Wansteadium

An area can’t have too many farmers’ markets, and the good news is that the one in Aldersbrook which was tried out before Christmas is returning on Saturday.

The Aldersbrook Farmers’ Market  will be indoors at Aldersbrook Bowling Club – so a bit more boutique than the monthly market on Wanstead High Street – but it sounds great nevertheless. It will take place from 10am until 2pm.

On offer will be locally produced Larkswood Honey, Giggly Pig sausages, gourmet salads, artisan bread, Tiffin food, and charcuterie, sausage rolls, scotch eggs & other delights from local chef Duncan Cruickshanks.

Founder Mark McKee said: “We’re still trialling it out, so it remains to be seen if we do this quarterly or monthly, so the more stalls we have, along with the continued support of our community, the better. Who wants to traipse to a dreary supermarket on a Saturday morning when you can come to Aldersbrook Farmers’ market, get a really good coffee, purchase some high quality food and hang out with your fellow Aldersbrookers and Wansteadians?”

The Tom Hardy BBC series Taboo, briefly Wanstead’s favourite TV programme on account of its opening scenes being filmed in St Mary’s church on Overton Drive, is to return for a second series.

But any hopes for more filming in Wanstead are surely in vain – bearing in mind how the first series ended (Spoiler alert: Delaney fleeing England for the Azores and his sister dead).

The sight, earlier this year, of the Mysterons on Wanstead pavements – white rings painted all over the place – turned out to be a false alarm. They were just the places where signs for the proposed-but-ditched-but-could-return parking regulations were to be sited.

But a new crop of white marks has taken their place. Any clues, anyone??

Wanstead’s guerrilla gardener Marian Temple writes:

“Over sixty years ago, my mother planted the first few corms of crocus thomassianus in the garden of the house at the bottom of Grove Park. Our family had just moved there. I don’t know how she found out about them or where she got them from, but these little crocuses are a species that is wild, probably originating in Turkey. They haven’t been hybridised for a different colour or a larger flower, and since they are the real thing, the seeds will germinate and left to their own devices they will form a carpet flowering from mid January until the end of February, the very first of the spring flowers. It doesn’t take 60 years to get this carpet. It happens after just a few.

Every year this magic carpet amazes me. They are in the grass, the flower beds and creeping up in cracks in the paving. On a day of spring sunshine they are fully open revealing their orange interiors, and the carpet is alive with bees. The sight of them is food for the soul.

Just like the winter irises, these are making their way around Wanstead with a bit of help from the Wanstead Community Gardeners. They should be premiering in the Church Garden, popping up in the station beds, appearing on the Island and the Cherry Pie Beds (traffic roundabout and accompanying bed between the George and Wanstead Station) and of course, they are in the Corner House Garden sprinkled around with a particularly happy clump coming up in the hollow tree stump near the tree.

We will of course be spreading them around more. The narcissi and primroses in Wanstead Place along the fence of the wide grass verge could probably do with some thomassianas. In fact any patch that gets spring sunshine in Jan and Feb would be a good host for them.

Like most of the stuff we plant, they are totally undemanding if put in the right place and will come up every year. How delighted would Hilda Temple have been to know that her modest thomassianas were giving so much delight to so many people.

Oh, by the way, do take a trundle in Wanstead Place along the concrete palisade fence (councilspeak for that sort of concrete picket fence around Christ Church Green). Where the wide grass verge is, tucked beside the fence the little narcissi given us by Maz and Trevor of Heads and Tails and planted by the Wanstead Society some years ago are blooming their trumpets off.

You can find out more about the work of the Wanstead Community Gardeners on their web pages here.

Wansteadium reader Ron Jeffries comments:

Hi Wanstead Community Gardeners

When I travel from my home to go into London, I use the 66 bus to Wansted Station – there are escalators there which save a long walk at Newbury Park! I always look at the garden you have created there – and this week it is in full bloom as you will see here. Well done for making a dull corner bright with spring! Thanks for all your hard work. 

 

Regards

Ron

 

Wanstead pavements being used as unofficial billboards? All in a good cause, Wansteadium supposes. And on that theme, good luck to those who are gathering at 9.30 on Saturday morning to take part in the Great Wanstead Clean-Up. More information below – fight the good fight, people.

Redbridge Council has announced that the consultation on changes to parking – which was won by residents after a passionate campaign in January – is to take place next month.

Letters will be sent to “every resident, business, school and nursery in the affected area” says the council, and there will also be an online consultation and face-to-face interviews on the street.

The leader of the council, Councillor Jas Athwal, said: “Parking in Wanstead is a real problem, and we want to find a solution that is right for the area, that deals with the present and future pressures on parking spaces but also takes into account the needs of businesses, residents and shoppers.

“It is a very difficult balancing act, we have to take into account many factors and try and find the best way forward. We know that means we can’t please everybody but we have to do what we think is best for the whole area. We’re looking forward to sharing the consultation with everyone when it is ready.”

He said the consultation would be “full and thorough” and the results would be published online when the data has been collected. He said the results would be fed into a final report before a final decision was made.