Great Eastern Railway from Liverpool Street to Chingford. Walthamstow
Great Eastern Line to Chingford
The line to Chingford continues northwards from Wood Street Station.
Post to the south Walthamstow Wood Street
Post to the north Hale End
Beacontree Avenue
The road ran parallel to the old pre-1970s North Circular Road. The raised grass sward along the east side of the road is in fact the old North Circular which lies under the grass. In places the concrete road surface shows through. There are steps at the corner with Pentire Road by an electricity substation which demonstrate the difference in levels between the old road and the new motorway standard road above. From here a subway – hidden from the road – goes under the North Circular to join to forest paths. It has a railed off footway and a disused vehicle road.
Bellevue Road
Named for Belle Vue House or Cooke's Folly which stood near the junction with Beacontree Avenue. It was built around 1803 in what was then called Hale Brinks Woods for Charles Cooke, to the design of Edward Gyfford. It was a Regency villa with a semi-circular portico on the west front. It was demolished in 1937
Brookscroft Road
Spruce Hill Church. This originated in 1893 as a mission and a church was built in 1900. This appears to have been Congregational. The church was temporarily closed in 1942 but reopened in 1943. It closed permanently in 1946. The building was sold in 1952 and may have been in other use before it was demolished. The site is now housing.
194 Louise House. Employment support for disability.
Clifford Road
Ensign Works. This was an extension of the main Fulbourne Road Wallis Gilbert designed works making cameras and associated products. The Walthamstow Business Centre is now on the site of most of the works, including Prestige House and is a business and trading area
Micanite and Insulator works in Empire House. Now demolished for the business centre. They began as Mica Insulator Co. Ltd. in 1901 at Stansted Mountfitchet. They built a factory in 1907 and were associated with Associated Electrical Industries Ltd. and English Electric Co. Ltd. From 1939 British Tego Gluefilm Ltd., was in production here. In 1958 the company became a part of the A.E.I. group.
Forest Road
This was once called Haggar Lane.
Haggar Farm. This was a dairy farm near the junction with Fulbourne Road.
There was a beer shop at the east side of this junction which closed in 1882. It became a house called ‘Meadow Lodge’
Claystreet house
Fulbourne Road
363 Living Flames Baptist Church. Highams Park Tabernacle. Built as a mission by T. A. Tucker originally in Station Parade. When the present church was built in 1910. It has a red brick front, and leafy capitals.
Forest Works. Recently demolished buildings by Wallis Gilbert & Partners as one of their earliest works in the 1920s. This was the works of Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd., who made cameras and other photographic apparatus. They began in 1908, when Spratt Bros. of Hackney a branch of Houghtons Ltd., which dated to 1834 but who had a licence for daguerreotypes, established the Ensign Works here in the 1900s. In 1908 it was the biggest British camera factory became known as Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Ensign Ltd., and the merged with Elliott & Sons Ltd. of Barnet, as Barnet Ensign Ltd. In 1939 it introduced the Ensign Ful-Vue box camera, one of the most popular cameras of its time in the UK in 1948 they merged again with Ross Ltd. as Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd. After the Second World War they abandoned the Ensign Commando rangefinder camera but continued with Ensign Selfix and Ensign Autorange folding cameras and new models the Ensign Ranger or the Snapper. In 1946 at a new version of the Ensign Ful-Vue was released. In 1954 they moved to Clapham and the building was acquired in by Fuller Electric as their West Works. It had a staggered front with brick bands between long windows. West Works was eventually put up for sale and taken over by Spring Steel Productions, long established at adjacent Victoria Works. They have now left and the building has been demolished.
ASEA (Great Britain) Ltd. and Fuller Electric Ltd. Made electric motors and transformers. They originated from 1905, when the Fuller-Wenstrom Electrical Manufacturing Co., which assembled Swedish made electric motors manufactured in Sweden, moved to Walthamstow. In 1906 they became Fuller Electrical and Manufacturing Co., and in 1910 formed, Allmänna Svenska Electric Co. Ltd (ASEA) . They moved here in 1915, and made transformers from 1919. The factory was bombed in 1944. In 1955 the empty Barnet Ensign Ross building across the road was bought as their West Works. In 1957 Fuller Electric was acquired by Brush which then merged with Hawker Siddeley.
Hawker Siddeley Power Transformers Ltd. John Leslie Fuller had founded the Company in 1898 and a work was established in Blackhorse Lane. In 1915 a new factory was built on six acres of ground here by the Fuller-Wenstrom Electrical Manufacturing Co Ltd. As well as electric motors they made transformers and o 1926, a three-storey high transformer assembly hall plus machine shops was built to. In 1953-54 a c75ft-high transformer assembly hall was built with upper and lower gantry beams this was designed by Elliott Cox & Partners and erected by W J Cearns Ltd. Following its acquisition by FKI Energy Technology, this extensive works closed in May 2003.
Cedar Wood House. This is the three-storey office building for ASEA, by Wallis Gilbert. It is ‘given grandeur’ by a formal stone frontispiece on the end wall. It is now Waltham Forest Housing Department offices.
Guildford Road
Forest Community Centre. Drama, music, etc.
Hale End Road
Hale End Open Air Schools. In 1919 Walthamstow Urban District Council opened the Brookfield Orthopaedic Hospital and School for Crippled Children at Brookfield House. In 1936 it moved to Wingfield House, in Hale End Road and called Hale End Open Air School. In 1957 it was renamed Wingfield House School and the open air treatments had been much diluted and in 1964 it moved back to Brookfield. Wingfield House then became the Frederick Bremmer Secondary School but in 1972 Whitefield School replaced it. The original mansion was demolished and replaced
Thorpe Hall Farm – a house here was a manor house in the 16th and earlier, and later used as a farm. The school is now on the site.
133 Thorpe Hall Infants School. Opened in 1933 by the local authority.
Macdonald Road
Aneroid Works. Short and Mason was established in 1845 in Hatton Garden, and produced precision measuring instruments including barometers, anemometers, and compasses. In 1904 they patented a barograph, called the Cyclo-stormograph. They moved to Macdonald Road in 1910 specialising in storm forecasting equipment and later supplying the aircraft industry. In 1958 the business moved to
Wood Street.
Whitefield Schools and Centre. The buildings date from 2010. This is a provider of Special Education with an international reputation. Whitefield became a teaching school in 2012 and in 2014, became part of the Whitefield Academy Trust, sponsoring Joseph Clarke School for children with visual impairment There are three ‘schools’ within Whitefield: Margaret Brearley for all-age pupils with complex needs; Peter Turner Primary School for primary age with communication difficulties; and Niels Chapman Secondary School for older pupils with communication difficulties, or hearing loss. In 1903, Forest Road Centre for Defective Girls was opened and High Street Centre for Defective Boys. Later they amalgamated as Shernhall Street Special Schools. After the Second World was, following bombing, the school moved to the site of the Open Air School on Hale End Road but later moved to Pretoria Avenue. As the school grew it was renamed Whitefield School and moved to the present site in 1972. In 1994 it was the first special school to become Grant Maintained, and became a Foundation Special School in 1999. In April 2014, Whitefield Schools and Centre joined with Joseph Clarke School to become Whitefield Academy Trust
North Circular Road
This was built as far as Crooked Billet in 1927 and then along Wadham Road on a line opened in 1930 and then parallel to Becontree Avenue to Forest Road and the edge of Epping Forest. It was 1970 rebuilt on the present line & the old section passed over. The North Circular is at a higher at the point where they merged then gradually comes down to a level at the junction of Forest road. There are steps from Beacontree Avenue at this point.
Slip from Wadham Road – this is a length of the original North Circular before the rebuilding, although this piece had lost the decorative concrete barriers still in place to stretches to the west. A subway remains.
Railway Terrace
Footpath along the railway
1 BSB Blind manufacturer
Siddeley Road
Frederick Bremmer Secondary School. The school opened here in September 2008, replacing Warwick School for Boys and Aveling Park School. The school is named after local car inventor Frederick Bremer and largely covers the site of the Hawker Siddley transformer works.
Corporation Depot. There was a siding off the railway
Victoria Road
30 Victoria Works. Spring Steel Productions. Goss family firm making springs and precision castings. They later moved into West Works
Sources
British History Online. Web site
Frederic Bremmer School. Web sit
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
SABRE Roads A406. Web site
Skinner. Form and Fancy
Victoria County History. Essex
Whitefield School. Web site.
The line to Chingford continues northwards from Wood Street Station.
Post to the south Walthamstow Wood Street
Post to the north Hale End
Beacontree Avenue
The road ran parallel to the old pre-1970s North Circular Road. The raised grass sward along the east side of the road is in fact the old North Circular which lies under the grass. In places the concrete road surface shows through. There are steps at the corner with Pentire Road by an electricity substation which demonstrate the difference in levels between the old road and the new motorway standard road above. From here a subway – hidden from the road – goes under the North Circular to join to forest paths. It has a railed off footway and a disused vehicle road.
Bellevue Road
Named for Belle Vue House or Cooke's Folly which stood near the junction with Beacontree Avenue. It was built around 1803 in what was then called Hale Brinks Woods for Charles Cooke, to the design of Edward Gyfford. It was a Regency villa with a semi-circular portico on the west front. It was demolished in 1937
Brookscroft Road
Spruce Hill Church. This originated in 1893 as a mission and a church was built in 1900. This appears to have been Congregational. The church was temporarily closed in 1942 but reopened in 1943. It closed permanently in 1946. The building was sold in 1952 and may have been in other use before it was demolished. The site is now housing.
194 Louise House. Employment support for disability.
Clifford Road
Ensign Works. This was an extension of the main Fulbourne Road Wallis Gilbert designed works making cameras and associated products. The Walthamstow Business Centre is now on the site of most of the works, including Prestige House and is a business and trading area
Micanite and Insulator works in Empire House. Now demolished for the business centre. They began as Mica Insulator Co. Ltd. in 1901 at Stansted Mountfitchet. They built a factory in 1907 and were associated with Associated Electrical Industries Ltd. and English Electric Co. Ltd. From 1939 British Tego Gluefilm Ltd., was in production here. In 1958 the company became a part of the A.E.I. group.
Forest Road
This was once called Haggar Lane.
Haggar Farm. This was a dairy farm near the junction with Fulbourne Road.
There was a beer shop at the east side of this junction which closed in 1882. It became a house called ‘Meadow Lodge’
Claystreet house
Fulbourne Road
363 Living Flames Baptist Church. Highams Park Tabernacle. Built as a mission by T. A. Tucker originally in Station Parade. When the present church was built in 1910. It has a red brick front, and leafy capitals.
Forest Works. Recently demolished buildings by Wallis Gilbert & Partners as one of their earliest works in the 1920s. This was the works of Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd., who made cameras and other photographic apparatus. They began in 1908, when Spratt Bros. of Hackney a branch of Houghtons Ltd., which dated to 1834 but who had a licence for daguerreotypes, established the Ensign Works here in the 1900s. In 1908 it was the biggest British camera factory became known as Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Ensign Ltd., and the merged with Elliott & Sons Ltd. of Barnet, as Barnet Ensign Ltd. In 1939 it introduced the Ensign Ful-Vue box camera, one of the most popular cameras of its time in the UK in 1948 they merged again with Ross Ltd. as Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd. After the Second World War they abandoned the Ensign Commando rangefinder camera but continued with Ensign Selfix and Ensign Autorange folding cameras and new models the Ensign Ranger or the Snapper. In 1946 at a new version of the Ensign Ful-Vue was released. In 1954 they moved to Clapham and the building was acquired in by Fuller Electric as their West Works. It had a staggered front with brick bands between long windows. West Works was eventually put up for sale and taken over by Spring Steel Productions, long established at adjacent Victoria Works. They have now left and the building has been demolished.
ASEA (Great Britain) Ltd. and Fuller Electric Ltd. Made electric motors and transformers. They originated from 1905, when the Fuller-Wenstrom Electrical Manufacturing Co., which assembled Swedish made electric motors manufactured in Sweden, moved to Walthamstow. In 1906 they became Fuller Electrical and Manufacturing Co., and in 1910 formed, Allmänna Svenska Electric Co. Ltd (ASEA) . They moved here in 1915, and made transformers from 1919. The factory was bombed in 1944. In 1955 the empty Barnet Ensign Ross building across the road was bought as their West Works. In 1957 Fuller Electric was acquired by Brush which then merged with Hawker Siddeley.
Hawker Siddeley Power Transformers Ltd. John Leslie Fuller had founded the Company in 1898 and a work was established in Blackhorse Lane. In 1915 a new factory was built on six acres of ground here by the Fuller-Wenstrom Electrical Manufacturing Co Ltd. As well as electric motors they made transformers and o 1926, a three-storey high transformer assembly hall plus machine shops was built to. In 1953-54 a c75ft-high transformer assembly hall was built with upper and lower gantry beams this was designed by Elliott Cox & Partners and erected by W J Cearns Ltd. Following its acquisition by FKI Energy Technology, this extensive works closed in May 2003.
Cedar Wood House. This is the three-storey office building for ASEA, by Wallis Gilbert. It is ‘given grandeur’ by a formal stone frontispiece on the end wall. It is now Waltham Forest Housing Department offices.
Guildford Road
Forest Community Centre. Drama, music, etc.
Hale End Road
Hale End Open Air Schools. In 1919 Walthamstow Urban District Council opened the Brookfield Orthopaedic Hospital and School for Crippled Children at Brookfield House. In 1936 it moved to Wingfield House, in Hale End Road and called Hale End Open Air School. In 1957 it was renamed Wingfield House School and the open air treatments had been much diluted and in 1964 it moved back to Brookfield. Wingfield House then became the Frederick Bremmer Secondary School but in 1972 Whitefield School replaced it. The original mansion was demolished and replaced
Thorpe Hall Farm – a house here was a manor house in the 16th and earlier, and later used as a farm. The school is now on the site.
133 Thorpe Hall Infants School. Opened in 1933 by the local authority.
Macdonald Road
Aneroid Works. Short and Mason was established in 1845 in Hatton Garden, and produced precision measuring instruments including barometers, anemometers, and compasses. In 1904 they patented a barograph, called the Cyclo-stormograph. They moved to Macdonald Road in 1910 specialising in storm forecasting equipment and later supplying the aircraft industry. In 1958 the business moved to
Wood Street.
Whitefield Schools and Centre. The buildings date from 2010. This is a provider of Special Education with an international reputation. Whitefield became a teaching school in 2012 and in 2014, became part of the Whitefield Academy Trust, sponsoring Joseph Clarke School for children with visual impairment There are three ‘schools’ within Whitefield: Margaret Brearley for all-age pupils with complex needs; Peter Turner Primary School for primary age with communication difficulties; and Niels Chapman Secondary School for older pupils with communication difficulties, or hearing loss. In 1903, Forest Road Centre for Defective Girls was opened and High Street Centre for Defective Boys. Later they amalgamated as Shernhall Street Special Schools. After the Second World was, following bombing, the school moved to the site of the Open Air School on Hale End Road but later moved to Pretoria Avenue. As the school grew it was renamed Whitefield School and moved to the present site in 1972. In 1994 it was the first special school to become Grant Maintained, and became a Foundation Special School in 1999. In April 2014, Whitefield Schools and Centre joined with Joseph Clarke School to become Whitefield Academy Trust
North Circular Road
This was built as far as Crooked Billet in 1927 and then along Wadham Road on a line opened in 1930 and then parallel to Becontree Avenue to Forest Road and the edge of Epping Forest. It was 1970 rebuilt on the present line & the old section passed over. The North Circular is at a higher at the point where they merged then gradually comes down to a level at the junction of Forest road. There are steps from Beacontree Avenue at this point.
Slip from Wadham Road – this is a length of the original North Circular before the rebuilding, although this piece had lost the decorative concrete barriers still in place to stretches to the west. A subway remains.
Railway Terrace
Footpath along the railway
1 BSB Blind manufacturer
Siddeley Road
Frederick Bremmer Secondary School. The school opened here in September 2008, replacing Warwick School for Boys and Aveling Park School. The school is named after local car inventor Frederick Bremer and largely covers the site of the Hawker Siddley transformer works.
Corporation Depot. There was a siding off the railway
Victoria Road
30 Victoria Works. Spring Steel Productions. Goss family firm making springs and precision castings. They later moved into West Works
Sources
British History Online. Web site
Frederic Bremmer School. Web sit
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
SABRE Roads A406. Web site
Skinner. Form and Fancy
Victoria County History. Essex
Whitefield School. Web site.
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