7 Es of E7

As Forest Gate continues to interest the property supplements of national and regional papers, it seems appropriate to offer an eclectic glance of what E7 has to offer, through 7 Es.

Engine

Forest Gate's transformation, from a predominantly rural settlement to a London suburb, in the middle of the nineteenth century, was driven by the accommodation needs  of the rapidly expanding metropolis' population,  and the coming of the railways, which offered ease of access to workplaces for the new aspiring middle class residents.

Forest Gate station (c 1890) - engine
for economic growth then and now

Now, after almost half a century of decline and stagnation in the area, the same forces are at work today, and account for the current boom-town nature of the area. People priced out of once affordable areas like Islington and Hackney now look to cheaper housing within our community - with the added bonus of fast speed transportation, in the shape of Crossrail, to come, within four years.

These economic drivers have been responded to socially and commercially; and it is perhaps no co-incidence that the hub of this renaissance lies within the market place area facing the railway station.

So, a bit of not-for-profit enterprise by a small number of local women three or four years ago founded a local branch of the Women's Institute, which in turn kick-started the weekly Woodgrange Market.

Weekly Woodgrange market - one of the
early shoots of recent Forest Gate growth

This has become the centre of local community activity, and within a short time, CoffeE7 and the Emporium - a pot pouri of crafts, and vintage goods - popped up, to re-enforce the initiative. Artistic, music and food tasting events have followed, in due course, at frequent intervals on the site.

By co-incidence, Forest Gate's best - by a long way - estate agent  just so happened to be located in a nearby shop.  Wilkinson Estates is local, supportive of community  initiatives and has a feel for the area. Unsurprisingly then, they top local sales figures and get very good customer feedback.  They add to the mutual re-enforcement of the market place as the engine of social development within Forest Gate.

The Forest Gate Tavern and other local eateries, featured below, add to this customised appeal for local people, and are clustered around the same dynamic social hub.  All of which will benefit further, and dramatically when Crossrail visits the train station.

Education

Many Forest Gate dwellers have traditionally hit hand-wringing angst as their children approach secondary school age.  A rapid departure from the district, in search of better schools, has traditionally been  a route chosen by many families.
 
Quite how well founded the reasoning behind this flight was in the past is difficult to know, but Ofsted now, does provide some guidance to how good local schools are, today. Every family will make their own choices and have their own criteria, of course, but the local educational "offer", does seem to have improved considerably, over the last 30 or so years.

This site offered a run-down of the Ofsted and other inspection ratings for all local schools last year (primary schools here, secondary schools here).
A quick, up-to-date, summary of the position, with regard to Forest Gate local authority schools, according to their latest Ofsted rating (here, for full details) is:
Primary

Earlham: Good
Elmhurst: Outstanding

Elmhurst Primary -
outstanding local school

Godwin Junior: Good
Odessa: Requires improvement
St Antony's: Good
St James: Good
Sandringham: Good
Shaftesbury: Requires improvement
William Davies: Good
Woodgrange Infants: Good

Secondary

Forest Gate: Requires improvement
St Angela's: Outstanding
St Bonaventures: Outstanding
Stratford: Good


St Bon's - one of Forest Gate's two
"Outstanding" Catholic secondary schools

Energy

West Ham FC currently sits just outside Forest Gate, to the south, and next year will be moving just to the west of it, as the club relocates to the Olympic stadium - thanks, in part, to a generous hand-out from we local taxpayers, via Newham Council.

But Forest Gate is, itself , home to a fine, energetic, football heritage - in both the north and south of the district.

Wanstead Flats plays host to many football teams each weekend (many of whom could improve their contribution to the local environment/ecology - see next E, by taking their rubbish and water bottles away with them at the end of their matches).

Football has been popular on the Flats for at least a century, and many dozens of teams have taken advantage of this fine open space.  But none has been quite as significant as Senrab, a club whose various teams use the space as their home ground. As we pointed out, last August, that team has been the nursery for at least 18 future international footballers,  including 10 with almost 450 English caps between them (see here for details).

John Terry, former player and
financial benefactor of Senrab FC

The opposite, southern, end of Forest Gate is home to Clapton FC, at the Old Spotted Dog ground. This is a club with a fine history, stretching back 140 years (see here).

It has seen some large crowds and famous victories, over the years and for a while was the home club of Walter Tull - the first Afro-Caribbean  player to play in English football's top division, and the first person of that heritage to  receive a commission in the British infantry - during World War 1 (see here, for details).

The club has spent many years in football's doldrums, but has undergone a remarkable upsurge in energy and activity over the last two or three.

Performances and results have improved on the pitch and attendances are up - thanks largely to the emergence of the club's Ultra's.  This is football fanaticism rarely seen in the lower leagues.

The fans, complete with banners and pyros (flares etc), provide a fanatical support for the club, commented, enviously upon, by other non-league clubs, in their own division - and further afield. You can follow some of them on Twitter via @ClaptonUltras, @LewListz and @andylangais53, @Real_Clapton
The Ultras support goers beyond the terraces, however. 

There are some strong social messages coming from these supporters.  They are avowedly anti-racist - which is shown at its strongest - and appreciated most - when playing against local teams with players of Romanian and Bengali heritage.

Walter Tull, former Clapton FC
player, and notable Black Briton

Their social activism and energy goes beyond the terraces, however - often taking on board what many would consider to be responsibilities of Newham Council.  They have done a splendid job in clearing up much of the fly-tipping around Forest Gate's historic, and sadly boarded up, Old Spotted Dog pub, and they have been active and vocal supporters of the Focus E15 mums, in their sit-ins, to get decent accommodation, following council inactivity.

Despite this energy, and improved results and performances on the pitch, Clapton FC has a sorrier tale to tell.  There is a breakdown of communications between many of those closest to the football at the club and those who control the ground - the two sides eye each other with suspicion and distrust.

This tension, compounded by tight financial times for both Clapton FC and Senrab highlight one of the great longer term shames of British football - the almost complete disregard of football at its grass roots, by national authorities who are awash with untold billions in TV revenues and plutocrats' investments.
Energy at grass roots - cynical disregard at the top.

Newham Council's financial support of the Premier league team and apparent neglect of the minnows, unfortunately, does nothing to address this imbalance.

Ecology

Another south/north  issue.

To the south of Forest Gate sits West Ham Park: 77 delightful acres of open space, managed by the City of London since 1874. It had previously been owned by the Gurney family and prior to that John Fothergill, about both of whom, much more in future blogs.

The park features a botanical garden and an array of sporting pitches.  It is also home to one of the largest horticultural nurseries in the UK, producing over 200,000 spring and summer bedding plants each year, for the parks, gardens and churchyards managed by the City Corporation. Plants from the nursery are also used to grace state occasions and large events hosted by the City government.

The City Corporation is building on the work of John Fothergill (1712 - 1780), who developed an extensive botanical garden there - where he grew rare plants obtained from various parts of the world - at the end of the eighteenth century.

One of Fothergill's protégé's, John Lettsom, was so impressed with the glasshouses and botanical collection gathered at the site, that he said  "the sphere seemed transposed, as the Arctic Circle joined with the equator."  Lettsom published a catalogue of the plants of Fothergill's garden "Hortus Uptonensis, or a catalogue of the plants of Dr Fothergill's garden at Upton, at the time of his decease anno 1780".

West Ham Park - a botanical delight
for almost two and a half centuries

West Ham Park managers continue to honour the tradition and example set by Fothergill, though in very different circumstances today. They keenly protect the habitat of local wildlife, and to this end operate two wild life gardens and conduct annual monitoring surveys of the activities of birds, spiders, bats and bees within the park.

To the north of Forest Gate, of course, sits Wanstead Flats.  Like it's southern ecological haven, West Ham Park, it is also managed by the Corporation of London. We've dealt on this site before with a little of the history of the Flats (see here for a general history and here for details of life on the Flats during World War 11).

Wanstead Flats is a real lung for north-east London and host to a wide array of birdlife.  We hope to cover this in a latter post, but in the meantime there are some very good local twitching tweeters, often with accompanying websites who are well worth a follow.  Among them are: @WansteadBirder (www.WansteadBirder.com), @TheCowboyBirder (www.TheCowboyBirder.com), @WFNaturePost and @JubileePond.

Wanstead Flats - a lung for
a congested East London

Local residents and the local Woodcraft Group (@newhamwoodcraftfolk,
www.newhamwoodcraft.org.uk) are active in Flats' conservation and in running regular clean ups, in collaboration with the City of London - often disposing of mess left behind by some of the football teams playing there (see above).

A little to the south of the Flats, almost at the corner of Woodgrange Road and Earlham Grove, is the site of what, hopefully, will become a community garden.

A local support group has worked with the council and is about to get a medium term lease for the site. The group has an impressive website: www.forestgate-community-garden.org.uk and a Twitter feed: @FGCommGarden. 

So, follow their progress - and watch that space!

Entertainment

Forest Gate has hosted a range of very special entertainment offers in its century and a half of existence, as this site has dwelled upon, on a number of occasions.

At the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries the district was home to six cinemas, for a history of them, and their eventual fates, as locations, see here.
 One of those cinema buildings had a host of functions and different names, over its years of existence: as a public hall, night club and roller rink, in addition to its flicks-house existence.

We will return to its role as a premier roller rink in a future blog, but the building is perhaps most famously known - and celebrated - for hosting Billy Walker's Upper Cut Club (see here). Just opposite the building was the far longer established and thriving Lotus club, run by Forest Gate impresario, Kenny Johnson (see here, for details).

Public hall, cinema, roller rink, night club,
and so much more - before becoming a
railway ventilation shaft!

Forest Gate has hosted its fair share of Cinema greats, including Bryan Forbes, who was born here (see here) and Anna Neagle (see here).

More recent Hollywood hits have come from Chiwetel Ejiofor (Twelve Years a Slave) and Idris Elba (Mandela, and The Wire), both of whom have firm Forest Gate roots.

Hampton Road Boy, Ben Drew, aka Plan B, has also had considerable cinematic success with Ill Manors (set in Forest Gate), to accompany his music success, with the top selling Defamation of Strickland Banks album and its hit single Stay Too Long (see here for details of Forest Gate as the new Hollywood for details).

Ben Drew, aka Plan B, part of the modern
 entertainment output of Forest Gate

One, international, non-local entertainment star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, owes much of his early muscleman and Mr Universe success to his stay with Wag Bennett on Romford Road in the mid 1960's - see here for details of
his time locally, working out in Forest Gate.

The fine tradition of top class, innovative entertainment continues today, in the shape of Swing Patrol, mentioned in last week's blog. Since that recent posting, we learn that they have added to their achievements, with Scottie Cupit becoming a dancing coach to Judy Murray, for the current Strictly Come Dancing TV series.

Epicurean delights

Recent postings on this site (here and here) suggest that Forest Gate hosts some pretty grim food shops and restaurants.
One advantage of the food shops, locally, however, is that given the incredible cosmopolitan nature of the local community, it is possible to buy food from almost every culinary tradition in those shops,  and so be able to experiment with delightful and tasty menus at home.

By a quirk of the way in which food hygiene assessors work, they have omitted - for the time being at least - some of the more recent and interesting eateries in the Forest Gate area.

An early addition to the emerging Cafe culture

We featured them in our recent 24-hour Forest Gate Gourmet train here. The last couple of years have seen a number of greatly improved dining options for local people. The earliest newcomer on the block, that set the trail running was the small Kaffeine coffee shop, facing the railway station, facing the clock.

Although it doesn't attract the attention of near-neighbour CoffeE7, its coffee and cakes, in particular, are a delight.

Coffee7  is a popular, vegetarian cafe, specialising in very good breakfasts and cakes.  It also hosts a range of social events (games nights, book readings) and proving to be a real community hub and meeting point for locals. You can catch up with them, on-line here (www.coffee7.co.uk, @CoffeeFG).

The Artemis coffee stall, in the rotunda outside the railway station, is the third recently opened coffee retailer in the area. A fresh £1.70 coffee on your way into the station is good value. The stall doesn't have the same social media presence of its bigger rival, but provides a very good service to thirsty commuters.

Forest Tavern, good food and drink under
 one roof; pretty much a first in the area!

Then there is the Forest Tavern (www.foresttavern.com, @ForestTavern). It has just celebrated its first birthday and offers a good selection of interesting food, on its daily and bar menus. Having overcome a wobble in the food offer a few months ago, it is now providing an interesting offer, and is clearly popular with local diners. 

Next door is the recently opened Aromas Tandoori, North Indian Restaurant (@aromasfoods and www.aromasrestaurant.co.uk). A fine local Indian sit-in and takeaway restaurant that has certainly added significantly to the local eat out choice.

The area's most unlikely food delight, however, is found under a railway arch, at 352 Winchelsea Road: TheWansteadTap (www.thewansteadtap.com, @TheWansteadtap). Although specialising in a wide range of craft beers and ciders, it offers a regular supper club, when local Masterchef semi-finalist Michael Saunders @invitetosupper (www.invitetosupper.com) serves up a delightful menu for about 30 diners, for the bargain price of £30.

Michael also supplies some delightful sounding pies for a Friday pm feast at the Tap, offers to cook for your dinner guests in your own home and hints that he will soon be offering his own restaurant, soon.

The Tap, itself,  also hosts a range of other social activities - book launches, poetry readings, jazz evenings and film shows, to name but a few.

End

At the very time Forest Gate was developing into a built-up area in the mid nineteenth century, public health legislation demanded the construction of burial grounds, away from crowded London city areas.  This, plus the abundant availability of cheap land in this area, meant that Forest Gate had it all as a location for cemetery development!

West Ham Jewish cemetery - now closed,
but reminiscent of an era when Forest Gate
hosted a large Jewish population

There can be few urban areas, as small as Forest Gate, in the world, with such a concentration of nineteenth century cemeteries that survive until today.

In addition to the small graveyard plots around churches, such as Emmanuel's on Romford Road, Forest Gate hosts a local authority cemetery: West Ham, a Jewish cemetery; the once thriving, but now rather down-at-heel Woodgrange Park cemetery - now, overwhelmingly Moslem; and a smart private cemetery: Manor Park Cemetery. Adjacent to the district is the City of London Cemetery, - London's second largest.

City of London cemetery, last resting
place for many a famous East Ender

These cemeteries, between them, have a host of interesting occupants.  For details of many, see here and here . (see here and here, for fuller details).
So, once again Forest Gate offers plenty of choice - for your final resting place!

Footnote

Postings on this blog will take a short break; but we'll be back by the middle of November.  Hope to see you then! If you miss us, in the meantime, have a look at some of our previous posts, hyperlinked above, or anticipated some of our promised goodies for the future!