The street where you live (5): Earlham Grove

This is the fifth in an occasional series of articles by Forest Gate resident, Peter Williams, who specialises in Newham housing, maps and local history. In each he looks, in detail, at the history of particular streets in Forest Gate.

Peter has complemented his own knowledge by accessing the increasingly digitised national newspapers' collection - which can be found here- and has added extracts from this that refer specifically to Earlham Grove.

Earlham Grove is named after Earlham Hall, near Norwich, seat of the Gurney family; now part of the University of East Anglia. 

Gurneys' ancestral home - Earlham Hall, today

The Gurney family was a major landlord in Forest Gate in mid Victorian times and with other Quaker families, like the Frys (of chocolate  and prison reform fame) and Barclays, were merchants and bankers in the City of London.

As we have shown in previous posts, Samuel Gurney, perhaps the most famous of the family, owned up to half the land that constitutes Forest Gate. He lived in what is now West Ham Park, until his death in 1865.

1863 Ordnance Survey map, showing vacant
 land behind Pawnbrokers' Almshouses on
 Woodgrange Road, up to the railway line,
 where Earlham Grove would soon be built.
 The open spaces to the right of the
 almshouses is what later was to become
 the Woodgrange estate

The Great Eastern Railway was built in the 1830s opening the Forest Gate area up to development. Work on the Woodgrange estate started in the late 1860s. 

Earlham Grove started a little later. The houses are larger than the typical terraces developed by speculative builders for the army of clerks in the City of London in the later nineteenth century. They were more like what the Victorians and Edwardians called villas – for the better off middle classes; solicitors; business people.

Same area in 1895 Ordnance Survey map - now
heavily built over.  Orange arrow points to site of
modern Community Garden (see below) on Earlham Grove

On the map, above, the Almshouses have gone, and in this 30 year period between the publication of the two maps hundreds of houses were built, including Hamfrith, Atherton, Norwich, Sprowston, and Clova Roads, and Earlham Grove, which were part of the Gurney estate (c. 1870–90), on the north side of Romford Road. These houses, many of which survive, include detached, semi-detached, and terraced types.

Earlham Grove - 1911

Buildings of interest

16 Ex Jewish refugee hostel. With the rise of Hitler to power in the 1930's, many Germany Jews sought refuge elsewhere in Europe, mainly within existing Jewish communities.  Forest Gate played its part. A hostel was opened at 51a Romford Road, which accommodated 20 people.  This later moved to 16 Earlham Grove. It was supported financially by the Earlham Grove synagogue (see below). Other families within the local community took in refuges who could not be accommodated there.

16 Earlham Grove today - a refuge
 for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930's

The article below, from 1933, suggests that Forest Gate may not have been the anti-semitic haven that those fleeing persecution from Nazi Germany many have hoped for. A magistrate, in 1933, telling a clearly Jewish immigrant from Earlham Grove that: "There's more trouble in this country through people like you than all the others put together. I wish we could throw you out neck and crop".

Chelmsford Chronicle 19 May 1933

93 - 95 Formerly West Ham Synagogue and Shul (1897 - 2004). See here for a post on the 20th century Jewish community of Forest Gate, whose focal point was this building.  It was the first synagogue in Essex and became the strongest in Newham. The foundation stone of the building in the photo was laid in 1910.

The synagogue, up for sale in 2004

The site is now a four-storey block of flats called Adler Court - named after a prominent rabbi at the former synagogue - owned by East Thames Housing Association.

Adler Court today - on the
 site of the former synagogue

128 Earlham Grove - A house, whose occupant, Francis John Fitzgerald, hosted a quite remarkable event in the struggle for Irish independence in 1921. We will outline some extraordinary Forest Gate connections with the birth of the Irish Free State in the next blog on this site. Watch this space!

128 today, Francis John
Fitzgerald's home in 1921

136 - Site of the Community Garden was occupied until a few years ago by a very large detached Victorian villa. Originally it had been a doctor’s surgery. It was converted to a hostel for homeless families, probably in the 1980s, and was known as Earlham Lodge. It was run by Newham Housing Department.

136 Earlham Grove, when it
was an LBN homeless hostel

136, when it was a homeless hostel,
 showing, behind, the former vicarage
Thanks to "Kevin" from Facebook
 for this photo and the one above

Community Garden hoarding, designed
 by local artist Jim Valentine and painted
 by upwards of 70 local volunteers

There was no resident warden, but a mobile member of staff looked after a number of Housing Department hostels. There were 9 rooms of different sizes and it was targeted at small families such as a single parent with a young baby.

Families typically stayed there for a few months before moving onto another form of homeless temporary accommodation. They were given a licence agreement, not a tenancy. Bathrooms were shared and each room had basic cooking facilities Following a review in the mid 2000's, the Housing Department decided to close its directly managed hostels.

The site is still owned by Newham Council who hope for a housing development on the site in the longer term, but meanwhile, have given the Community Garden a short-term lease, so that it can be used as a community facility rather than remain an unsightly piece of waste land. 

There continue to be a number of other large houses in the Earlham Grove that are used for some form of supported housing for vulnerable people including children’s homes, homeless hostels, cheap B&Bs and accommodation for people with learning disabilities.

175 Built as Earlham Hall in the 1870s, for full details, see here. Briefly, it was established in 1879 by John Curwen, the Congregational minister, for his Tonic-Sol-Fa College. The Metropolitan Academy of Music followed on from 1906 until World War II, and then London Co-operative offices preceded the arrival of the Cherubim and Seraphim congregation in the 1970s.

An 1890's sketch of Earlham Hall,
when it was in its prime

It is still occupied by the church. Now The Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church has its UK headquarters there. Arriving in the 1970s it is one of the earliest African congregations to settle in Newham. As the first African instituted church, it was originally established among the Yoruba people in Western Nigeria in 1925.

African Church of Cherabim and Seraphim, today

The 'Aladura', or African indigenous tradition, combines teaching and practices learned from western missionaries with elements of traditional African traditions. In Forest Gate the church is led by Pastors and Apostles, worships in distinctive white robes and emphasises prayer-including night vigils.

The church's worshippers in full regalia

Behind the church you can see is an older building the Tonic Sol Fa college, where this system of musical notation was taught.

193 - The Jive Dive. Kenny Johnson, who went on to successfully manage the Lotus Club on Woodgrange Road for over 40 years, began life as an impresario here. In 1960 he took over what had previously been the Earlham Grove Dance Academy (next door but one to the Royal Mail sorting office) and turned it into a pop music venue. See here for further details.

193 - location of 1960's
Jive Dive, now an HMO

The Jive Dive originally opened as a coffee bar, but soon obtained an alcohol license.  The ground floor was converted into a bar, and the basement a dance hall. It was imaginatively decorated, for the time - with bamboo partitions, film and gig posters on the walls and with plants, real and artificial, adorning key areas.

Kenny Johnson, outside the Jive Dive, in the
sixties, proudly displaying his recently acquired Jag

Eddie Johnson, in his book Tales from the Two Puddings, says this of the place:

The Jive Dive seemed to fulfill a real need in young people; it was the time of the 'mod', and young East Enders were, in those days, the most fashion conscious in the world; rendezvousing in Forest Gate every weekend and going to our club, they would have a few drinks and then dance their socks off in the basement. There was no trouble and the customers were a lovely crowd.

The venue proved a great success, but the resultant crowds were understandably less popular with the residential neighbours, and so the brothers closed it as a venue and looked elsewhere for music promotional opportunities. They took on the floor space above what is now the Poundland and the Lotus Club, on Woodgrange Road was born.

Kenny (bearded) and Eddie Johnson, relaxing
 with a pint at the entrance to the Jive Dive

193 Earlham Grove is now a house in multiple occupation.

Durning Hall Christian community centre replaced an earlier Durning Hall, founded about 1885 at Limehouse (see here for fuller details). The premises in Woodgrange Road were registered for worship in 1953 (what is now the Aston Mansfield charity shop)  and in 1959 the main buildings of the centre were opened in Earlham Grove, containing a church, hall, offices, gymnasium, and chaplain's flat. A hostel, with shops below, was later completed on the Woodgrange Road frontage.

Durning Hall, which is non-denominational, is administered by the Aston Mansfield charities trust, founded in 1930 by Miss Theodora Durning-Lawrence. It caters for all age-groups. The church of the Holy Carpenter, designed by Shingler and Risden Associates, has a fine altar wall of stained glass.

Durning Hall today, featuring the stained
glass window referred to in the text

Odd ecclesiastical event 

In the 1890s there was a strange bit of church history when some people from Emmanuel parish church (corner of Romford Rd and Upton Lane) started a rival church in Earlham Grove called Christ Church, because they felt the services at Emmanuel were becoming 'too Roman'. A small (corrugated) iron building had been erected, seating about 200 and continued until at least 1903, see cutting, below.

Essex Newsman - 2 December 1893

Rivalry between the two places of worship ended up in a court case in 1903 (see cutting, below), where the parties promised to behave, or the police would be called!

The dispute between Emmanuel and
 Christ Church reaches the courts,
as this 1903 cutting shows

Significant deaths in Earlham Grove

Other press cuttings (below) show a slightly more tragic side of life for some Earlham Grove residents.

1. A suicide of an Earlham Grove resident, in 1907

Chelmsford Chronicle 22 March 1907

2. A life of a motorist fatally injured by a council tram, in 1906, just £250

Chelmsford Chronicle 29 March 1907

3. An air accident death for an Earlham Grove resident, and early member of the RAF. N.B. initials in article below: RFC = Royal Flying Corps (a fore-runner of RAF) and HAC = Honourable Artillery Company. 

Chelmsford Chronicle, 6 July 1917

4. Another suicide

Essex Newsman 21 February 1920

5. WW2 bombings

Two of the biggest bombing hits in Forest Gate during World War 2 fell on Earlham Grove.  See here for full details. Nineteen people were killed on 6 March 1945, by a Doodlebug when nos 56 - 62 were destroyed.  Ten people were killed just six months previously, when a bomb destroyed numbers 3 - 7. See link, above, for all the names of those reported killed by those bombings.

Doodlebug of the kind that inflicted
 damage on Earlham Grove during WW2

The street where you live (4) - Dames Road

Local Wanstead Flats' historians Mark Gorman and Peter Williams, continue our occasional series, The Street Where You Live with a glance at Dames Road, running from the junction of Woodgrange/Woodford Roads to the Leytonstone borders, along the edge of Wanstead Flats. See the footnote for details of earlier articles in this series and other work on local history by Mark and Peter.

The area between Maryland Point and Forest Gate was largely under-developed agricultural land, until the 1860's, after which it was slowly transformed into market gardens and gradually housing, as transport and population growth moved eastwards, with the rapid expansion of London.

Extract from 1863 OS map - showing area very open, with farmland and some substantial villa-type homes (Forest House, Sydney cottage -see  photo below for an example, today). Wanstead Flats
 is in the top right hand corner. The line of the future Barking Oak
railway is marked in red.

The "market gardens" in and around what we now know as Dames Road were developed as leisure and commercial pursuits by people from the more traditional east-end, such as Whitechapel, and cabinet makers of Curtain Road in Hackney. The gardens provided recreational and trading activities for some adventurous people, many, perhaps, missing their own rural roots in earlier days, in Essex and Suffolk.

The "gardens grounds" offered weekend time away from inner city congestion, as five and a half day working became more common and the railway network reached out into areas such as Forest Gate. Many of those renting the land for the gardens would put up huts - for weekend stays - which soon developed into housing in the area.

The western part of Forest Gate, between Woodford Road and Tower Hamlets Road, belonged to the Dames family for much of the first half of the nineteenth century.  Charles Richard Dames was a sugar refiner, probably born in the parish of St Mary, Whitechapel in 1793.

Like many city merchants, Dames bought property on the fringes of London, and became a substantial member of the local community.  He was elected a churchwarden, for example, in 1855. By the time of his death, in 1862, he held land and had homes in both Whitechapel and Forest Gate.

He died at Forest House (see 1863 map, above), which was located approximately where Anna Neagle Close is, today - probably in a house similar to the one pictured below. He may have commuted from this rural home to the city in the years running up to his death.

89 Dames Road, today - now split into flats,
 but one of the villa type houses that populated
 parts of Dames Road at the end of the 19th century

From 1855, Dames began to sell off some of the land between Woodford and Tower Hamlets Roads , in small plots. About 1866 - after his death - the Conservative Land Society bought a large area, leading to more rapid development there. It, and the United Land Company, which also bought plots locally at this time, cut them up into smaller plots and sold them to local developers and would-be owner-builder-occupiers.

The sale of Forest House by the Dames
 family to the Conservative Land Society
 - Essex Standard, 4 April 1866

Another contemporary land sale for
 development, in the district
 - Chelmsford Chronicle April 1886

The object of the Conservative Land Company was to create Conservative-voting constituencies in localities where they bought land. At a time when the voting franchise still depended on property ownership, particularly outside the cities, the sale of building plots was seen as creating an independent, reliable Tory electorate (echoes of Lady Porter in 1980's Westminster - except she used tax-payers' money, to do it!).

OS map 1895 shows the area largely developed,
 though the area south of Sydney Road
 (named after the cottage formerly there), is
 still not built on.There were still some market
 gardens and allotments there until World War 1

(The Land Company was reasonably successful in their aims locally, as Conservative MPs held the  constituency containing Forest Gate for about half of the years between the time when it had its own MP- 1885 - and the First World War - see here, for details.)

It is likely that the Birkbeck Building Society, the Birkbeck Bank and Birkbeck Freehold Land Society were also active in and around the Dames Road area at this time.  They were offering plots of land for 5/- (25p) per month "either for building or gardening purposes". Some of these may have been west of Dames Road. where there were garden plots owned by east Londoners who came out to them at the weekend.

These Birkbeck organisations were all vehicles for making loans to aspirational members of the working class who wanted to build their own homes, or at least acquire a plot of land in the suburbs, springing up on the fringes of London.

As Conservative Land Company chairman concluded in 1866; "The working man doesn't like being patronised. They don't like going into model lodging-houses, and prefer buying land and building their own homes."

He described the Conservative Land Company's acquisition of the Dames Road area site, in 1866, in glowing terms, as "one of the most valuable building properties ever acquired by the society in the suburban districts."

The site, he said, was adaptable both for villas (usually high quality, detached houses) and houses of "a superior class", but also for working class dwellings. It fronted the road leading to Wanstead Flats and Forest Gate station, offering a frequent service to London, at cheap fares.

Charles left £90,000 (almost £10m today, using the Bank of England inflation calculator) in property and cash to his three sons and his daughter, on his death. His son, George, died soon afterwards in 1878.  He too was a sugar refiner and substantial property owner - some in the Forest Gate area - much, presumably, inherited from his father. He did, however, live in Stoke Newington,  where three servants catered for his needs.

Post Card showing Dames Road c 1906, featuring
 the Forest Glen on the left.

The Dames Road plots were built upon predominantly in the years prior to 1878, becoming the homes of clerks and small businessmen in the City. Rents ranged from 8s 6d a week to £40 a year. In other parts of Dames Road, 4-roomed and 6-roomed houses fetched between 9s and 11s a week, and were occupied by two families, according to early twentieth century social researchers Howarth and Wilson.

The tenants were builders, stonemasons and other artisans, and a few clerks. These properties were said to be much in demand in the early years of the twentieth century. Building in Dames Road ceased about 1880. Meanwhile, Field Road and Odessa Road (built in the 1850s) to the west of Dames Road were home to less well-to-do artisans, carmen (drivers of horse-drawn goods wagons) and labourers.

Fast forward to the post World War 11 period, and the re-development of the lower part of Dames Road. The photo below shows it under redevelopment early 1980s. This was in preparation for rebuilding for "slum clearance".  This site  was one of the last council housing developments carried out by Newham  directly without the involvement of a housing association.

Foot of Dames Road, c 1984, at time of
 "slum clearance", making way for one of
Newham Council's last housing developments

Indeed, it was built by the council’s own directly employed labour force (DLO). Such council building died out in Newham by 1985 as the Thatcher government did not want local authorities to build council homes. Housing associations took over that role.

The last council development in Newham was Howards Rd E13 (done jointly with an association) until the direct development of council rented homes started again on a very small scale about 5 years ago. There have been a few small rented developments since.

Other Dames Road snippets

This site has referred to Dames Road, in passing, in previous posts, some of which readers may be interested in revisiting.

Cycling The foot of Dames Road, at the turn of the twentieth century, was at the centre (or should we say hub?!) of a significant local small-workshop cycle industry, hosting at least half a dozen, manufactories - see here. A detailed account of life and work in one of them - Clark's - from 1897, appears here.

One of the turn of the century cycle
 manufacturers at the foot of Dames Road

Boot making Last year, we traced the story of Dames Road boot maker, TR Page, from a postcard sent showing the exterior of his shop, through much of the twentieth century (see here).

Page, the boot makers, 1915

Doodlebug Dames Road was the site of one of Forest Gate's worst bombing sites in World War 2, when a Doodlebug destroyed much of the land and houses near the Holly Tree public house - see here for details.

Junction of Dames and Pevensey
 Roads, site of 1943 Doodlebug hit

Listed building - Our recent article on Forest Gate's English Heritage-listed buildings featured 89 Dames Road - photograph above.  

Unfortunately, little is known of the history of this once splendid villa (now flats), but, see here, for details.

In the 1950's it was a wedding venue, with a huge function hall, run by a company called Hart and Holman. It was described, by a church goer at the Christian Israelite church opposite, who held events there as having a "lovely room", which hosted the "highlight of our year" - the Sunday school party.

Anti- German riots We have not covered this before, but  couple of postcards have recently appeared for sale on eBay, featuring a German baker on Dames Road, whose property looks as if it was targeted for anti-German riots during World War 1.  See the photos of Gobel, the baker's, located at 74 Dames Road (site of a car workshop, today) and note from the second photo what appears to be riot damage suffered by it.

Gobel's bakers, 74 Dames Road, in peaceful times

The same shop at time of anti-German
 riots, c 1915 - see window damage

... and today

We covered anti-German riots in Forest Gate in May 1915, following the sinking of the Lusitania, a year ago (see here). The looting/rioting of the Gobel's shop , however, did not feature.  The 1906 post card, above, suggests that Gobel did not move into the shop on Dames Road until after that time, although a 1912 trade directory lists an Ambrose Gobel as being a baker at that address, then.

Idris Elba's Dames Road connection Hollywood superstar actor, Idris Elba can claim a significant Dames Road influence on his life(see here). He worked at Uncle Tom's garage (see above for photo) as a youngster, having spent most of his youth growing up in Canning Town. He revisited the garage in November 2013, on a trip back to his roots.

It was doubtless this Dames Road experience that enabled him to play a strong role in the great American TV series The Wire and the Mandela movie, for which he was nominated for an Oscar! 

We acknowledge the Newham Recorder's copyright of the photo, below, capturing the moment.  Their report of the occasion can be found here.

Idris Elba-revisiting Uncle
 Tom's Garage, on Dames
 Road, where he worked
  as a youngster - in
 November 2013.
Copyright Newham Recorder

Fairs Dames Road, of course leads in to Wanstead Flats, a pleasure ground for many years.  Below is an extract from an 1898 newspaper describing a scene at a Bank holiday fair on the Flats that year, focusing on the important role of the Holly Tree on Dames Road.  The extract may be indistinct, so we have transcribed a relevant section of it, below.

Chelmsford Chronicle - 15 April 1898

Partial transcript:

Bank Holiday on Wanstead Flats

by a Perambulating Pressman

Wanstead Flats have long been a favourite resort for the East London Bank Holiday crowd, and this Easter my curiosity led me to Wanstead to see how their amusement is catered for. ...

 The streets were thronged with people and all were enjoying themselves with that absolute abandon which is so characteristic of the Easter holiday maker. ...

The young ladies ... sang with a gusto which only high spirits could produce, but "Marry the girl you fancy" was the popular refrain.

 There are several railway stations "quite adjacent" to the Flats, and a good service of buses is capable of rapidly transporting visitors to the gay scene, but for the holiday traffic special brakes were put on the route from Stratford, and at: "Tuppence all the way", these command full complements of passengers. ...

The centre of the fun, I found, was on Dames Road, had by the Holly Tree Tavern. Here was a gigantic country fair, or rather twenty country fairs rolled into one, constituting a scene of startling splendour, which is difficult easily to describe. A gorgeous merry-go-round occupied a central position, rivalling in its gold and brilliant colours, its mirrors and dazzling lights, scenes depicted in the Arabian Nights.

 ... This elaborate piece of mechanism must have cost a small fortune, but it was providing a gold mine to its proprietors.

 ... A "wild Indian chief" emerged into the open, brandishing a sword and uttering horrible gutteral sounds. He was silenced in summary fashion by the proprietor, who gave graphic accounts of the sights to be seen inside. Meanwhile the "Indian Chief" had disappeared into the wigwam and I followed bent on investigations.

Answering a common-place remark, the wild warrior lapsed into unmistakable Cockneyese, and openly admitted he was a fraud. ...

This extract came from Peter's posting on Woodford Road.  There are other items in that post which relate to Dames Road - see below for link to it. 



Footnote: Peter William's other local postings on The Street Where You live can be found by clicking on the relevant street: Woodford Road, Ebor Cottages and Chestnut Avenue.

Peter and Mark have written a number of booklets on Wanstead Flats: on Prisoner of War Camps during WW2, Post War struggles to prevent development and, most recently games and sports on the Flats at the end of the 19th century.  

These can be bought, very reasonably priced, from Newham Bookshop, or from the Leyton and Leytonstone Local History Society, who published them, here. 

Mark and Peter can regularly be found giving talks on their publications, which are totally absorbing and come very highly recommended.