Victoria Road

A Memory of Barking.

I lived in Victoria Road from 1945 to 1958. I remember the prefabs at the Ilford Lane end of the road. The odd numbered houses in Victoria Road started at number 7. I never understood why that was as I don't think there were houses there before the prefabs. I used to play at the stream (Loxford Water) behind Victoria Road. It was all open then and quite an adventure playground. It sometimes used to flood after a period of heavy rain but this only affected the back gardens of the even-numbered houses in Victoria Road. It is now in a concrete culvert. Barking Park was as earlier described. I once fell into the lake and my father pulled me out by my hair. Opposite the park entrance, on the corner of Tanner Street and Fanshawe Avenue was The Triangle with its parade of shops. I remember a hardware shop ('Oil Shop'), a fish and chip shop, a greengrocer, a newsagent/tobacconist and a printer's. I attended Northbury Infant and Junior Schools, crossing the railway line by a footbridge in Loxford Road. I used to like standing on the bridge getting covered in smoke when a steam train went under it. The bridge there now is much higher and was built when the overhead electrification was done and a railway flyover was constructed. We used to travel to Ilford or into Barking centre by trolleybus, number 691 or 693.
I have only been back there a couple of times since 1958. Victoria Road was much the same but with cars parked all the way down both sides (I used to play in the road as there were few cars about then). The prefabs have gone and there is now a mosque between Victoria Road and Loxford Bridge. The garage on the other side of Ilford Lane has gone and 'The Plough' pub, which was my parents' 'local', has also gone.