In spite of hard times for many traders, there is a plan for a cheese, charcuterie and wine bar in the former Martin & Co offices at the Snaresbrook end of the High Street. Reports are that the bar could open as soon as September.
Ted Kessler, the celebrated Wanstead journalist who until this week edited Q Magazine, has been showered with internet praise after announcing that that the publication was to close.
He tweeted that coronavirus had forced the closure, though it’s hardly a secret that times have been hard for all sorts of print publications in recent months and years.
Ted tweeted:
I have some bad news about @QMagazine. The issue that comes out on July 28 will be our last. The pandemic did for us and there was nothing more to it than that. I have attached our final cover and my editor’s letter for context.
— Ted Kessler (@TedKessler1) July 20, 2020
On the plus side, we’re all available for work. pic.twitter.com/rm8qOcUBtB
Messages of support came from the great and good – film critic Mark Kermode, author Stuart Maconie, comedian Al Murray and many others – which you can read in full here.
In 2015 Ted interviewed John Cryer as part of the Wanstead Fringe.
We wish him and his former colleagues all the best in their next moves.
We asked earlier this week if anyone was missing a smart-looking bike which had been recovered from a would-be thief. It turns out lots of people are missing their bikes – though none of them yet are missing the bike in question which is still unclaimed.
It does make Wansteadium think… if there’s a crime wave for bikes, perhaps a page where people can post details of their stolen bikes, perhaps even including photographs, might be a useful resource. Any views, cyclists of Wanstead?
A bike thief who was chased by a member of the public ditched his ill-gotten gains by the side of Elmcroft Avenue.
We wrote on Sunday that we didn’t know what had happened to make the Manor House return as The Bull – well here are some answers.
The first thing to note is that the new name is a reference to the infamous roaming cattle of Wanstead (see here if you don’t know what that means).
Mark Foster, the man who converted the empty Allied Irish Bank into the Manor House, has explained what led to the rebranding and the eventual reopening of the pub which took place over the weekend. He writes:
There has been plenty of questions and speculation on what’s been happening with The Manor House so it’s time to clarify.
It’s been a challenging few months for many industries. Hospitality is one that was hit particularly hard. With forced closure and no funding available, the business running the pub failed to survive and the staff, who were all furloughed, were made redundant.
There was a possibility of the doors being closed permanently. Thankfully that isn’t the case.
The name change didn’t need to happen but it’s the right time to reset. The venue has been a pub since it opened in 2014 but its name has often meant people expected something else or thought it had a lofty opinion of itself. It’s a pub. It has been from the start and The Bull firmly underlines that, with a little nod to the roaming cattle from Wanstead’s past.
As for the team that work there, the business is smaller due to where we are in the covid-19 situation and therefore the staff numbers are too. The offering is a little different from before. The menu will be changing to what’s been in place previously and now there is more focus on table service due to the virus risk mitigation processes that we’ve put be in place so the skills required change too.
Absolutely, there will be some familiar faces from the old pub that have helped it deliver previously and we look forward to seeing you soon. This has been incredibly tough for all pubs and the High Street as a whole. Hopefully we’re getting to the other side of it, good luck to all.
We don’t know the story of how this happened, but the pub formerly known as the Manor House has, thankfully, reopened after its Covid shutdown, but in a new guise.
The Bull is now open, with some familiar faces.
It will come as a relief to many, after rumours circulated widely that the pub would not be reopening at all.
So welcome back and good luck to all there.
