More cows

Photo: Karen Kehoe
Photo: Karen Kehoe
Photo Connie Law
Photo Connie Law

More pics, plus ur two favourite comments from the discussion about the days when cows would roam freely around Wanstead.

This from Sylvia Stanton (Priske) who says she is “now 90, so memories of a long time ago”.

Before the war I lived in Woodlands Avenue. Cows grazed Wanstead Flats and Bushwood. There was an old pound for stray cattle on the land behind Woodcote Road. In Leytonstone High Road was the Essex Farm Dairy, about the last city dairy. They used to deliver milk to my house. Their cows were driven out from behind he dairy each day and back home at night. The dairy was on the north side of the road about 100 yards along from Browning Road, as I remember. Cows grazed the land by the Green Man and down Whipps Cross. They also came across to my road but I believe they did not enter Wanstead Park. I understand there were ancient grazing rights on much of the forest land and on Wanstead Flats.

And this, a real practical use for the cows, from Karen Kehoe:

I used the cows a few times as an excuse for being late to work.

17 thoughts on “More cows”

  1. My father used to stand with me at the bus stop along the Woodford Road on foggy days when the cows were around and I was catching the bus to school. And I’ve seen a policeman stop his car in New Wanstead more recently to chase the cows out of our front garden where they were breakfasting on our rose bushes. On a training course once, the trainer was telling us this spurious story – obviously one he’d told often before – about these wandering cows – and I had to convince him that they were real and a hazard to traffic and pedestrians.

  3. Wonderful ! such fond memories … Cursed them at times …………but would love to see them back again …better than the MERC’S AND RANGE ROVERS that corrode our streets now !

    1. Farming cattle is one of the biggest issues we have in the world causing huge damage to the ozone.
      Not something we want.

      Funny how on one hand people do not want cars on out streets polluting and corroding then on the other we are campaigning to ensure parking is free to all vehicles so that we increase traffic in the area (is that the reason…).

      I feel lost, but saying ‘bring back the cows’ is silly talk.

  6. Katriye Ibrahim I believe the cows stopped coming after the BSE outbreak. But I never knew where they came from or who brought them, they would just suddenly appear and then disappear !!

  9. To Pete Daly in the Facebook comments; not unique to Wanstead at all — they were all over Epping Forest and did the same wandering of people’s streets and gardens around Chingford. The same cow stories are to be found there too. Various herds used to roam forest-wide.

  10. Sylvia (above) mentions a pound in Woodcote Road, Wanstead. Until perhaps ten years ago there was also the derelict remains of a pound next to Aldersbrook petrol station.

    I was told that it had been for ‘stray horses’ but I consider that unlikely and I would guess it was not for ‘stray’ cows (as they were all ‘stray’) but for ‘difficult’ ones, like the cow that made me late for work, a long time ago, when it was blocked a road at Whipps Cross roundabout.

  12. actually, I’ve just remembered that i managed to trip over one [it was a black cow and it was dark – honest] the night we went up to Whipps Cross to have a drink with brad before he left for university.

  14. I remember them coming in our front garden and eating what was there! Our children were very young so can’t really remember them. They used to roam into Whipps Cross Hospital despite the grid. I was with a woman in labour and one stuck it’s head through the window- frightened the living daylights out of us! Wish they were still here!

  15. When I was a Staff Nurse on Elizabeth ward, (which was on the ground floor), during the summer we’d open the fire exit to let in some fresh air. A cow walked halfway down the ward. Great entertainment for the patients & fun trying to get it out!! 😬

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