Congratulations to the team at Wanstead-based publishing company Assemble Media Group which has been named the UK’s Digital Publisher of the Year. The company has its offices on the High Street, from where publishes building and architecture magazines and runs events, including a partnership with Haven House. Bravo to them.
(Pic: Google Streetview)
Transport for London is proposing an overhaul of the buses in this part of the world, the details of which are fiendishly complicated, but as we understand them this is the upshot:
GOOD NEWS – the W12 bus will run every 15 minutes instead of every 20 minutes
BAD NEWS – it will no longer serve the Nightingale Estate (Elmcroft/Colvin/Charnwood).
GOOD NEWS – Nightingale Lane will be served by a re-routed W14
BAD NEWS – that will only run once an hour.
There is a consultation process which has been launched – it’s available here along with full details of the changes, if you can get your head round them. (If we’ve misunderstood the plans, please let us know in the comments.)
Delightful to see John Rogers, star of the Wanstead Fringe and many YouTube walking videos, getting the credit he is due in the Radio Times.
Wanstead’s celebrated opera singer Lucy Crowe has been given an OBE in the King’s birthday honours, it’s been announced. The award is for her services to music.
Lucy was the star of a memorable Wanstead Fringe event last year in the grounds of St Mary’s church where she and husband Joe Walters performed a wide range of music. During lockdown they became locally famous for performing in their front garden for their neighbours. She is better known outside Wanstead as an international opera and concert soprano, singing all around the world. She will be singing twice at this year’s BBC Proms.
Also to mark the King’s birthday today will see Trooping the Colour with the traditional flypast – and as we know Wanstead is one of the best places to see this from as the planes come into view to go over Central London.
This year a special flypast viewing event is being held – again in the churchyard at St Mary’s. Details here:
Flypast photos are welcome as always to info@wansteadium.com
The closure of Wanstead’s admired French restaurant Le Marmiton last week has been followed in swift order by the site’s conversion into a new Italian restaurant to be called Alba Trattoria.
The new restaurant, to be opened by South Woodford local Peter Hughes and his brothers Richard and Chris and their friend Andrea, will be the latest venue opened by the team who also have restaurants in Soho, Hackney and Hove.
Peter said: “At Alba we’ll make all our pasta in house every day, our pizza will be proved for over 48 hours and we’ll celebrate the best of traditional Italian cooking, alongside spritzes, negronis and small-batch regional Italian wines.
“We live locally and we are so excited to be opening our own place in the heart of Wanstead. We first opened our doors on Brewer Street in 2012. The culmination of a dream and the start of a journey.
“We are three brothers and a friend on a journey to create fantastic neighbourhood venues reminiscent of the fabulous family-run places of northern Italy, where we all grew up – magical Sunday night trips with our oldest brother Patrick and our mum and dad, to our local Trattoria just outside Milan, where we were born.
“The smoke from the wood-fired pizza oven as you walked through the front door of The Maneggio. The warmth of the greeting from the staff and the usual patter about the latest footballing scandal from the Tuscan owners as they seamlessly announced the day’s specials. Our family, all around the table tucking into amazing homemade pasta. These really are priceless memories for us.”
Peter met Andrea, the fourth member of the team, while working as chefs in the Mayfair restaurant Wild Honey. They opened Mele e Pere in Brewer St in 2012.
“Having cut our teeth in one of the most competitive restaurant markets in the world we decided it was time to grow. Gotto Trattoria on Canalside Hackney Wick came along in 2016. The Lock Inn, a Canalside Pub in Hackney Wick in 2020. Pesca Trattoria, which is a collaboration with our former Mele e Pere General Manager – Ed and his partner Steph, in Hove in 2021. And our latest, Alba Trattoria in Wanstead coming in 2023.”
The restaurant is expected to open later this month.
As is our tradition in these parts, thank you to the staff of Le Marmiton for your service, and best of luck to the Alba team for your new venture.
Redbridge leader Councillor Jas Athwal has signalled that there will be no reprieve for the Wanstead Youth Centre when a decision on its future is taken by the council in September.
Writing in the Wanstead Village Directory, Councillor Athwal said: “Wanstead is a wonderful place to live, work and visit. As a council we are committed to investing in services that matter most to the people who live across our borough, but we do need to spend our limited funding wisely.”
He said that the council “had invested significantly in Wanstead”, adding: “We are building an improved leisure centre, which will house a brand-new 25m swimming pool and dance facility.”
However that will not satisfy the campaigners hoping to save Wanstead Youth Centre on Elmcroft Avenue, since the many groups which use it every week have no similar or suitable venues in which they can hold their events. Campaigners say 1,500 people a week use the centre for a wide variety of activities, using the centre’s sports halls, theatre, kitchens and other facilities. It seems inevitable that many of those activities will now cease.
In the article Councillor Athwal said a new lido which is being built in Valentine’s Park would be built sustainably and cover its own costs.
He also said the centre was “unfortunately, in its current condition… no longer suitable for long-term use due to the extensive repairs needed to make it fit for purpose”. However at the public meeting held at the centre in March, Mark Baigent, Redbridge’s corporate director of regeneration and culture, did confirm that the building was currently safe.
