Wansteadium

  It’s nearly Twelfth Night, almost time those old Christmas trees down. And while you’re doing so, check to see if our resident tree expert Scott Whitehead’s November prediction that the pine needles will fall more than normal because of the warm weather has come true.

Scott made the prediction here.

Seems to be much brown on #Christmas tree already. With this warm weather I think many trees will be bald by 25th pic.twitter.com/cXloNhUzIt

— Wanstead weather (@wanstead_meteo) November 11, 2015

And it seems to have come true for at least one household on Nightingale Lane (pictured above) which shoved their tree stick thing on to the pavement a week ago.

• Here’s our traditional reminder that you can dispose of your Christmas tree by leaving it out for the green recycling collection. And if you’ve forgotten when yours is taking place, we’ve even thought of that.
  

 
This week several Tube stations have been rezoned, notable Stratford which moved from zone 3 into a joint 2/3 zone, meaning considerable savings for many customers. Other stations changing are Stratford High Street, Stratford International DLR station, West Ham, Canning Town, Star Lane and Abbey Road.

But Wanstead and Snaresbrook were not on the list, despite an enterprising campaign run last year by Ricky Varaden and Diana Silva. The campaigners called for both stations to be rezoned into zone 3 instead of their current zone 4. They said that stations on other lines ARE included in zone 3 but are actually further away from TFL’s central reference point, Charing Cross than either Wanstead or Snaresbrook is.

They also claimed that the growth in east London’s population since the Olympics means that the balance of the city was shifting and this should be reflected in the zones. Their campaign was, however, unsuccessful and TFL has no plans to look at the issue again.

Thanks to everyone who has helped make Wansteadium Wanstead’s favourite website once again in 2015.*

As you can see from the figures below, it’s been another remarkable year for us, and it couldn’t have been achieved without everyone who has been in touch with bits of information, tip-offs, items of news and photographs (including Colin, the sender of this too cute New Year’s Day squirrel). And, of course, it wouldn’t have happened without our regular readers and 1,250 e-mail newsletter subscribers (sign up here if you haven’t already).

So here goes…

In 2015, Wansteadium published 249 blog posts.

It had 190,500 visits from (a frankly unbelievable) 63,413 individual readers.

They read 588,000 individual pages.

And here are the most popular 15 stories from the year…

1. Review of Luppolo, the new pizza bar… (January)
2. Shooting in Wanstead High Street (March)
3. Wanstead’s first £2.5m house? – breathtaking was the word – sharp intakes of breath all round as a house on Wanstead Place went up with price tag of £2.65m. Rightmove says it was later removed from the market. (April)
4. Wanstead hunt goes global – a CCTV photo of a woman apparently assaulting a woman at Wanstead Tube was printed in papers around the world (March)
5. ‘Brave new world’ mall plan for Wanstead High Street (June)
6. Go Wanstead village! – the Times lists Wanstead as one of the most up-and-coming villagey places in London (December)
7. Wanstead laundrette fire, pictures (January)
8. Wanstead in ‘top 5 High Streets in London’ – roll over Marylebone/Stokey/Shoreditch (October)
9. Shocking scenes. Shocking – unmentionable behaviour in broad daylight on George Green. (May)
10. Wanstead Fringe 2015: The line-up revealed (August)
11. Waitrose rumours – now scotched (January)
    12. Just about the cutest thing in Wanstead ever – now scotched (December)
12. Hands up… who saw this coming? Shock as beauty parlour opens in Wanstead (July)
13. Wanstead in gentrification shock – Amazement as cafe gets smart refit (May)
14. No ‘Cube’ for Wanstead – brave no world (September)

Happy 2016 to everyone, and thanks again.

*Ok the “favourite” thing isn’t strictly provable. But it worked out fine for British Airways.

 

…is that there are no lights on the back of the Wanstead Christmas tree. 

 

In case you missed it – which you might well have done, given that a press release went out on Christmas Eve – Redbridge Council has agreed to give £20,000 to the fundraising for the playground on Christchurch green. There are more details here but it’s looking very much like the fundraising will meet its target which will be cause for some celebration and civic pride. Swings and roundabouts.

UPDATE: Wanstead Playground Association’s Nicola Jarratt writes: “The council’s commitment to bring our total raised to £80,000 (which currently equates to a 17.5k donation) is much appreciated. It unlocks an further £10,000 grant from the Hedley Foundation which was contingent on us raising £80,000. We are therefore guaranteed to reach the amazing figure of £90,000. We’re still working hard to raise the additional 18k to reach our final target, but Wanstead is guaranteed a fantastic new playground next year which is wonderful news.”

 

 

 

For anyone who couldn’t get tickets to see Michael Rosen doing an evening of poetry at the Wanstead Tap last month, you can now see choice bits of video, including this poem about a cucumber.

There are more at Rosen’s site. And for any of a pedantic frame of mind, yes, though the Wanstead Tap culturally identifies with Forest Gate, it is in fact within the historic parish boundaries of Wanstead.