A shopping arcade for Wanstead High Street?

Google StreetviewPlans have been submitted to Redbridge Council for permission to build a shopping arcade on Wanstead High Street.

The four-storey building would be on the site of the Jolliffe’s builder’s office, which has a large yard behind it – the arcade front on the High Street would link to a mall on the yard. The plan is for a number of shops, offices and restaurants, with six two-bedroom apartments above them. There would also be a three-storey mews building with a basement, in which would three “live work units”, six one-bedroom flats, and three studio apartments.

As George C Parker, Wansteadium’s property blogger noted here in July, the site was briefly offered for sale in July for £1.3m, but quickly disappeared from listings. It’s thought the small office was put up after the war, filling a hole left by a bomb.

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The plan, submitted on behalf of Mammoth Texryte Limited of Ilford, says:

The resulting scheme seeks to add to the exciting village nature of Wanstead by providing letable units for local business, artists, entrepreneurs at an affordable starter rent, whilst creating a new adjunct to the street around a focused mall and courtyard hub, and new eco styled apartments within the village and related to this new hub.

The application also refers to the shortage of flats in Wanstead.

But it has not gone down well with the council’s planning officers. Principal Planner Mike Brown has recommended the application be refused, saying it was “seriously flawed”. One particular objection was that its four-storeys would contrast with three storeys to the right (Images in Frames) and two to the left (Wanstead Pharmacy).

He added this comment:
mikebrown

The council is inviting comments on the application on the Redbridge website here. (It is application number 2520/13 )
(Hat tip Rob Maitland.)
Top image Google Streetview, others from Redbridge-i.

Wanstead weekend photo, XLVII


This is only the XLVIIth edition of Wanstead Weekend Photo, but Geoff Wilkinson has reached his LIInd week, having started V weeks before we did. He hit his anniversary this week. Though his initial ambition was to run Wanstead Daily Photo for a year, he’s decided to carry on. A French photograher has been doing a similar project for eight years, Geoff says, with a slight sigh. Anyway, about this week’s photo he says: “I noticed this very stylish ‘saddlebag’ on the back of a bicycle parked outside Wanstead tube station. In stark contrast to the basket on the front, this wooden box originally contained 1980 vintage Port. What a great idea, cycle recycling!”

So how’s that ‘more trains on the Central Line’ thing working out for ya?

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Misquoting Sarah Palin, but it’s a genuine question. Noticed any improvements, o commuters of Wanstead and Snaresbrook?


https://twitter.com/MissCusack/status/388742549986611200

Wanstead weekend photo – competition special

Every week Geoff Wilkinson treats us to one of his photographs. This week there’s a bumper crop, but Geoff didn’t take any of them. They were instead taken by participants on Geoff’s Wanstead Photo Walks which he held during the Wanstead Fringe. This is nearly all the competitors. A winner is about to be announced (Wansteadium has been asked to be the judge and is having a hard think…)
Trevor(Trevor)

 

Sarie(Sarie)

 

Sam B(Sam B)

 

Jan B(Jan B)

 

Geraldine(Geraldine)

 

Bruce(Bruce)

 

Andrea(Andrea)

 

Andrea 4(Andrea)

 

Andrea 3(Andrea)

 

Andrea 2(Andrea)

 

Nice fireplace for sale

fireplaceAnd it can be yours for just – ooh, let’s say just about $3m? Actually they’re a pair – genuine article, the experts reckon. Made in the 1720s for that old Wanstead House – yeah, the one that got knocked down. Beautiful specimen they are. No, you can’t see them. They’re in New York, you see. Exported to Canada in the 1950s. Nah, they wouldn’t let things like this go overseas nowadays, that’s why they’re so valuable, see.

Details of the items are on the website of the extremely high class antiques dealer Carlton Hobbs, who wax very lyrically about the beauties of Wanstead. They say:

These magnificent chimneypieces can be confidently attributed to William Kent on the basis of sketches made by the architect William Chambers of a chimneypiece at Wanstead House, Essex (figure 1). 1 The splendour of Wanstead is difficult to overestimate. According to one contemporary observer, Mr Young, “Wanstead, upon the whole, is one of the noblest houses in England. The magnificence of having four state bed-chambers, with complete apartments to them, and the ball-room, are superior to anything of the kind in Houghton, Holkham, Blenhim and Wilton.”

Well we knew that, didn’t we? And though Carlton Hobbs estimate the price of $2.8m for the pair, Wansteadium readers may remember how the Wanstead effect came into operation earlier this year when the 1610 manuscript of a play first performed at Wanstead House in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I was sold for nearly £60,000, having been valued at just £10,000.