Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway - 1894 - 2017

by local historians, Peter Williams and Mark Gorman

We have covered aspects of the Barking Gospel Oak line (sometimes popularly known as the Goblin, or Chimney Pot line) on this website before (see here, in particular) but never in a comprehensive way. 

In 2016/17 local residents suffered a six-month closure, from August to February, whilst there was a multi million pound investment in track, signalling, trains and stations. 

New electric trains are due in 2018 once current difficulties with the design of the electrification are overcome. Full details of the problems can be found here.

The Victoria County History summarises the history of the line as follows - In 1894 the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway, together with a short spur between Woodgrange Park and East Ham, provided a new, but circuitous, route from Barking and East Ham to St. Pancras and so to the City at Moorgate (see here).

The line was originally two separate schemes: the Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway (authorised 1862) and the Tottenham & Forest Gate Railway (sanctioned 1890). The T&HJR was planned to run from Tottenham Hale to Gospel Oak, and opened in July 1868 from Tottenham Hale to Highgate Road, just short of Gospel Oak. Most trains ran to and from Fenchurch Street - a very roundabout route! 

Towards the end of the 19th century Sir Courtenay Warner, developer of much of the land around Walthamstow (the Warner Estate), wanted a railway line to serve his new developments. He was a prime mover behind the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway, which opened in 1894. 

Much of the area it passed through had already been built over, which is why much of the route is on viaduct (386 arches!) crossing innumerable streets (the cut-off ends of the terraces nearest the viaduct show clearly where demolition had to take place to put the railway line through). See here for an article on the imaginative use that has been made of some of these arches in Forest Gate, recently.

This must have been as big an upheaval locally as the building of the M11 Link Road decades later. At opening, the intermediate stations were Black Horse Road, Walthamstow, Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead Park.

Woodgrange Park was added subsequently, as was a curve to East Ham which some passenger trains used until 1958. You can still see the bay platform they used there, behind the eastbound District Line platform.

Various other services came & went over the years: Moorgate-East Ham, St Pancras-Southend, St Pancras-Tilbury boat trains, Gospel Oak-Southend, St Pancras-Norwich, Gospel Oak-Chingford were a few examples. The Palace Gates-North Woolwich service interchanged with our line at South Tottenham but that service ended in 1963. 

Eventually, the basic service settled down as Kentish Town-Barking, with odd trains running to/from St Pancras. Meanwhile the line developed as a key freight route, and a number of the stations had goods yards, now long gone.

That at Leytonstone High Road was an oddity, because the restricted space meant wagons had to be lowered from the goods line (behind the eastbound platform) to ground level by means of an hydraulic hoist (see here).

Whitelegg 4-4-2 "Tilbury Tank" named "East
 Ham" after the station on the Tottenham &
 Forest Gate Railway. The Tilbury Tanks were 
never used on the T&FG railway. They served
on the LT&SR from Fenchurch St to Southend

An early map of the route. Note

 branch to East Ham (source here)

East Ham Station was rebuilt and enlarged, 1902-04. In 1894, the Tottenham & Forest Gate Junction Railway (later absorbed into the Midland Railway) constructed a short spur running from Woodgrange Park to East Ham, terminating in a bay platform on the north side of the station, for trains to and from Kentish Town. This line ran behind the gardens of Shakespeare Crescent and Sibley Grove in Manor Park. 

The Metropolitan District Railway served East Ham from 1902 (originally in steam, until electrification in 1905). Sidings were provided as these trains terminated here, until the service was extended to Barking. This increased traffic,brought about the widening of the line from two tracks to four, and the whole station was reconstructed with five platforms.

A footbridge was provided about half way along the platforms (now disused) for passengers to cross from the Kentish Town line to continue their journeys on the London-bound lines.

Services to Kentish Town were withdrawn in September, 1958. British Railways ceased calling at East Ham in June 1962, from which time the station was solely served by the Underground. A new running depot was built in the 50's east of the station to accommodate electric multiple units for the BR Fenchurch Street to Southend line, in preparation for the withdrawal of steam, and the closure of Plaistow depot (see here).

Woodgrange Park Station

Opened 9 July 1894, this was a London Tilbury & Southend Railway construction and was of a different design with long flat awnings. The platform buildings were demolished in the 70's but their back wall survives on the eastbound side. 

A new booking office was built at the westbound entrance, but after destaffing and a period of dereliction this was demolished in the 1990's. To the east of the station was a goods yard; this opened in late 1894, closed on 7 Dec 1964, and is now a housing estate.

Wanstead Park Station

Opened 9 July 1894, this was the first on the line to have its wooden awnings demolished (in 1970). The booking office in the archway was replaced by a Portakabin, but after a fire in the late 1980s the station became unstaffed.

Originally, the wide covered staircases were towards the Barking end of the station, but in the late 1990's new stairs were built at the other end, leading directly out onto the main road. The station's name is rather misleading as Wanstead Park is a fair old hike away across Wanstead Flats - either that or Forest Gate North would be more accurate (source here).

Street-level photo taken from Woodgrange Road in May 1967, before the station was rationalized and the booking hall replaced. The wooden structures were painted BR green and cream. It is now an unstaffed station, with a set of steel stairs to platform level. None of the original structures exist.

Source here 

Many houses were demolished to make way and there was considerable local opposition to the railway (see here).

There was also an impact on the housing market not surprisingly. West Ham; a study in social and industrial problems says about Forest Gate ward:

Source here

There is clear evidence today of how this new railway had a massive impact on local dwellings. In places the track passes within a few feet.

Junction Sebert and Balmoral Roads looking
 east. Note ghost sign on the flank wall
 of the property.

Sebert Road looking west

Lorne road looking east – indications
 are this house was added later after
 the construction of the railway.

Avenue Road looking east – this house is
 dated in the 1870s from its plaque so
 predates the railway by 20 years

Avenue Road looking west, north
 of the line. Right opposite the house above,
 this has been cut off, though it is not clear
 if the other half was demolished by the
 railway company. Note the wider viaduct
 for the station platforms at Wanstead Park.

Avenue Road looking west, south of the line.
 Note the wider viaduct for the station platforms

Cranmer Road looking east, north of the line.
 This pair is also dated and predate the railway.

Cranmer Road looking east, south of the line.
 This house has been cut off during the
 building of the line, as the chimney of the
demolished property is exposed and visible today.

Latimer Road looking east. This is a post war infill,
 presumably after bomb damage. This house was
 the site of a fatal house fire some years ago
 where an elderly gentleman died.

We know that the railway company ended up with surplus dwellings in their ownership as they sold some off as shown here.

Source: Essex
Record Office

And we have this specific example:

234 Sebert Road October 2016

The line was not not just used for travel to work, but for leisure outings as well. One reason why the platforms at Wanstead Park and Woodgrange Park, in common with other stations on the Barking and Gospel Oak, are longer than expected for a suburban line, is that these stations were heavily used by holiday makers, heading for the Essex coast.

As soon as the line opened, in the summer of 1894, the Midland railway was advertising it as a "new and shorter" route from St Pancras to Southend. On Bank Holidays, the platforms would be packed with passengers hoping to get on longer excursion trains.

From the outset, the T&FG attracted some local opposition, all along the proposed route. In the parliamentary debate on the second reading, James Theobald, Conservative MP for Romford, listed some of the line's opponents:

...The East Ham Local Board and the Walthamstow Local Board (of Guardians), the Walthamstow School Board, the West Ham Corporation, the Leyton Local Board, the Vestry of Wanstead, the inhabitants of Leyton, the Trustees of the Bishop of St Alban's Fund, the Rev Henry Barber, the Commissioners of Sewers for the levels of Havering, Dagenham and numerous individuals.

He and George Banes, MP for West Ham South, argued that the proposed line would slice through a desirable residential district, and that the building of a brick viaduct, rather than a structure of iron girders would cut off many houses from their view of Wanstead Flats, and "prevent the free access of air to Wanstead and West Ham".

Neither MP objected to the railway itself, but wanted it to be at ground level, or in a cutting. Despite this and protest meetings, the line got the go-ahead.

Some welcomed it; a petition in 1893, requesting an extra station at Lea Bridge attracted much support. Although some property values fell, in other areas it attracted additional house building, particularly in Leytonstone, where its "proximity to the most charming parts of the Forest" was widely advertised by estate agents marketing building plots.

Another objector to the new line was the Great Eastern Railway, which had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly in the new north-eastern suburbs. Courtney Warner was later to claim at a parliamentary enquiry that the GER objected to the link which the building of the T&FG forged between the Midland Railway's lines to the north, from St Pancras, and the London, Tilbury and Southend line, from Fenchurch Street.

He also claimed that the GER was not providing adequate services for the growing population of Forest Gate, Leyton, Leytonstone and Walthamstow. On weekdays, he said "There was a regular fight to get into the workmen's trains in the morning (sound familiar?).

In reality, the line was never a successful commuter service. The T&FG was reluctant to provide adequate numbers of cheap workmen's trains from Woodgrange Park and Forest Gate, probably because of the fear that to do so would encourage too many working class residents in areas along the line.

Also, its circuitous route round north London made it a very slow way into work. The chairman of the Leyton Urban District Council, declared the T&FG practically useless for commuting to the City, as it took 50 minutes for a journey of 4 miles, as the crow flies. He preferred to expand Leyton's municipal tramway system. (for details of the development of trams serving Forest Gate - see here).

Press cuttings have some details, below.

Leytonstone Local Board 

Chelmsford Chronicle,
 England, 6 Jun 1890

There was industrial unrest during construction.

Chelmsford Chronicle, 21 Aug 1891

Selling materials from the demolition of houses.
Bury Free Press Suffolk, 26 Nov 1892

Local protestors: 
Chelmsford Chronicle,24 Mar 1893

Naploeon Cattaneo was Swiss confectioner in Woodgrange Road according to 1891 census

Died Jun 1932  - Bethnal Green

Essex Newsman, 10 Jun 1893

Chelmsford Chronicle, 29 June 1894

West Ham Hall  Sebert Road 

In about 1890 it was acquired by the Tottenham & Forest Gate Junction Railway, which was then building its line from Wanstead Park to Woodgrange Park. The company put it up for sale together with other surplus land and the house was acquired by West Ham School Board. 

The Board later demolished the house, some time after 1893. In 1966 the site was a depot belonging to Newham Council. It was then used to build the Woodgrange Primary school in 1986. 

Source here 

1900 this is Forest Gate station
 not GOBLIN but nice! 

Forest Gate's early transport history

As construction works begins in earnest around Forest Gate station now, and next year on the Goblin line, to facilitate the next stage in the area's transport story, and future development, it seems worth a pause to look at how early road and railway construction helped make Forest Gate what it is today.

London's rapid population growth in the eighteenth century put a strain on the roads bringing foodstuffs and raw materials to the capital. One such road was the old Roman road from London to Colchester, which was, by this time, known as Essex (now Romford) Road. It  passed on its way through West Ham on its way to London, from the Eastern Counties
.
The road was described by Daniel Defoe in his 1720's publication A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain as:

That great road from London thro' this whole county towards Ipswich and Harwich which is most worn with wagons, carts and carriages and with infinite droves of black cattle, hogs and sheep of any road in England.

It was the need to improve the road that lead the section between Whitechapel and Shenfield being created a Turnpike Trust (toll road) in 1722 - essentially what is now Romford Road. Defoe commented that:

All those villages are increased in buildings in a strange degree ... and the towns of West Ham, Plaistow, Upton etc. (so insignificant was Forest Gate in its own right at this time that it was bundled up in Defoe's etc!) in all which places above a thousand new foundations have been erected ... this increase is of handsome large houses ... being chiefly for the habitation of the richest citizens (see future articles in this blog featuring the development of Upton, and Upton Lane, in particular) ... there are no less than 200 coaches kept.

J Gibson's 1776 map of a road from  London to Great
 Yarmouth. The  original route of the A12 mostly  ran on
this alignment, particularly the  Roman Road from
 London to Colchester

 A survey of road traffic entering London from the East in 1830 showed that 494 wagons passed along the road each week, along with a thousand head of cattle, 8,000 sheep, 400 pigs and 150 calves.

In addition, private carriages had driven over 350,000 miles along the road and people on horseback rode over 700,000 miles along it during that year.

The road was struggling to cope, and ambitious plans for developing a steam locomotive along the route were drawn up. According to plans in the Essex Record Office, an 1803 proposal envisaged horse drawn locomotives being transported over railway lines, to their destination on the Essex coast.

In the event, the scheme, which would have seen an early "railway" rattle through Forest Gate, came to nothing.

It was over thirty years, 1836, before two railway schemes, each playing a major role in the development of Forest Gate, received the Royal Assent.

The first came from the Commercial Railway Company, built to improve the haulage of both goods and passengers between Brunswick Wharf, at Blackwall and the City. The second was the Eastern Counties Railway, promoted to transport coal from Great Yarmouth (a considerably more important port then, than today) to London.

The original proposed route  for the Eastern Counties line was to start at Shoreditch High Street and head eastwards, via Bethnal Green to Mile End.

Here the railway was to veer south, to Old Ford and cross the marshes to Stratford (see engraving, below). The preferred route from Strafford through Forest Gate was for a straight line running in parallel, north of the Turnpike.

On the plans submitted to Parliament, an alternative route, passing north of Forest Gate's Eagle and Child pub was shown. In the event, this was not adopted, and the original proposal was used for the route.

The surveyors recorded the following properties along the route as being in Forest Gate. From West to East: Prospect Place, containing 12 cottages and a small chapel, Chapel Place with six cottages with gardens, Pleasant Place, with 8 cottages with gardens and Whitehall Place, with 8 cottages.  All these places were owned by John Pickering Peacock.

Extract from 1867 OS map of Forest Gate,
 not location of original railway station,
 not on Woodgrange Road,
 but a hut on Forest Lane

Then came the Eagle and Child and two cottages, owned by the brewers Combe Dalafield and Company. Next was a series of properties including the houses and gardens of John Brown and William Leverton, buildings and yards owned by Joshua Pedley and the cottage owned by Richard Curtis (no, not that one!) Finally came a place called Hoppett by the Lane, a meadow with a cottage and garden and the Mansion House buildings and yard, all these being owned by John Greenhill.

John Braithwaite was appointed engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway and the Railway Magazine was quick to point out his inexperience, and woeful track record, to date. It, with a note of irony, predicted that it would take him until 1836 (i.e. a hundred years) to complete the construction to Great Yarmouth.

The first twelve miles of the line were, in fact, opened in June 1839 - from Shoreditch to Romford. Two days later, the line experienced its first accident, when both the driver and his stoker were killed, when the locomotive "leapt off the track". The driver, John Meadows had been dismissed previously by another railway company for "furious driving".

East County Railways coming to  Stratford,
engraving 1837,  featuring  a bridge over
 the River Lee, on extreme left of picture.
River is foreground  is Bow Back river,
 on way to Bow Bridge

The first Forest Gate station was opened in 1841. It originally consisted of a small wooden structure, with an entrance on Forest Lane (see location, on Forest Lane, in the extract from the 1867 OS map, above). It was only, originally, served by two trains a day and so poor were the passenger numbers that it was closed, because of lack of trade, between 1844 and 1846.

In 1845 the shareholders of the Eastern Counties railway invited George Hudson ("The Railway King") to help bail them out. Hudson was a crook, but was the inspiration behind building the railway works and sidings in Stratford. 

In gratitude, part of West Ham was named after him.

The railway workers in Stratford needed homes, and soon housing was constructed by building societies in parts of Forest Gate, to accommodate them.

Although, under Hudson, trains began to service Forest Gate once more, the service was pretty poor.  As late as 1863, John Spencer Curwen, who was behind the Earlham Grove Musical academy (see here), wrote:

The trains were few and uncertain ... Ten or twenty minutes belatement we thought nothing of. Sometimes trains did not come at all ... I do not think there were more than seven or eight trains each way per day. On an average, about six people entered or left at Forest Gate.

"Railway Mania" was an appropriate term to describe the chaos created by rival companies, essentially serving the same area and competing furiously, and often unscrupulously for passengers and freight.

The second Forest Gate station, c 1900, when
 the roundel was incorporated into the station.

Early "tourism", rail day excursions and publications like Bradshaws were produced to cater for the rapid development of railways not just for business, but for leisure too. Bradshaws became almost a bible for travellers, providing early versions of what we, today, would call travel guides, offering lengthy descriptions of the key points of interest in and around railway towns and stations.

It's contributors were clearly not too impressed with what Forest Gate had to offer in 1863.  The extract, below is the totality of their description:

And so yet another railway came to service the area, this time in the 1890's, and actually featured Forest Gate in its title. This was called the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway (the core of what is now better known as the Gospel Oak to Barking - Goblin, or Chimney Pot - Line).

It was to link the Midland railway, at Tottenham, with the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway at their junction with the Great Eastern (formerly Eastern Counties Railway). (Confused? You aren't alone). See map, below, for clearer portrayal.

Simplified railway map, c 1914,
 showing stations, lines and features

The Tottenham and Forest Gate railway met much popular opposition, as over a hundred recently constructed houses in Forest Gate had to be demolished to make way for the viaducts that carried the railway through the district.

The railway opened in 1894 and was soon running, in conjunction with other companies, trains between St Pancras and Tilbury, via the newly opened stations of Woodgrange Park and Wanstead Park.

The company soon needed more rolling stock to cater for its expanding numbers of passengers, so in 1897-8 it commissioned the construction of 12 engines to service the line. Each was named after an Essex town, or place on its route, one of which was called the Forest Gate - see photo.  This, like the other in the series (LTSR 37-48), was in almost continuous commission until it was scrapped, in 1951.

The London, Tilbury and Southend
 railway's 1897 locomotive: Forest Gate

Forest Gate was now well served, and heavily dependent on railways, as a form of transport. The six or eight passengers a day of 1841, rose to over 10,000 immediately prior to World War One.

1909 Great Eastern Railway third
 class ticket: 1d (less than half of 1p!)
 for Forest Gate to Maryland

Yet another form of local public transport was being developed to help with the commuting needs of the Forest Gate and area's population from the 1870's: trams.  See our earlier post (here) on their history in the district.