Walthamstow
Walthamstow is a town within the London Borough of Waltham Forest in east London. The town borders Chingford to the north, Snaresbrook and South Woodford to the east, Leyton and Leytonstone to the south, and Tottenham to the west. At the 2011 census, Walthamstow had a population of approximately 109,424 and is around
north-east of Central London.
Occupying most of the town's east-to-west High Street, Walthamstow Market is the longest outdoor market in Europe. East of the town centre is Walthamstow Village, the oldest part of Walthamstow, and the location of St Mary's Church, the town's parish church. To the north of the town is the former Walthamstow Stadium, which was considered an East End landmark. The William Morris Gallery in Forest Road, a museum that was once the family home of William Morris, is a Grade II* listed building. The town is served by five railway stations, including Walthamstow Central and Blackhorse Road—interchange stations on the Victoria line of the London Underground.
Walthamstow was a civil parish, originally part of the Becontree Hundred of Essex. As part of the suburban growth of London, the town expanded rapidly in the 19th century, becoming part of the urban area of the city. It has formed part of the Metropolitan Police District since 1840, and the London postal district since its inception in 1856. The parish became a local board district in 1873, an urban district in 1894 and a municipal borough in 1929. Following reform of local government in London in 1965, it merged with the municipal boroughs of Chingford and Leyton to form the new Waltham Forest local authority district, becoming part of Greater London. The borough council is based at Waltham Forest Town Hall on Forest Road.
History
Toponymy
Walthamstow is recorded as Wilcumestowe and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wilcumestou.Early history
The Domesday Book describes Wilcumestou as a manor owned by the Anglo-Saxon nobleman Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon and Northumbria before the Norman conquest of 1066. After the execution of Earl Waltheof, the property of the land passed to his wife, Countess Judith, also known as Judith of Lens, a niece of William the Conqueror. The Domesday Book records 36 villeins, 25 bordars and 4 slaves living in the manor in 1086. Alice, daughter of Earl Waltheof and Countess Judith, inherited Walthamstow. She married the Norman nobleman Ralph de Tosny or Toeni in 1103. When her husband died,, Alice gave the church of Walthamstow to the Priors of the Holy Trinity based in Aldgate, London.King John stayed in Walthamstow for two nights in February 1208.
In the 1660s Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the Navy, and his wife Elizabeth Woodcocke had a house in Wood Street where, according to Samuel Pepys, Batten lived "like a prince" and cultivated a vineyard. The Vestry House, now the Vestry House Museum, was used as the first town hall.
The influential textile designer and craftsman William Morris was born in Walthamstow in 1834. The Georgian mansion where he lived as a teenager houses the William Morris Gallery. By 1870 Walthamstow had grown to the size of a small suburb and a new town hall was built in Orford Road from which affairs of the village were run. A new town hall designed by architect Philip Dalton Hepworth in the Nordic Classical style was built between 1938 and 1942.
Urban development
Until the late 19th century Walthamstow was largely rural, with a small village centre and a number of large estates. The main route through the district was Hoe Street. There were various smaller lanes crossing the town. The road now known as Forest Road was originally called Clay Street. Further south, the High Street was named Marsh Street, and led from the original settlement out to the marshes. Shernhall Street is an ancient route, as is Wood Street, to the east.With the advent of the railways and the ensuing suburbanisation in the late 19th century, Walthamstow experienced a large growth in population and speculative building.
The Lighthouse Methodist Church which dates from 1893 is situated on Markhouse Road, on the corner of Downsfield Road. There is a lantern at the top of the tower, which also contains a spiral staircase. The church was erected because of the generosity of Captain David King of the shipbuilding firm of Bullard King & Co which also ran the Natal Direct Shipping Line, which ran ships direct from London to Durban without stopping at the Cape.
Transport breakthroughs
In 1885, John Kemp Starley, originally from Church Hill in Walthamstow, designed the first modern bicycle, and in 1892, Frederick Bremer built the first British motorcar in a workshop in his garden, at Connaught Road. The vehicle is on display at the Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow.The LGOC X-type and B-type buses were built at Blackhorse Lane from October 1908 onwards. The B-type is considered one of the first mass-production buses. The manufacturing operation later became AEC, famous as the manufacturer of many of London's buses. On 13 June 1909, A. V. Roe's aircraft took to the air from Walthamstow Marshes. It was the first all-British aircraft and was given the ominous nickname of the "Yellow Terror" but officially carried the name Avro1. Roe later founded the Avro aircraft company, which later built the acclaimed Avro Lancaster.
Walthamstow Power Station
Walthamstow Borough Corporation had been authorised in 1904 to supply electricity to the Borough. The power station in Exeter Street had three brick chimneys and an array of wooden cooling towers. In 1923 the revenue to the Borough from sales of electricity was £109,909. Upon nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948 ownership of the station passed to the British Electricity Authority and later to the Central Electricity Generating Board. The CEGB closed the station in 1967 when the thermal efficiency was 9.30 per cent. It was subsequently demolished.Local government
Walthamstow was an ancient parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex. In 1873 most of the parish was made a local government district, administered by an elected local board. An exclave of the parish known as the "Walthamstow Slip" was included instead in the Leyton district; that exclave was transferred to Leyton parish in 1878.Such local government districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. The Walthamstow Urban District was converted into a municipal borough in 1929, becoming the Municipal Borough of Walthamstow. In 1931 the population of the borough, covering an area of, peaked at 132,972. In 1965 the borough was abolished and its former area merged with that of the Municipal Borough of Chingford and the Municipal Borough of Leyton to form the London Borough of Waltham Forest in Greater London. Other places in east London formerly of the county of Essex, such as Ilford and Romford were placed into London Boroughs along with Walthamstow. None of the postal district names or codes was changed at this time (e.g. Ilford remained Ilford, Essex IG1-IG6 and Walthamstow remained
Post-war history
Since the 2012 Summer Olympics, the town has become increasingly popular mostly as a result of gentrification. Local property prices increased at a high rate of 22.3% from 2013 to 2014, compared to London's average of 17.8%. It has turned Walthamstow into a 'trendy' town similar to Shoreditch. The leafy Walthamstow Village in particular has become sought after by buyers.On 29 May 2015, a regular local unicyclist was hit and dragged under by a double decker route 212 bus in Hoe Street. Locals numbering up to 100 people helped to pull the bus off the unicyclist. The MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, later said she was "proud" of the community for saving the unicyclist's life.
Governance
Walthamstow elects councillors to Waltham Forest London Borough Council. It is within the Walthamstow parliamentary constituency.Geography and locale
Walthamstow is bordered to the north by Chingford and to the south by Leyton and Leytonstone. Woodford lies to the east with a boundary running through Epping Forest, Hackney lies to the south-west beyond the Walthamstow Marshes and the Lea, while Tottenham is situated westward on the far side of the River Lea and the Lee Valley Reservoir Chain. The A112 passes south–north through Walthamstow and its neighbouring towns forming part of an ancient route from London to Waltham Abbey. Walthamstow is situated south of the North Circular Road.Walthamstow Central is the main transport hub.
Walthamstow Village conservation area is a district to the east of what has become the commercial centre of Walthamstow. The area is roughly defined as being south of Church Hill, west of Shernhall Street, north of Grove Road, and east of Hoe Street. Orford Road is the main route through the district, though even this is a quiet thoroughfare by the standards of London. The village has a small selection of specialist shops, pubs and restaurants, and house prices tend to be higher in the streets of this neighbourhood. It was voted best urban village in London by Time Out magazine in 2004.
Upper Walthamstow is to the east of Walthamstow Village. The area's main thoroughfare is Wood Street, which has several shops and local businesses, and is served by the London Overground at Wood Street station on the Liverpool Street to Chingford line.
One of the Great Trees of London, the Wood Street Horse Chestnut, is located next to the former Jones's Butchers Shop, a grade II listed, late 18th century weatherboarded building. The tree is thought to be upwards of 175 years old.
Wood Street is home to Wood Street Indoor Market. The market was the site of a cinema from 1912 to 1955, operated by the Penny Picture Theatre Co. It re-opened under new independent management in 1953 as the Rio Cinema, but this was short lived and it closed in 1955. Now the market is filled with quirky market traders, and was documented in a short documentary made by Mark Windows.
Walthamstow has a wide variety of housing stock, but the vast majority of residential property was built in the early 20th century. From Coppermill Lane in the west, to Wood Street in the east, there are thousands of terraced streets dating to the Edwardian era and the 1920s. The area along Markhouse Road and St James Street has many examples of Warner properties. These were developed as affordable housing for the working classes in the early part of the 20th century. Bombing raids in the Second World War and urban redevelopment projects in the 1960s and 1970s have left areas with more modern housing, mostly in the shape of low-rise concrete blocks.
The northern continuation of Markhouse Road is St James's Street to which Blackhorse Road follows, served by underground and railway stations, which in turn becomes Blackhorse Lane. This is bound on its western side by industrial units and warehouses. The London Borough of Waltham Forest has proposed developing the area around Blackhorse Road railway station to become a gateway to the town.
Although bounded by the marshes to the west and parts of Epping Forest to the east, there is little open space in the actual town. There used to be two commons in the town, Church Common, adjacent to St. Mary's Church in Walthamstow Village and Markhouse Common, located off Markhouse Lane and what is now the western end of Queens Road. Both open spaces were lost in the 19th century, when the land was sold to property developers. Lloyd Park has been open to the public since 1900 and is located on Forest Road behind the William Morris Gallery. It has a formal garden with a pond, and the adjacent Aveling Field has facilities for bowling, tennis, basketball, an outdoor gym, a skate park and a children's play area.