Wansteadium

In a new regular feature for Wansteadium, design writer Rohini Wahi looks at some of the people who are changing the way Wanstead looks. She starts by talking to the team behind the new greengrocers, Harvey’s.

When I moved to Wanstead nine years ago as a budding design journalist from the depths of Essex, we had two really great interiors businesses on the High Street. The first at the Snaresbrook end was Horsfall and Wright, a vintage inspired gift shop with a charcoal grey facade that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Spitalfields. The second, placed conveniently at the Wanstead end provided the aspirational offerings of The Orange Tree. Aside from the Farrow and Ball style draw of The Larder, there wasn’t much of note in terms of good design in between.

As of this month, the last of these beloved interiors shops is no more, both moving their businesses online (I am devastated about this does anyone want to start one with me?). However, elsewhere on the High Street and beyond – magazine-worthy fishmongers, bars, cafes, bistros, butchers, greengrocers, barbers, diners and pubs have fast been populating our High Street with no end of stopping in sight. Suffice to say Wanstead’s design landscape has changed significantly in the past decade.

In this column I will be taking a deeper look at the stylish interiors old and new in the town we are lucky to call home.

First stop, the newest addition to our High Street Harvey’s the greengrocers which has been adding some industrial allure to our daily shop. As soon as we got a peek of this space midst renovation, its doors open on a warm Saturday in August – all exposed bricks, smokey grey facade and a sea of industrial light-bulbs glittering from the ceiling – we knew we were onto a winner.

A family-run business, I spoke to the owner Sinan and his wife Ania about interiors and just some extra stuff out of nosiness.

What is the name of your store?
“Harvey’s. We had thought about calling it Wanstead Fruit and Veg but after 47 years as Harvey’s – we decided to keep the name with the previous owners’ permission.”

What do you sell?
“Fruit and veg, organic grocery herbs, olive oils, cans of food, dried fruit and nuts.”

Who are the faces we will see most days and what are your backgrounds?
“I, Sinan, am the owner and used to work as a taxi driver and whilst I enjoyed driving, the traffic proved too stressful. I was inspired to start the business by my brother-in-law Selcuk who has always worked on fruit and vegetable wholesale, he is our product and delivery expert –  he really knows his stuff. Salman, my brother who can be seen working quietly in the background and keeping a very low profile, is a very skilled mechanic. We will also often be accepting a helping hand from young Boran – Salman’s son. Ozgur looks after the presentation of the shop.”

What are your opening hours?
8am – 7pm Mon-Sat
10am – 5pm on Sundays

What was the inspiration behind the interiors? Who designed the space?
“I designed the space myself and built everything including the till area with the help of friends. I was inspired by minimal and natural interiors I have seen around London.

“We extended the space back into the former storage room and stripped all of the walls, laid a wooden floor with wide planks, built wooden shelves all across the back wall and pallets using pale wood for produce and painted the front dark grey which matched the original striped awning.

“The industrial light-bulbs that hang from the ceiling are similar to the functional lighting found in night produce markets. We wanted to preserve a sense of history from the previous grocers and the original shutters operate now as a backdrop to the till, the original awning as mentioned compliments our shopfront and the familiar green shopping baskets are still with us. We use crates, baskets, pallets and anything wooden and natural to display and store our goods.”

• Rohini Wahi’s clients include Elle Decoration, Living Etc, Houzz and Design Sponge. She is currently working on residential and commercial interiors in and around the area, and she runs design blog The Beat That My Heart Skipped. She can be contact by email or Facebook.

The increasingly anachronistic but charming Wansteadium tradition of charting the first frost of the season – as measured by car roofs at 7am – continues.

2015 – 23 November
2014 – 6 November
2013 – 13 November
2012 – 6 November
2011 – 25 November
2010 – 21 October

Dozens of police, many armed with machine guns, hunted three men in Wanstead on Tuesday night following a chase in which they crashed a car into a garden wall.

Witnesses said the men ran out of the car, in which there was a gun. One of the men escaped into a house on Elmcroft Avenue. Armed officers and dogs searched gardens and surrounding streets while a police helicopter circled above. Unconfirmed reports said a shot had been fired.

One eye-witness told Wansteadium: “Armed police with machine guns currently all over Elmcroft Avenue with Limes Avenue. Their car had smashed into a garden wall during a chase. At least 15 police cars here. Two young men arrested and searching for a third. It is chaos.”

The witness added that though he had not heard the shot himself, he said someone living near the crash had told him she had heard it.

One report speculated on a link between the chase and an incident at the Our Lady of Lourdes primary school playground this afternoon in which police chased two men, but this is unconfirmed. The children apparently had to be kept in one of the school buildings until the chase was over. [Update Weds: This incident is now thought to be unrelated to the Elmcroft Avenue one.]

• Got more information or pictures? Send them to info@wansteadium.com

Two reports in local media make worrying reading.

The Wanstead Guardian here has news of an arrest of man on Cambridge Park on Monday for carrying a knife.

It follows news of a separate incident on 22 October when a man was stabbed at Snaresbrook station as he got off the train following an argument with a group of boys in their mid-to-late teens.

There have also been as yet unconfirmed reports on social media about a knife attack on a man who is a familiar sight on Wanstead High Street.

• Anyone with information can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, or text 61016.

Online supermarket Ocado, whose vans are a familiar sight around Wanstead, has told one Wansteadium reader that it is not registering new customers in the area because of levels of fraud.

The reader, who asked not to be named but lives in central Wanstead, placed an order as a new customer but was then informed the delivery had been cancelled by Ocado because they had been ‘unable to verify the payment details’. She rang the supermarket to complain, and was told that the given explanation had been incorrect.

She says: “[The Ocado customer services person] then advised me that the actual reason is that Ocado have chosen to stop serving my area completely due to the prevalence of fraud, which seems rather implausible to me as Wanstead is packed with Ocado vans – I saw two today.”

On writing to the supermarket to enquire further, she then received a fuller reply which said it was just new customers which were not being accepted. She was told:

Unfortunately we are not accepting any new registrations to your area as there has been ongoing problems within the area which has resulted in us making a business decision not to deliver as the risk of further problems is too high.

This is intriguing: are high levels of fraud in Wanstead really putting it out of step with other areas? Have any other readers had problems registering with Ocado recently?

Wansteadium has asked Ocado for further details and comment.