Rumours that installation of CCTV cameras on Wanstead High Street was imminent appear not to be true.
The organisers of the campaign against the proposed parking regulation changes told Wansteadium that the rumours were circulating, and that there were fears the cameras would be a precursor to the introduction of Pay and Display parking.
However, a spokeswoman for Redbridge Borough Council told Wansteadium that the council had no knowledge of any such plans.
Wansteadium’s hedgehog hunt is now into its third week, and we have built up several sightings around Wanstead.
• Spotted in Wanstead Park Avenue, Aldersbrook, Wansteadium reader Nick says: “Further proof as if it were needed that Aldersbrook is the Galapagos Islands of East London.”
Untitled from Tiggy Winkle on Vimeo.
• Deep e-mails from his house on The Green to say : “There is a hedgehog – I call him Harry – who comes to my garden every evening at around 10.30pm. The first time we met I was doing my Bob Marley impressions (badly) and the little dude came and scared the life out of me….  Do you intend to microchip them?”
• Sadly, though, Shiobhain tweeted us to say: “Found the hedgehog I saw last week dead outside this morning 🙁  It looked OK to me, so not sure what happened. I saw two foxes around it last week so maybe they were playing with it.”
• The updated map of sightings is below. The Wanstead Hedgehog Hunt goes on, though: please report any sightings, dead or alive, to hedgehogs@wansteadium.com
View Hedgehogs in Wanstead in a larger map
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/CafevoyageE11/statuses/88151812514910208″]
George C Parker, Wansteadium’s property blogger, writes:
Anyone for Tennis?Like everyone else in summertime, I do love watching the tennis. Every June I like to dust off my Fred Perrys, mow the lawn, and then sit down with a refreshing barley water in front of the ladies doubles. And when game, set and match are won at either the Warren Italian Tennis Club, the Drummon Lawn Tennis club, or the Aldersbrook Tennis Club then I sometimes pop the telly on to watch a bit of Sir Cliff in the rain at Wimbledon.
Near to the Lawn Tennis establishment is this charming Arts and Crafts property. The rear garden is small, but with enough space for a Pimms and strawberry break between matches, and there is a glorious greensward to the front of the house.
Closer to the clay club is this well-situated Overton Drive property. The price looks good – as dear McEnroe would say – you cannot be serious!
The festival season: Wanstead Park hosts some wonderful summer events in its beautiful grounds. Coming up on 9 July is Music in Wanstead Park, an all-day festival of music and community. Later in the summer Illyria will stage Fantastic Mr Fox for kids, and I will be enjoying an al-fresco G&T in front of their G&S – the Pirates of Penzance come August.
I’ve heard it said that Wanstead folk do not often venture south of the park into neighbouring Aldersbrook, but from time to time, perhaps they should. The houses are mostly elegant Edwardian and quite a few of the tree-lined turnings are almost traffic free.
Besides the park, Aldersbrook offers a friendly local primary school, a library and a medical practice. Outdoors there are stables, the Flats, allotments, a bowls club for adrenaline junkies… What’s more it even gets dark at night-time, being insulated from urban glare by the surrounding green space. It’s positively rural compared to its neighbours. House prices tend to be lower on average than Wanstead proper, due to the lack of Tube. However, Manor Park rail connects with Stratford (will we call it Westfield in future?) in six minutes, giving easy onward access to Canary Wharf, the City, so it’s not exactly isolated. And at the time of writing, there are no plans to introduce controlled parking…
George’s mailbag: A couple of weeks I wrote about a bungalow on St Mary’s Ave which was up for sale, reckoning as I did that its future did not look too rosy, being too prime a spot for a mere bungalow. Wansteadium reader Trevor writes in reply:
“While I would certainly demolish the staggeringly unremarkable bungalow on the St Marys Ave plot were I in a position to fund both land and re-build, I have a foreboding about what will indeed arise from the ashes. There is currently another rebuild under way in the road, and a predictably naff pastiche is emerging, constructed in horribly low rent materials. I’m not against the replacement of undistinguished houses on such a road, if the replacement is an improvement. The bungalow plot allows the perfect opportunity to build something genuinely elegant, ingenious and MODERN. Something that will show folks in 2111 that we were capable of designing houses 100 years previously, rather than copy what was fashionable a further century into history, but get wrong every time.”
On an unrelated matter, polite fellow reader Catherine writes:
Dear Mr. George C Parker
I was perusing Rightmove as one normally does on a Tuesday evening and came across this property for sale on the Aldersbrook Estate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bedroom like it! (Look at the images) What do you think? It’s a corker isn’t it? My boudoir is also being shown on Rightmove at the moment ( a casual peruse of the site a few months back led to me putting in a offer on a property) but I can assure you mine is nothing like the one photographed above.
I would hope not, my dear.
You can contact George with delicious titbits of property news concerning Wanstead, Snaresbrook or Aldersbrook via georgecparker@wansteadium.com
An interesting article in Saturday’s FT about the future of high streets, points out that the pressures from out-of-town stores and internet shopping are happening to high streets all over the world. But drawing on the experience of Marylebone High Street, right, which has been completely reinvented over the past decade, the paper says it has become “the model of an innovative, independent and successfully varied community-orientated street”, and has four art galleries alongside its restaurants, cafes and clothes shops. It concludes: “Ironically, the lack of choice facing most high street businesses could, eventually, improve choice for customers. Certainly, the high streets that do succeed will become far more interesting and community-orientated than they currently are.” More lessons for Wanstead here.
Wansteadium’s food blogger Suki Orange writes:
It’s a great time of year in the garden, especially if there is someone in your house whose duty it is to get the lawn mower going twice a week. But walking outside on a mild evening, inspecting the just-flowered sweet peas, the rich coral flowers on the runner beans and the swelling courgettes. And listening out, as all good readers of Wansteadium must, for the snuffling of hedgehogs.
If only it wasn’t for those poisonous nasty weeds which grow like they’re in timelapse. You know the ones, they’re in lots of people’s gardens in Wanstead – they’re about yay high with blue flowers and prickly stems and leaves which will leave you in an infuriating rash for days if you try to tackle them. Roots like nobody’s business – really deep. Bah. They bring out the worst in me.
Anyhow, turns out they’re the herb of the month in Waitrose. Borage. Of course, borage, just about my favourite herb of the month. I was being too hasty! Now I know all sorts of things about it, like the fact that it’s one of the few naturally blue foods. Here’s a Waitrose recipe which could have you eating half the garden. Any other tips for using borage are welcome.
• You might remember the Big Picnic on Christchurch Green a few weeks ago. I decided to take Mr Orange and the little satsumas on a trawl of the Farmers’ Market and make our picnic from that. The weather wasn’t great, to be honest, but the whole idea of combining the market with a picnic seemed to be to be rather jolly, and something which almost deserves to become a summer months’ ritual.
We couldn’t resist the waft of the bacon and sausages from the Rhyne Park Food stall. We chose some of their homemade sausages – they use rare breed pigs and produce a pure pork sausage. These were wrapped in a hearty tiger roll, topped with some sweet fried onions. They were delicious – a good balance of spices and salt and with a meaty texture.
We also chose some French bread to go with our homemade salads, and a few Stratford-made pastries from the Artisan foods stall to boost our sugar levels – all enjoyed with a paper cup of Kent apple juice. Simple pleasures, and perhaps something to repeat if the pre-Wimbledon Final weather suits this weekend.
