-growing but faithfully green and maleable into orderly shapes for the patient gardener who is prepared to wait years.

The threat of box blight, a wind-borne fungus which according to Monty Don means certain doom, is ever present. But there is a new problem.

Something is eating its way through Wanstead’s box trees: the box tree caterpillar. It arrived in the UK in 2007, and has been spreading out across the Home Counties since then, the RHS reports. It leads to plants being stripped back to their stems, and a tell-tale sign, apart from actual caterpillars, is a multitude of couscous-like eggs in the trees.

Wansteadium reader Christine Bates is one of the gardeners already facing up to her hard choices.

I think blight is possibly treatable – clipping away infected bits, insuring air circulates freely around and into the plant etc. But this caterpillar is so invasive. Have a delve into your bushes and if you have the caterpillar, you will find caterpillars (which affect box exclusively – no other plants), also decayed clumps of leaves, plus lots of couscous type green eggs. Also look out for a webbing spreading across the outside of the plant – aaaarghhhh. I have reluctantly sprayed a few small bushes that I have in pots – it is possible to spray these effectively – but the larger established bushes are simply too big. So, the end of a beautiful friendship as far as I’m concerned!

Mas Beg, of Heads N Tails, is on behalf of Wansteadium researching what’s the best kind of pest spray to halt the caterpillar in its tracks. Anyone with solutions please do share them here…