River Ching - Friday Hill

The River Ching
The River Ching flows south west towards the Lee

Post to the east Buckhurst Hill
Post to the north Chingford
Post to the south Highams Park
Post to the west Pimps Hall

Bluehouse Grove
Coppiced woodland now administered as part of Epping Forest. It is marked as such on a map of 1735 where it is separated from Hatch Grove by a field. There is however a wood bank on the eastern edge of both which is continuous along the two woods – which implies they were once one. Some trees were cut down during the second world war  The name ‘Blue House’ can refer to a dye works making Prussian blue, or another blue product.

Bluehouse Road
Bluehouse Field. In 1735 called Hogg's Coate Field – which might mean a pig sty. This area was probably once also woodland grubbed up in the 17^th and part of both Bluehouse and Hatch Groves.

British Legion Road,
The road and houses were owned by the British Legion.

Chingdale Road
This was once part of Hatch Lane
Chingford Town Football Club ground. This ground is now derelict with some remains may be in the undergrowth.

Friday Hill
This is supposed to come from 15^th resident John Friday. Earlier it was Jackart or Jacketts Hill. There was a local story about toads and snakes, which spat fire.  It remained undeveloped and rural until the death of Louisa Heathcote in 1940.  The London County Council built housing estate on either side of the road is also called Friday Hill
Friday Hill Library. Closed
Plane tree with a plaque from 1998 as one of the great trees of London

Hatch Forest
Administered as part of Epping Forest

Hatch Grove
Part of the same woodland area as Blue House Grove.

Hatch Lane
Ashton Court flats at the roundabout on the Friday Hill corner. Site of pub which grew from sales in the 1820s by a pork butcher in a hut called The Dun Cow. It later became The Manor Hotel and then The Manor Arms, known for its dance floor. It was later called The Horseless Carriage, and then The Wheelwrights and demolished in 2003.

Manor Farm Drive
Manor Farm was in this area, and was purchased and named as this by John Heathcote

Newgate Street
This was previously called Brook Vale Road and leading to a farm of that name.

Normanton Park
Whitehall Primary School. 1980s school described as ‘forceful’.

Simmonds Lane
Friday Hill House. The site of the original manor house is obscure and a site on what was then Jacketts Hill was bought by a John Branch in the late 16^th where a house was built. Inside is an oak table from the original house where James I is said to have knighted ‘Sir Loin’.  The present house was built by Rev Boothby Heathcote when he inherited it in 1838 and was designed by Lewis Vuillamy.   Inside are remains of posh interiors - a room with two walls of trompe d'oeil panels, prettily painted with flowers and birds on a green background, each one different, and attributed to Thomas Kershaw. The family continued to live there until the death of Louisa Boothby-Heathcote in 1940 when the land and house were sold to the London County Council.  It has since been used as a Community Centre.

Western Sewage Works
Land was bought here in 1882 for a sewage works to serve parts of Woodford.

Whitehall Road
This was called Cock Tylers Lane until 1900. This is named from Whitehall
Whitehall stood on the corner of Courtland Avenue and was demolished in the early 1930s. In the Great War it was used by the Royal Naval Air Station’s photographic unit.
Heathcote School and Science College. This has morphed out of a secondary school built in 1950 to serve the estate. The school in the 1950s was designed by H. Conolly, Essex County Architect, with long two-storey classrooms ranges.

Woodford Golf Course

Sources
Home Sweet Home. Greater London Council
Pevsner Essex
Victoria County History
Walford Village London
Ray Chingford Past
Heathcote School web site
British Listed Buildings web site
Whitehall Primary School web site
London Borough of Waltham Forest web site