Author: Wansteadium

It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s about to get harder for Wanstead residents to collect letters and parcels which have not for whatever reason made it through their letterboxes.

The sight of people heading to Leytonstone’s Royal Mail sorting office clutching a “Sorry you were out” card has become familiar on Saturday mornings, since between 9am and lunchtime is the only time outside office hours that the collection office is open.

But from next week the car park at the office will be closed to the public. A sign in the office says it is “due to H&S and Yard RISK ASSESSMENT”.

With no options nearby for parking, this means Wanstead people will either have to walk, go by bus or Tube, or have someone wait in the car while they go and collect the item from the office. The area outside the office is clearly a no parking zone.

Theoretically there are other options for undelivered mail, such as a redelivery, or the item being left at a Post Office branch. But – anecdotally at least – it seems these are rarely used successfully because of difficulties in getting through on the phone line.

Many Wanstead residents will wonder whether it would be better for undelivered Wanstead mail to be routinely left at the Wanstead Post Office. Wansteadium will be writing to the Delivery Office Manager to make this suggestion.

• The rather novel parking regulations recently introduced on roads south of Christ Church Green, which mean that both sides of Spratt Hall Road are reserved for residents’ parking (even though there are houses on only one side) resulting in the road being virtually deserted for several hours each day, even as Wanstead retailers cry out for customers, are apparently to be reviewed.

• Bus arrival information boards have been installed at some bus stops in Wanstead, though it seems their use is mostly observational rather than forecasting… ie if you’re waiting for a W12 it might or might not take the six minutes the sign indicates. It might come right away, or it might be stuck at six minutes for the next 10. Other reports are welcome.

• On an incidental but unrelated note, the newly completed pavement on the south side of Wanstead High Street is a very nice job indeed.

• If you want to collect a bit of Wanstead history, you might like to buy the pews currently being removed from the former Cambridge Park Methodist Church, which is being converted into a nursery. They’re on sale on eBay here.

• Richard Foster (@fozzie23) sends this photo of what promises to be a new tapas restaurant in the place of the missed El Toro Loco on Cambridge Park. Dama De Elche basically translates as Benidorm Bird, but actually refers to a statue from the fourth century BC.

• Two crime updates. Beware number plate thiefs – people removing plates so they can steal petrol from filling stations. There’s been a spate of thefts in the Counties roads. And there’s a report from one Wansteadium reader a daylight mugging taking place in Sylvan Road.

• And hedgehog update no. 1: Stavros Fotiadis writes that he saw a hedgehog on Friday afternoon at the north side of Wanstead Park, near Royston Gardens. He says: “A man I crossed paths with warned me his dog had just had a close encounter with a hedgehog. A couple of hundred yards further I came across the young hedgehog on the track, immobilised and listing to one side. Have a bad feeling it had been critically mauled, there was nothing I could do.”

• Facebook might be worth a hundred billion dollars. But that doesn’t mean there are never technical hitches. So if you are among the 300 or so people who “liked” Wansteadium on Facebook and thus got our updates in your newsfeed, you will need to “like” us again. It’s easily done…

Wansteadium reader Ruth Nation of Ingatestone Road found this object in her garden a few years ago. The question is… what is it?

She writes: “The mystery is, I suppose, that over the past 9 years or so I have shown it to virtually every visitor to my house and no-one has seen anything like it before. I knew it couldn’t be a coin as it is one-sided and it seemed too large and archaic looking to be a military medal.

“The second mystery is that I have spent countless hours online and in various museums and have not seen anything like it. The closest to it is a ‘pilgrim’s token’.

“It also seems to be mysteriously changing colour and the image that was very hard to make out is now very clear so I don’t what metal it could be made of.

“The last, tongue in cheek and most fun mystery is that no matter how many times I blow the image of it up, look at it with a magnifying glass or take rubbings I can’t make out the writing – it seems that my mysterious find is keeping hold of its secrets!”

So, people of Wanstead, here is the challenge. What is this mysterious item? What is the picture of? What does the writing say? And above all how might it have ended up in a Wanstead back garden? Suggestions welcome below…

Update: Carole Edrich writes:
I think it’s some kind of imprint or mould. Flip the image of the coin as I have in the one attached and some letters are legible. There’s an ‘-io’, possibly a ‘K’, then maybe an ‘in’ then something like ‘-iffe’ or ‘-effe’ so maybe ‘deffend’ Anyway, I’ve attached the image flipped and upped the contrast a bit so that it can be shared.


[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/Redeyedvireo/status/201284003892957185″]

UPDATE, Monday 14 May:

Frances Simmons of the Simmons Gallery of Art Numismatics and Metrology based in Leytonstone writes:

Following a prompt from a Wansteadium reader, we had a look at this and reckon it’s a 17th century brass badge (something you’d wear to show loyalty or fealty) although it could be earlier. Yes, it does look like St George and the dragon but where’s his horse? More like a knight slaying a lion. Lots of stuff like this and earlier has been dug up around the Thames. We’d recommend that even though it’s just base metal, you report it, as part of the Portable Antiquities Scheme to:
Katherine Creed, Finds Liaison Officer – London
Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive
Museum of London
150 London Wall
EC2Y 5HN
Work T: +44 (0) 20 7814 5733
The Museum of London has a tremendous collection and it would be easier to read the inscription from the real item rather than a photo. Probably oxidisation has occurred now the item is out of the ground (clay preserves things nicely) which is why it’s so difficult to read and is changing colour. I’m sure the Museum will be able to help out a bit more. Very interesting! It’s amazing what turns up.

Some scenes from the Wanstead Village Dog Show, held on Monday at Christ Church.

A classic headline from Friday’s Wanstead Guardian, and a question to which the answer must be “Er… crumbs… Well I guess it’s possible… But wouldn’t South Woodford feel left out?”