Cuckfield Garage – new roof a good sign

When developers were given permission to renovate the old Cuckfield Garage in Wellington Road, Wanstead, there was concern in some quarters that the building itself might not make it through the process.

After all, the thinking went, the chocolate shop is now no more, so who knows what might happen.

The building, which until last autumn was a hand carwash, used to be petrol station, and was originally built in the 1800s as stables for the customers of the Cuckfield Hotel (now the pub).

One commenter on the Wanstead Society blog said he had spoken to someone who was erected the hoardings round the Cuckfield garage, and as told the building was going to be demolished, to be replaced by flats.

So it’s something of a relief to see the quality of the new roof on the garage – it looks (to an untrained eye) to be a quality job and not the sort of thing you would want to knock down once you had put it up. The renovations of the brickwork also look attractive.