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Chingford
Chingford maps
Historic maps of Chingford and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Chingford maps
Chingford area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Chingford and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Chingford
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memories of Chingford.
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Chingford Hatch
I remember the Manor pub, it used to have an air raid warning siren on the building. I remember hearing it once, testing it I think as the year was about 1956. I too remember the tea van which had an awning on it in the rain. As small children my sister and I always frequented the friendly atmosphere of the tea drinking bus men, so that we could buy a sweet lollipop from the tea van owner. When we first moved to Friday Hill I can remember the children playing on banks of mud where the workmen had been finishing the main road probably. The year would have been about 1954. Up Newgate Street was Chingford football ground where my brother and I would watch all-stars like Tommy Steele, Bruce Forsyth, and others play. My brother lived down Jim's farm and rode the horses bare-back up the hill into our back garden. My mother was used to cows always coming in the garden. Once Alma Cogan, the 1950s'... Read more
A View of The Forest
Coming down from a castle in rural Scotland to live in Chingford....I never forgave my parents; soon however I discovered Joan - an early girlfriend and love of my life; but she left with her family for the tea plantations of Kenya in 1957 despite my poem to her beauty and the biggest easter egg I could buy.
Although by the late 60s I couldn't wait to leave, I have so many happy memories; pals at Whitehall juniors and fishing Connaught waters in the early morning, with my cousin and a heron for company and the mist still heavy on the water - later in the year learning to skate on the ice with maybe a hundred or so others.
The start of a lifelong love affair with the violin at school and also learning to sing "where'er you walk" by Handel in another, posher church school up the road. Spellbound in later youth by the local godesses as they passed my house, catching squirrels... Read more
Queen's Road Cemetery
My mother's family are all buried in this cemetery in Queen's Road, Walthamstow. I know this because I have frequently visited the family grave.
The Old Gatehouse
This cemetery building and a smaller one at the top of the hill fell into ruin, and during the 1960s these used to be our camps where we used to hang out as kids. The dilapidated chapel in the middle of the cemetery was also open to being explored and played in. It was quite dangerous by today's standards, but in those days nobody really cared.
Sundays
Sundays were memorable, after a proper Sunday roast we would walk from our house at Chingford Hatch, up to the Royal Forest Hotel, then through the woods to the Owl pub, we would sit in the gardens with a drink and a bag of crisps, they had some donkeys in the field next to the garden, which we used to pat, there was also a kettle on a chain in the pub garden with a sign that said 'water 'otter' ... my dad had to explain it to me! Then we walked through the woods along Woodford High Road and down Chingford Lane, stopping at the top of Chingford Lane at a little seafood stall/shop for cockles and shrimps for Sunday tea ... happy memories.
Chingford Hatch
Does anyone remember the Manor pub at the bottom of Friday Hill? It was replaced by the Wheelwrights some years later, there used to be a van selling teas and coffees to the bus drivers and conducters in their breaks at the bus terminus opposite. I think it was called Bill's cafe.
Next to that was a little bridge that went over the River Ching, turn left along the Sandy Path and you came to Chingford football club .. further along were two chocolate-box cottages complete with picket fences, at one of the cottages a lady used to sell us lollies. Next to the cottages were the stepping stones that crossed the River Ching and led you on to the common and golf course ... carry on across the golf links and you came to Woodford where all the 'posh' people lived.
Around there somewhere was a convent , which unfortunately became a prime target for 'scrumping' because of the fruit trees in the grounds - you... Read more
Forest Walks
As from Easter 1956 my family and lived in Loughton, Essex, having moved there from Preston, Lancashire. One of our favourite walks was through Epping Forest which lies between Loughton and Chingford to this old picturesque church buried in the middle of the woods. In 1964 I attended a wedding there, but my own wedding, held later that year, was held in Loughton.
Stay in This Hotel
When we moved to Loughton at Easter 1956 the alterations to our new house which my father had ordered were not ready, so we had to stay in this hotel, because I think there wasn't a suitable hotel in Loughton. My room was right at the top of the building, looking towards the road, and in those days there was a bus terminus there; several buses started from the hotel to different destinations in and around London. Very near the hotel stands Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge.
