Tag: wansteadhighstreet

Wanstead news roundup: A minor parking breakthrough, and other news

photo• Police are investigating how a 44-year-old man was stabbed on Wanstead High St at 5am on Tuesday. The area was taped off for much of the day. More details at the Wanstead Guardian, which says police believe it was a domestic incident

• A For Sale sign now adorns the premises previously occupied by Santa Fe. And Cambridge Park accountants Tish, Press and Co say they are leaving Wanstead simply because of the difficulty of parking.

• BUT here’s a bit of good news for embattled Wanstead shopkeepers: Westfield NOW NO LONGER OFFERS FREE PARKING (see pic). Up to two hours will now set you back £2.50.

• Nudists took over Wanstead’s cricket ground last weekend for (authorised) naturist camping, in spite of the chilly conditions. Meanwhile the club is gearing up for the start of a new season, with the first games next weekend. Last year, you may remember, Wanstead and Snaresbrook were national club finalists, and they will be hoping to repeat their successes. From next week, Wansteadium will be bringing you regular reports of what’s going on, hopefully at all levels of the club.

• No news yet on whether Costa will, as rumoured, open in the former Enigma premises, though it appears George Lane is to get one.

photo (1)• Is it Wansteadium’s imagination, or are the ‘conservation’ zone signs at the Snaresbrook end of the High Street new?

• Reviews are welcome for the newest (and some would say bravest) culinary venture: a seafood stall next door to Queen’s British Steak House and Grill, called Wanstead Shell Shack. The best of luck to them (though is a PTSD-based pun really good taste?)

• For the avoidance of confusion, and partly because we’ve never thought to say this before, but Wansteadium has no link whatever with the Wanstead Village Directory. That is all.

Hallelujah: At last a new useful shop for Wanstead

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It’s been a long time coming, but Wanstead’s ‘new’ pet shop is now open for business, as the shelves are gradually filled and stock is moved from its decrepit former premises next door. The new shop is modern, clean and massive by comparison, with plenty of room for animals (in an air conditioned section at the rear of the shop) and for general household goods too.

Owner Mas Beg, who was named shopkeeper of the year by the Wanstead Society in 2010, and his fellow gerbilmeister Trevor Spicer are busily getting the shop ready. New attractions include items long missing from Wanstead High Street, including boxes of nails and screws and small electrical bits. And they are open to suggestions for items that people would like to be stocked.

When Wansteadium asked this question first in May 2011, nominated items were Polyfilla, Evo-Stick, string, sink plungers, dustpans, mothballs, lightbulbs and clothes pegs. You’re welcome to add anything, using the form below. Mas says he’s watching…

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The former shop, now ripe for redevelopment.20121230-004806.jpg

The view from the rear – the new brick building is the complete development, meaning what the new shop gains in floor space it loses in outdoors room at the back. Mas says he will continue to stock plants at the front.

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Presents to buy in Wanstead. Yes, in Wanstead

giftlist2012Here is this year’s final Wanstead Gift List – our list of good presents which can be bought from Wanstead shops.
It’s been collated by Wansteadium and readers, and is our annual contribution to avoiding a Mayan apocalypse coming to our beloved Wanstead High Street. So all readers are encouraged to do their duty.

★ Amber drop earings for approx £35 from Keatings
★ A place on sewing course from Stitch
★ Family photo taken in one of Wanstead’s parks nicely presented in a silver photo frame (£10) from The Art Shop
★ Silver open heart necklace from The Orange Tree (£12) [Reader writes: “It was present to myself and I’ve had loads of compliments since buying it last week.”]
★ Wooden toys for toddlers, from the Pet Shop (Heads and Tails)20121216-215253.jpg
★ Cool iPhone-style cufflinks, Nicole’s
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★ Hipflasks, the Art Shop

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★ Diaries from Bennett’s newsagents

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★ And our top selection: In a week that the Cabinet decided placemats were an appropriate present for the Queen, there can be no better present than Wanstead-themed coasters. From the Art Shop.

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Announcing the Wanstead Gift List 2012

It’s time again for the increasingly annual tradition of the Wanstead Gift List. The rules are the same as last year:

• Wansteadium readers are invited to nominate anything suitable for a Christmas gift which can be bought in Wanstead
• The best and most original gifts will make up a top 10 which we will publish here
• The reward for nominators will be a warm glow of community spirit and, one might hope, a thriving High Street.

Please send nominations as soon as possible, and by close of play on Monday 10 December, using the form below or by e-mail to wansteadium@gmail.com. Include whatever details of the item you can.
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Wanstead Magazine Club’s new frontier

The Wanstead Magazine Club – which recycles interesting magazines in public places in Wanstead for the benefit of anyone who’s interested – is from today available in a third venue, Provender.

The club has also been offering a wider range of magazines, including the clearly highbrow (Prospect, New Yorker and London Review of Books), and more populist (Vanity Fair and Wired). Anyone with copies of Elle Decoration, GQ, National Geographic, Good Food, Which or the Beano out there? We think you might, if you examine your conscience, find a small voice telling you that you really ought to share your riches with your Wanstead fellows. Find out more at the Wanstead Magazine Club.

And in the meantime, what better way to make the most of the Farmers’ Market than enjoying a latte and pain aux raisins at the Larder or a spot of petit dejeuner at Provender in the company of some fine reading material.

Wanstead news roundup, 24.11.12; Wanstead’s grip on power, and the future of ironing

• Wanstead’s role in the running of Redbridge Council has increased with the appointment of Wanstead Conservative Councillor Alex Wilson to the Redbridge ‘cabinet’ – the executive part of the council. Now three of the nine councillors on the cabinet are Wanstead Conservatives (Alex Wilson, Thomas Chan and Michelle Dunn) following the resignation of Cllr Sue Nolan, who is admittedly a Snaresbrook councillor. (If you’re expecting Wansteadium to assess whether this shift in the balance of power is going to have big effect on the governance of Redbridge, you must be new here.)

• So it may or may not be good news for residents of Wellington Road who are planning to be out in force at the Area One committee on Monday evening – after they got word that their campaign to stop or slow through-traffic had not succeeded. Motorists coming down Hermon Hill cut down Nelson Road and go on to Wellington Road to avoid the traffic lights at the junction with the High Street. Except on Mondays when the bin lorry completely blocks the road, and said motorists curse, slam into reverse and retrace their tracks. Residents say 60 cars a day speed down the road at up to 70mph.

• Congratulations to Keatings Jewellers on Wanstead High Street which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And congratulations also to nearby Santa Fe which has marked its 20th anniversary.

• And at the other end of the High Street, it’s reported in the Wanstead Guardian that the owner of the buildings which house Snaresbrook Cars and the much loved Ironing Board outside Snaresbrook Station has applied for permission to demolish the buildings and put the business into temporary cabins. More here.

• Meanwhile reviews of the delicacies on offer at BBQ Express, Wanstead’s favourite talking point, after it apparently opened. The tweet and photograph below were posted on Friday night by Uzii Shaban who uses the hashtag #boss. But Uzii seems inadvertently to have posted a picture of a different branch of BBQ Express since as we all know, Wanstead’s sign now has no flames and is not illuminated as in the picture. Maybe the photo of the real thing just didn’t do it justice.


• And finally, the new subscribers keep on coming. At the time of writing there were 352 people who had signed up to receive Wansteadium by e-mail. Each morning, on those days when we have published a new entry, they get a beautiful and fascinating e-mail with which to wow their friends and colleagues. You can join them by signing up here.