River Ching Walthamstow Stadium

River Ching
The Ching flows south west and then turns North West

Post to the west Banbury Reservoir
Post to the east Hale End

Chingford Road
Christ The King.  Roman Catholic Church built in 1996 by Scott Tallon Walker, replacing a church of 1932.  It is a landmark on the North Circular Road in Brown brick with a triangular bell-tower. Inside are furnishings by Herbert Read of St Sidwell's Artworks, Tiverton. There is a small Blessed Sacrament chapel, with an engraved metal tabernacle and abstract stained glass by Sarianne Durie, 1998.
Greyhound stadium. This was opened in 1931 by William Chandler and remained in his family.  It replaced a stadium set up by the Walthamstow Grange Football club and institute and part of the land used was the Myrtle Grove Sports Ground. It is a survivor of a popular suburban working-class entertainment of the earlier 20th. It was also used for motor cycle speedway and stock car racing and the speedway track is said to remain on site. It has a long white concrete frontage with stepped art deco parapet built in 1932, plus red tubular railings which front a parking area. It once had a clock tower and a night club was opened in its remains. Thus is very striking at night when the neon lighting, installed for the 1952 coronation, is visible. There are two original totalisator boards designed by Thomas Edge of Woolwich. The stands, designed by Captain Meston, have cantilevered roofs, one of concrete, the corrugated metal, with a hospitality suite from the 1980s. The River Ching runs under the south stand in a culvert. The kennels are arranged in a crescent. Closed in 2008 and likely to be housing.
Roadside grassed waste outside the Greyhound Stadium is part of Epping Forest. The Ching runs under it in a culvert
Tarmaced area across the road from the stadium was used as a parking area for patrons to it.
Salisbury Hall. This was a local manor mentioned in 1303. Its land lay between Billet Road and the Chingford boundary and with s fields on Folly Lane and Chingford Road. It was sold to the Crown in the mid-16th and in 1564 was leased to Elizabeth’s old tutor and academic, Roger Ascham. The land was eventually sold for development in 1904. The hall itself was first mentioned in 1499 lying south of the Ching on the west side of Chingford Road.  A timber framed house was built here in the 16th which was demolished by the local council in 1952 when excavation revealed it’s the medieval foundations.
Playing fields opened here in the early 20th by Hackney based Major Charles Villiers for Hoxton Manor boys club. The land had previously been a dairy farm on the site of Salisbury Hall.
Hoxton Manor Allotments. The allotment site was set up in 1957 on what had been council run playing fields. This was for plot holders who had lost sites at Eton Manor allotments because of the building of Ruckholt Road.
Salisbury and Blades Playing Field
Goals Chingford

Empress Avenue
Houses from the pre-Great War period with the Ching providing the north boundary,

Higham Station Avenue
The name of the road indicates that it was intended to stretch through to Highams Park Station – and old maps show it joining to Merriam Avenue.  However extensions to the Xylonite works blocked its route.
Larkswood factory. This extension to the British Xylonite works stood at what is now the end of the road. Here Lactoid was made by BX Plastics was made from 1922. Lactoid is a Casein plastic based on a process using milk curds. There is now housing on the site.

Marlborough Road
Highams Park and Chingford Affiliated Synagogue. Founded in 1932, in other premises. This modernist brick building was opened in 1937. It has a tiled entrance.
Marc and Adele Blair hall. Youth centre built in 1968 to match the synagogue.

Morrison Avenue
Morrison Store

Nelson Road
Parminters School Sports grounds. Parminters School was based in Bethnal Green, and is now in Watford. In 1920 land was purchased in Highams Park to provide a sports ground.  The school now has its own sports centre in Watford and this ground, which was sold to the local authority, is used by local teams. An arrangement with the Old Boys Association continued for a while after the sale.

North Circular Road

Rushcroft Road
Rushcroft Sports College. Secondary school

Hale End Sports Ground
This was previously known as the London Hospital Athletic Ground.

Walthamstow Avenue
Holiday Inn Express. The front was built as headquarters for Hitchman's Dairy with lots of green-glazing and green pantiles on the roof. It was opened in 1938 for milk processing. Hitchman’s Dairies had evolved from local farmers one of whom was John Hitchman who  leased Wadham Lodge farm from Wadham College in the 1860 and gradually took on other local farms in the Highams Park area. He retailed milk in the area throughout the late 19th.  After the Great War Hitchman's were taken over by Davies and Williams, and the firm became Hitchman's Dairies Ltd.  And In 1938 this building was opened on what was then Walthamstow Avenue. They became part of the Unigate group selling milk in most of north east London.
Sainsbury’s Supermarket

Sources
Chingford as it Was
Victoria County History Chingford
Ray Chingford Past
Walford Village London
London Encyclopedia
Field. Place Names of London
Hayward  Streets of Chingford
Christ the King. webside
Walthamstow Stadium website
Hoxton Manor Allotments website
Caseino website
Plastics Historical Society website
Highams Park and Chingford Synagogue website
British History Walthamstow website
London Borough of Waltham Forest Sports Fields web site
Rushcroft College web site

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