Every Picturehouse Tells a Story

The seven cinemas of Forest Gate

Cinema was very much a novelty in the early years of the twentieth century, when the silent movies held sway, and over the years there have been seven functioning cinemas in Forest Gate, with upto 7,000 seats, at any one time. 

The seven cinemas had, confusingly, 18 separate names between them over the sixty odd years during which some or all of them operated in what is now E7.

All are now sadly gone, and only the most recent of the Forest Gate seven still stands in a recognisable form - having been through a considerable change of use since the lights were dimmed for the final time in 1975.

In what follows, we present a brief survey and are very much indebted to Bob Grimwood's 1995 book Cinema in Essex and the superb website www.cinematreasures.org for our information. If you can add more - particularly old photos, and offer memories, we'd love to hear from you, via the comments box, below.

Bijou Theatre This was one of Forest Gate's oldest, but shortest lived. It opened prior to 1908 and was owned by Gale's Bioscope Theatres. It was compulsorily closed by the council in 1909, and apparently never re-opened. The Co-op on Woodgrange Road now occupies the site from which it briefly screened.


Co-op, Woodgrange Road, - site of Bijou Theatre

Forest Gate Cinema, also known as The Forest Lane and The Splendid. Like the Bijou, it was close to the railway station. It was opened in 1912 and seated 570 patrons. It was owned by AE Neary and J Lewin. It had been renamed The Forest Lane Cinema by 1922 and after a brief closure for modernisation, in 1932 reopened as The Splendid Cinema. It closed for the last time in 1939/40 and was later demolished. Its site is now occupied by Forest Gate Community School.


Forest Gate Community School, 
site of former Forest Gate Cinema

Forest Gate Public Hall, also known as The Grand Theatre, The People's Picture Palace, The Public Hall, The Grand Cinema and The King's Cinema This was opened as the Forest Gate Public Hall, on Woodgrange Road on 1 November 1902, set back from the road, with its own wide entrance road. It had seating for 1,000 in the stalls and balcony and also had its own stage and ballroom. By 1907 it had become The Grand Theatre and in March 1908, after redecoration, it re-opened as The People's Picture Palace. 


Forest Gate Public Hall, Grand Theatre, People's Picture Palace, Grand Cinema, 
King's Cinema, Woodgrange Road

The venue hosted variety shows as well as cinema and by 1910 it was once again known as The Public Hall, still showing films, with its own orchestra pit. It closed early in 1932 and reopened later in the year as The Grand Cinema. By 1932 it was controlled by London and Provincial Cinemas, but closed in December 1932 until January 1935. 

It was again closed, from October 1935 until January 1937, when it re-opened as the King's, but it closed for good - as a cinema- around the outbreak of war. Over the years the building was used as a roller skating rink, a clothing factory and The Upper Cut club and finally an electrical store, until 2000. It was demolished in 2005, to provide a ventilation shaft for the cross channel rail link, on its way to central London.

Site of old Grand Cinema etc, 
Woodgrange Road, today

The Imperial Playhouse, also known as The Regal and The Rio. This was opened at 55 Woodgrange Road (now the site of the Durning Hall charity shop) by Woodgrange Estates, at the rear of existing shops, with one of them now acting as its entrance hall, in 1910. It was owned by London and Provincial Cinemas by 1922 and was closed for alterations in 1932. 


55 Woodgrange Road, 
site of Imperial Cinema

It reopened as the 600 seater Regal cinema in 1935. It closed in March 1938 and reopened as the Rio later that year, under new management. It closed as a cinema in 1944.

Kings Hall (not to be confused with the King's!) This had a short life, opening in 1910 on the former site of the Forest Gate British School. It closed within four years, around the outbreak of World War 1. The much altered site now houses Angel's restaurant, at the junction of Woodgrange Road and Forest Lane.


79 Woodgrange Road, site of King's Hall Cinema

Odeon This, last surviving local cinema building, was opened in 1937 with a seating capacity of 1,806 - complete with stage facilities and two dressing rooms. It opened on 1 March that year with a showing of Max Miller's Educated Evans. It was hit by enemy bombing in April 1941, when the almost adjacent Queen's was destroyed (see below), but it reopened later, in August that year. It passed to the Rank Organisation in 1948 and remained structurally unaltered until its closure, as a cinema, in November 1975 - with its final show Sean Connery's The Wind and the Lion.


Odeon Cinema, Romford Road - in better shape and days

It was converted into a bingo hall. After this failed it became semi derelict until the stalls areas were refurbished and a false ceiling erected and it reopened as a snooker club. The building retained its Odeon sign, probably because it was too costly and difficult to remove, until it closed for snooker in 1994. 

The building has subsequently been converted into an Islamic centre, whose new owners sanctioned the crude hacking off and vandalism of the art deco relief panels and figures of Pan on the exterior. The Odeon name has also been removed. Since 2001 it has become the Minhaj-Ul-Quran Mosque and Adara Minhaj-Ul-Quran Muslim Cultural Centre. With its dirty, scruffy, defiled exterior it is now, like many of the shops opposite it on Romford Road, a significant eyesore within the district.

Former Odeon Cinema, now 
Minhaj-Ul-Quran mosque, Romford Road

Queen's Cinema also known as New Queen's and ABC Queen's This opened in June 1913 and was originally owned by Forest Gate Estates. It had seating for 1,750, stage facilities, three dressing rooms and its own generators. By 1926 it had come under the control of Suburban Super Cinemas and in 1928 closed briefly for a major refit, during which time its seating capacity had been increased to 2,000. A Christie organ was installed and it reopened in September 1928 as the New Queens. 


Queen's Cinema, Romford Road, pre 1928

The following year it was acquired by Associated British Cinemas and was subsequently renamed the ABC Queen's. It was completely destroyed by a parachute mine on 21 April 1941 and has subsequently been redeveloped as a block of flats/shops between the former Odeon Cinema and Barclays' Bank on Romford Road.

Queen's Cinema, Romford Road, 1930's

Site of old Queen's Cinema, Romford Road, today

Post Script

In November 2014 we added the following posts script to this blog:

A Cinema Miscellany no 24 (2003) by Brian Hornsey has provided valuable additional local material about a few of the local cinemas covered in our history of them in our Every Picturehouse tells a story feature, of July 2013.

We thank him for his painstaking research.

The Imperial Palace (also known as the Regal and Rio) was for a while, around the outbreak of World War 1 known as the Forest Gate Electrical Theatre ( shortened to The Electric).

The Forest Gate Public Hall etc. In its early days had 1,000 seats, but following refurbishment around the outbreak of World War 1 they were reduced to 750 - suggesting that the earlier seating was on benches, replaced by single seats after the refit. Prices for show around the start of World war were from 5d to 1/3d (depending on sitting within the cinema).

The Queen's. Millionaire A E Abrahams had had such success with his Manor Park Coronation Cinema (built, nor surprisingly in 1902) that he built this - a sister cinema to it, near his Forest Gate home. Following its 1928 refit it became one of the first cinemas in the area to show talkies (introduced that year) and full length feature films.

Queen's Cinema

Poor reproduction of photograph
of interior of Queen's Cinema

Another poor reproduction photo
of Queen's Cinema exterior

The Odeon. It was opened on 1 March 1937 with Thank Evans, when prices ranged from 6d to 1/-, with continuous showings from 12.30pm, daily. After the emergence of Odeon the two main cinemas in Forest Gate were it and the Queen's - operated by two of the country's major cinema chains. 

From this time, these two cinemas tended to show the major recent releases and the other local cinemas were left showing re-runs and 'B' movie feature films.

World War 11 and local cinemas. 

All places of entertainment - in Forest Gate, and nationwide - were closed on 3 September and all but essential staff were laid off (without compensation). When it became clear that the threatened invasion was not about to happen, cinemas reopened gradually, after about two weeks. 

There were four local cinemas operating by October 1939: The Odeon (1,800 seats), The Queen's (1,700 seats), The King's (600 seats) and the Splendid (550 seats). The Kings closed first, in 1940 (the circumstances are not clear). The Splendid, dropped its curtain for the final time, around then. The Queen's was badly bombed on 21 April 1941, and its near neighbour the Odeon less severely hit. The Odeon was repaired, but the Queen's was now gone for good.

So, by the end of the war the Odeon was the sole surviving local cinema, brining to an end a frantic half century of openings, closures, name changes and mergers locally. The Odeon was fully restored and operating at its peak level by 1950. It was fitted with a Cinemascope screen in 1954.

Original article, with these notes and photos added as a post script, can be accessed here.

They lie among us

 Forest Gate is, of course, surrounded and populated by cemeteries.  In the first of two pieces on the subject, we look at the City of London Cemetery - which although not in E7, dominates our borders - and some of its more famous occupants.

Four cemeteries were built in our area between 1856 (The City of London one) and 1890 (Woodgrange Park, on Romford Road). They sprung up in response to the rapid growth of London in the middle of the nineteenth century and the resultant chronic overcrowding of the old city church graveyards.  Added to this were public health concerns and legislation about disease being spread by putrefying bodies in the over-crowded city.

Forest Gate was an ideal location.  The area was developing rapidly, itself, because of the growth of railways and its proximity to the city.  Added to this, land was relatively cheap here and of course the Romford Road was one of the major highways out of London, having been the route of the Roman London to Colchester Road.

The Victorian buildings in the cemetery are still in good condition, in what is the second largest London cemetery, after St Pancras and Islington. (see photo).  The mastermind behind the cemetery was William Haywood, who earlier in his career had worked with the famous Joseph Bazlegette on the impressive Abbey House Pumping Station. His ashes lie in a Gothic mausoleum near the gates of the cemetery.
 

City of London Cemetery

The Corporation of London paid £31,000 for 200 acres of farmland near Epping Forest from Lord Wellesley in 1853 and began construction immediately.  They spent £45,000 on constructing the fine graveyard - £20,000 over budget, because of the splendid buildings, iron furniture and imaginative layout. They had planned on building a railway station to serve the cemetery, but couldn't find co-funders and had, in any case run out of money.

The first burial took place in 1856 and over half a million have taken place since. One of the major early tasks was to accommodate the re internment of bodies from 22 City churches, which had either been demolished or suffered from serious overcrowding.  A full list of these can be found in the splendid book London Cemeteries by Hugh Mellor, upon which some of this article relies.

Some of the noteworthy grave transfers include the communal plague pits, re interred remains from Christ's Hospital burial ground, Newgate Street, redeveloped by the Post Office in 1903 and the remains of Newgate prison burial ground, demolished in 1900 to make way for the Old Bailey.

Among the more striking constructions within the cemetery are the Haywood's monument, covering the re interred remains from Holborn churchyard, placed there in 1871.and the memorial to musician and music teacher Gladys Spencer (1931), with the figure draped over a piano.


Haywood's monument, over re interred remains from Holborn churchyard



Memorial to Gladys Spencer (1931)

The cemetery's more celebrated occupants include:
Lieutenant George Drewry VC (1894 - 1918).  George was very much a local boy, having been born at 58 Claremont Road, the son of Thomas and Mary.  He attended Merchant Taylors' School in the City of London. He was 20 years old and serving as a midshipman in the Royal Navy on HMS Hussar when he won his Victoria Cross, during the Gallipoli Landings on 25 April 1915.


George Drewry VC (1894 - 1918)

The citation in the London Gazette on 16 August 1915 reads: "Midshipman Drewry assisted Commander Unwin in the work of securing the barges under heavy rifle and maxim fire. He was wounded in the head, but continued his work and twice subsequently attempted to swim from barge to barge with a line. The King has been graciously pleased to approve of the grant of Victoria Cross to Midshipman Drewry, RNR for conspicuous acts of bravery mentioned in the foregoing despatch."


George Drewry's grave

Drewery later achieved the rank of Lieutenant, but on 2 August 1918 was accidentally killed while on active service on HM Trawler William Jackson, at Scapa Flow. A block fell from a derrick and fractured his skull. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Imperial war Museum.

Elizabeth Everest (d. 1895) had been Winston Churchill's nanny,who contributed to the construct of her monument. Churchill's parents hired her to care for the young Winston, who called her "Woomany" (!).
 
He was later to say: "My nurse was my confidante. Mrs Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants.  It was to her that I poured out all my troubles. She was his constant companion in childhood and they wrote to each other regularly while he was at school.


Elizabeth Everest d 1895

When Churchill learnt that Mrs. Everest was gravely ill he rushed to her beside. He was the only member of his family to attend to her, and upon her death provided the tombstone for her grave. "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole twenty years I had lived.I shall never know such a friend again."

His son, Randolph, wrote in the first volume of the biography of his father, "For many years afterwards he paid an annual sum to the local florist for the upkeep of the grave."


Elizabeth Everest's grave

Percy Thompson (1890 - 1922) the husband of Edith Thompson, who with her lover, Frederick Bywaters was hanged for his murder, in a case that became a cause celebre.  The Thompsons were married at St Barnabas Church, Manor Park in 1916.  Edith became infatuated with Bywaters, a younger man, who soon moved in with the couple, and an affair commenced.
 
Following a violent confrontation between Percy Thompson and Bywaters over the affair, Bywaters was thrown out of the home and returned to sea, as a sailor, during which time he continued a "love letter" correspondence with Edith.
On Bywaters' return from sea, Percy Thomson was stabbed to death.  Edith told the police that she felt Bywaters was the culprit and confided the details of their affair to them. Like Bywaters, she was arrested for the murder, but the only evidence against her was the love letters, which were offered as circumstantial evidence of her guilt.

Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters

The trial took place at the Old Bailey and Bywaters, while admitting his guilt pleaded the innocence on Edith. Ignoring her barrister's advice Edith gave evidence, where she proved to be an unreliable witness and was exposed for providing a tissue of lies. The couple were both found guilty and were sentenced to be hanged.

A million people signed a petition against her death sentence and she became the first woman to be executed in Britain since 1907, on 9 January 1923 in Holloway.  The pair were executed simultaneously - he at Pentonville.  Their bodies were buried in the respective prison cemeteries.

Press cutting announcing hanging of Edith Thompson

Thompson's executioner, John Ellis, later committed suicide, having claimed that Edith's execution had preyed on his mind and caused him to be depressed. Edith Thompson was one of only 17 women to have been judicially hanged in Britain.

Sgts Charles Tucker, Robert Bentley and PC Choate(all d. 1910). All three were shot dead by alleged Russian anarchists attempting a jewel robbery, in what became known as the Houndsditch Murders, in Aldgate, on 16 December 1910.  Two of the perpetrators were later cornered and died in the infamous siege Sidney Street, when Home Secretary, Winston Churchill was photographed leading the police raid on the house where they were holed up. 

Memorial cards to Tucker, Bentley and Choate



PC Choate

The Houndsditch murders, and woundings of other shot policemen,  provoked national outrage and prompted a message from the King to the widows, reading: "The King has heard with the greatest concern of the murder of three constables belonging to the city Police, and he requests you to express to their widows and families his sincere sympathy and his assurance that he feels most deeply for them in their sorrow..."


Sgt Bentley


Sgt Tucker

The killed policemen were accorded a near "state" funeral,  as illustrated by the photograph, below, of the cortege leaving St Paul's Cathedral.


"State" funeral of murdered policemen at St Paul's

Sir Herbert Wilcox (1892 - 1977) and Anna Neagle (1904 - 1986) Wilcox was a film producer, several of whose most successful films starred his wife, Anna Neagle. She was born Florence Marjorie Robertson on 20 October 1904 in Glenparke Road, Forest Gate.  Her family later moved to Upton Lane.  She attended Park Primary school.  She became one of the biggest and brightest "film stars" of her day.


Anna Neagle - 1904 - 1986

Anna was a distant cousin of the Queen, via her descent from the illegitimate daughter of Queen Victoria's uncle. She lived in Brighton for many years with her film director husband, Herbert Wilcox.  She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1969.  She died in Surrey in 1986 after a long illness and is buried in the dame grave as her husband and parents in the City of London cemetery.

We will return to  more detailed accounts of the lives of some of the people in this feature in a later postings on E7-NowAndThen.

Residents' Parking Zone - Claremont and Windsor Roads

A new Residents' Parking Zone scheme was introduced from 9am today (24 June 2013) at western end of Windsor and Claremont Roads, following residents' consultation 18 months ago.  

Early days (minutes!)yet, but a brilliant success, so far, as the following photos illustrate.

Claremont Road, 9am Monday 
24 June 2013, as the Residents' 
Parking Zone comes into effect.

Claremont Road, c 1913

Conservation in action!  Well done to Newham Council for this. A long time in coming, but well worth the effort.

Just the street drinkers on Woodgrange/Claremont Roads to sort out now - if the "community" police officers get round to noticing something 200 metres from their office - and you will be listening to residents' concerns.

The Sound of Music from Earlham Grove

Do - a deer a female deer,
Re - a drop of golden sun,
Mi - a name I call myself,
Fa - a long, long way to run
So - a needle pulling thread
La - a note to follow so
Ti - a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do.

 

The music education system highlighted in The Sound of Music, and the introduction to music for so many - the Tonic Sol-Fa system - was pioneered in Forest Gate in the late nineteenth century.

The Revd John Curwen (1816 - 1880) originally from Workington, in Cumbria, moved to what is now Newham in May 1844, when he became the minister of the Congregational Church in Balaam Street, Plaistow.

John Curwen 1816 - 1880

By this time he was already a keen musicologist, with a particular interest in developing an easier method by which to teach Sunday School children to sing.  In 1840 he had met  Sarah Glover, and had been very impressed with the way in which she taught music at a school in Norwich.

Based on her work, he developed the Tonic Sol-Fa system, which allowed people to sight read music.  Details of his revolutionary new method were first published in the Independent magazine in 1842. He established the Tonic Sol-Fa Press in North Street, Plaistow in 1863 and began publishing huge volumes of literature and music, intended to raise standards of musical education, for both teachers and pupils.

The following year he resigned his ministry to devote more time to music.  In 1879 he opened the Tonic Sol-Fa College at what is now 175, Earlham Grove, Forest Gate.  John Curwen died in 1880 and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Spencer Curwen (1847 - 1916) who, like his father, was a passionate promoter of the Tonic Sol-Fa system.

Late 19th century artist's impression of the College/School of Music. Its 
lopsided appearance is accounted for because the original architects plans 
for the whole building were never completed.

In 1882 he established the Stratford Music festival, the oldest event of its kind in Great Britain (although now sponsored by neighbouring borough, Waltham Forest, as the East London Music festival).

John Spencer Curwen (1847 - 1916), 
who took over his father's baton, 
at the College in Earlham Grove

Harding Bonner, an associate of JS Curwen at the College, started private classes there in 1885 and in 1890, when the Tonic Sol-Fa College moved to Finsbury, in central London, he leased the Earlham Grove premises and turned them into the Forest Gate School of Music.

Harding Bonner 1853 - 1907

In 1897 at his suggestion, the owners erected the Earlham Hall, in front of the original buildings, as a local entertainment venue.


Artists impression of Earlham Hall, 
at the time of its construction, in 1897

The School of Music and newly built Earlham Hall proved to be huge successes.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the school boasted over 1,000 pupils, and in 1906 was renamed the Metropolitan Academy of Music.  Harding Bonner died shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by his son, Frank, who greatly expanded the Academy.  

In 1916 it had 12 branches throughout London and Essex, with a membership of about 2,300 students. After World War I, this rose to 5,000.  It peaked at 5,600 in 1926. By then it was the largest music institution in the country.  

School of Music, 1897, with 700 students and 33 "professors"

The new Earlham Hall, meanwhile, could accommodate around 500 people and hosted regular soirees, as the advertisement and programmes for the events - below, at the end of the nineteenth century, show. 

Handbill advertising a soiree 
at the Earlham Hall, 1899

Forest Gate School of Music c 1930

The Music School closed during World War II, and the premises are now occupied as a place of worship, by the Holy Order of Cherubim and Seraphim Church.




Remodelled and minus the tower and chimneys
 - what remains of the old Music School, today

John Curwen's legacy survives elsewhere in Forest Gate.  The house in Romford Road, in the photo below, was built around 1869, and its first occupant was John Curwen.  He called it Workington House, after his former home town.  He lived there until his death in 1880.

More recently the house was renamed Palmerstone House and it has subsequently been converted to the Imamia Mosque. 


John Curwen's former residence: 
Workington/Palmerstone House, 
Romford Road. Now the Imamia Mosque

(Based on the Victoria History of Essex vol V1 and East Ham and West Ham Past, by Jim Lewis, and articles from The Forest Gate Weekly News)

Booming Woodgrange Road

This week we offer two perspectives on the recent transformation of Woodgrange Road 

The revival of our town centre

by Lloyd Jeans

After weeks of hard graft Forest Gate’s latest independent entrepreneurs, Jeff and Andrea, finally opened to the public at 9am on Saturday 1st June 2013. ‘Number 8 Forest Gate’ is located next door to Coffee7 and opposite Kaffeine on what is fast becoming E7’s version of a traditional village green – the public space at the junction of Woodgrange and Sebert Road. This small area has been developing into a focus for connected local activities – economic, social and cultural – ever since the Woodgrange Market first set up its stalls there eighteen months ago on Saturday 10th December 2011.

June 2013, Number 8 opens for business

The market, initially sanctioned to operate on a trial basis for one Saturday a month for a period of six months, has grown from strength to strength. It was established by a small group of neighbourhood activists. Their aim was to try and revive the centre of Forest Gate by providing a showcase for its army of artists, designers, photographers, and traders in all sorts of healthy produce and original products.

Andrea checks opening day stocks

Prominent in this small group of original traders at the planning stage were its chair Laura Glendinning and Alicia Frances, who were on 1 November 2011 elected as, respectively, the president and secretary of Forest Gate’s successful branch of the Women’s Institute. In February this year Laura wrote to the Recorder to explain what had motivated her to act. 

She said that:

 We need to have more diversity in the high street and we should be encouraging a variety of small business so that people can shop locally ... since the development of Woodgrange Market many people ... now come not only to shop, but to socialise and have lunch. It has also allowed local people to have a go at trading, selling things they have made, or setting up a small business ... I think the regeneration of areas can come from the community itself.

WI cake stall, regular feature of Woodgrange Market

The WI stall, with its wonderful displays of home baking, has been a prominent feature of the market throughout its short history – a story of grass-roots effort that does appear to bear out the theory that revival is possible if it grows organically from below, but success is far less likely with regeneration schemes imposed from above by politicians and developers.

Market has gone from strength to strength

Also in this pioneering group of marketeers were Mic and Mary Clarke, subsequently the proprietors of Coffee7, another neighbourhood hub which has to be recognised as an important agent in the rebirth of our town centre. Along with the complementary Kaffeine coffee shop, it has provided a place for people to meet and co-operate in a wide range of interesting (and hopefully profitable) ventures and enterprises. 

Cllr. Kay Scoresby – at the time the mayor’s "advisor" for Forest Gate – was helpful in smoothing the way in the council, and the seeds were sown.

With the media full of Mary Portas and the government wailing about the death of the high street, it is incredible that there are only two shops boarded up in Forest Gate town centre. Another factor must be the amazing diversity of the local population, which opens up a wide variety of opportunities for independent traders and incomers who might prefer to work for themselves.


Woodgrange News - home to five separate independent traders

Woodgrange News is a good example in that it hosts no less than five other businesses. Adam the newsagent says that he could easily fill another floor given the number of people walking in every week asking for space for yet another niche enterprise.

‘Number 8 Forest Gate’ goes a long way towards fulfilling the hopes of the original marketeers in that all the twenty or so traders who fill its every nook and cranny live and work in Forest Gate. Managers Jeff Levi (Panda Jewellery) and his partner Andrea (Vintage Uber Glitz) negotiate costs on an individual basis, and there is a small percentage on every item sold. 

But otherwise all the proceeds go to the individual trader. We will certainly be returning to the emporium’s other entrepreneurs in the future, but time and space allow brief profiles of two only - Jason Christopher and Antonietta Torsiello.

Jason Christopher is a Forest Gate artist who founded jsmART Designs (www.jsmartdesigns.com) to offer customers a “unique, personal and bespoke creative service.” He has hired space at the back of ‘Number Eight Forest Gate’ to display examples of his paintings and other original works (pictured) which he creates freehand, using traditional methods. He specialises in acrylics on canvas, murals, sketches and traditional sign-writing, and offers to replicate any picture or photograph.

Antonietta Torsiello is a young and again local visual artist and textile designer who had previously taken a market stall to sell her greetings cards and larger pictures (pictured). Now she has taken some space on the side wall of ‘Number 8  Forest Gate’ to showcase her work, which is starting to attract interest outside E7 as well as within. She has exhibited widely over the past three years, and is currently developing her print and textile patterns.

Anonietta Torsiello's market stall

No Portas Blues in Woodgrange Road

by John Walker

The activity at the junction of Sebert and Woodgrange Roads as a busy market mirrors the significance of the spot a century ago - when as can be seen from the photo from above the Woodgrange Dental surgery, the area was adjacent to Forest Gate's market place. As a busy market place, this had its own mobile coffee stall - see illustration below (reproduced courtesy of the Newham archives).

 

The Marketplace, Woodgrange Road

To some local people the new buzz around the area is dismissed as part of the "yuppification" of the Forest Gate. In an odd kind of way, however, it offers a perfect complement to the rest of the retail offer of the booming area. The secret is simple: local shops succeed where they meet local needs, and Forest Gate's enormous ethnic mix provides a considerable opportunity to a huge array of ethnic retail entrepreneurship.

Coffee stall at Forest Gate clock tower, early years of 20th century

While other high streets wither on the vine, dominated by the usual dreary mixture of national outlets, where the shopping experience is identical to that in dozens of identikit high streets, which customers reject in favour of out-of-town shopping malls and massive supermarkets and internet purchases, Forest Gate's reflects the rich cultural mix of the local population.

                                          

Woodgrange Road, 1985, a time of local decline

Just like other high streets, Woodgrange Road has its public service outlets: with a post office, police and railways stations, nursery, doctors surgeries, dentists, chemists, opticians and a recently re-opened library/customer service centre etc. We have the usual array of local convenience shops too: newsagents, grocers, greengrocers, cafes, dry cleaners, bakers, a rather good local butcher, pound and value household goods shops and a token charity shop.  

The professions are also out in force: lawyers, accountants, estate agents, together with the jobbing traders found everywhere: barbers and hair stylists, outfitters and three national supermarkets (Tesco, the Co-op and Iceland).

 

Customer self-service at the recently 
re-opened Gate, Woodgrange Rd

On the downside we have too many bookies for many people's liking - 5 (William Hill, Jennings, Ladbrokes, Betfair and Paddy Power) and fast food outlets (10) - Pizza Hut, KFC, Papa's Chicken, Favourite Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken, Chicken Inn, Charcoal Grill plus a Greggs and a Percy Ingle. 

These, of course meet a real need, often as social and meeting centres for many local people cooped up in bedsit land and shared rooms, predominant in much of our patch.

But what makes Woodgrange Road so very different from many another high street, however, and explains its high retail occupancy rate is its ability to cater for our very diverse local population, with its mix of international food and travel-related businesses.

What other golden half mile of British high street (from Romford Road to Wanstead Park railway station) could boast a thriving?:

• Afghan restaurant (number 52),

• Chinese restaurant (56),

• Indian/Chinese/Thai buffet (Dhoom, former Princess Alice),

• Turkish restaurant (43),

• African restaurant (77),

• Thai cafe (101),

• Afro-Caribbean cafe (108),

• Halal butchers (30),

• Bangladeshi food bazaar (45),

• Asian fish shop (97)

• Polish delicatessen (79),

• Romanian supermarket (99),

• Bangladeshi cash and carry (93),

• Chinese herbalist (50),

• Haj travel agent (Station Approach),

• 3 other travel agents (36, 104 and Station Approach),

• Travel goods shop (39),

• Western Union international money transfer shop (11),

• Pak money transfer shop (Station Approach),

• Global cargo company (52 - 54),

• International postal service (Station Approach),

• Two photographers specialising in passport photos (Station Approach and the Post Office),

• An immigration and legal services company (95),

• An Afro hair and nail bar (15),

• and, of course, a mosque (98).

Indian, Chinese and Thai cuisine at Dhoom

So, there you are, Czarina Portas - the real clue to local retail success: a plethora of shops that meet a profusion of local needs in a thriving culturally and ethnically diverse and vibrant community.

It is perhaps fitting that in the week of Tom Sharpe's death that we are able to proclaim that there are no Portas Blues in Woodgrange Road!