The Wanstead Society’s appeal for volunteers to help replant Nightingale Green seems to have been a success – more than 40 people attended on Saturday. Below is evidence of their work.
Tag: wansteadsociety
Wanstead Society to replant Nightingale Green
The Wanstead Society is inviting people to join it in replanting Nightingale Green on Saturday.
It says the green is “looking rather shabby and unloved”, so is inviting people to turn up outside the Nightingale Pub at 11am on Saturday to join in planting news plants and shrubs in the “currently rather bare” beds.
Wanstead news roundup, 5.03.10; The Larder, the bookies and more on Susan Boyle’s cat
The Larder has been ranked by the Independent as the 12th best coffee shop in the country.
A licensed café and very tempting deli, the owners of the World’s Larder work with small, artisan producers for everything from their delicious coffee to their daily bread (delivered each morning from French bakery Boulangerie Jade). Alan calls it a ‘great little star in the east and brilliant all-rounder’.
(Well spotted, I Heart Wanstead.)
Meanwhile bookies Jenningsbet, which became the High Street’s third bookmakers when it opened in the former Woolwich Building Society office, has ceased trading at Wanstead.
A sign on the shutters refers customers to its branches elsewhere. Jenningsbet was the subject of a Wanstead Society campaign when it opened with an illuminated sign; planning permission was later refused for it. One tweeter believes it’s going to become a cafe.
Much to-ing and fro-ing in Labour party circles has resulted in former MP and union official John Cryer being selected as the candidate to follow Harry Cohen as Leyton and Wanstead MP. TV historian Tristram Hunt was one of the losing hopefuls.
And Wanstead’s most notorious feline resident, Pebbles, better known as Susan Boyle’s cat, seems to be on her way west. The Sun has reported that SuBo is leaving Lothian to buy a flat in Chelsea, meaning cat and owner can be reunited.
What the Wanstead Co-op will look like
The Co-op, currently an increasingly tatty-looking Somerfield, has applied to put new signs on its shop. The question of what kinds of signs Wanstead shops have is a vexed one, especially for the Wanstead Society, which ran a competition last year to encourage a “smarter High Street”.
The Co-op’s designs are available to view on the Redbridge-i website, and though much larger and (literally) greener than the existing Somerfield signs, will not be illuminated plastic boxes – they will be lit with spotlights. This may be cheering news to those who thought the High Street was in a spiral of aesthetic decline.
The council is inviting comments on the application now.
Post-Woolies Wanstead
Nice post on the Wanstead Society blog about how our High Street shops are trying to fill the Woolies’ shaped hole.
Mas Beg and his doughty assistant Trevour [at the Pet Shop] are at this moment rejigging the shelves to accommodate more such useful items. Trevour tells us that they are open to suggestions and will always try to order whatever is requested. This is yet another example of how special it is to have our own small shops. They are Wanstead’s equivalent of the U.S. cavalry galloping to our assistance.