Western end of Capel Road

The chance receipt of a couple of photos dating from the 1930s of activity at the western end of Capel Road set regular contributor Peter Williams and his colleague and collaborator Mark Gorman in search of life on that strip of highway from the 1890s until the 1990s. Activity there during that period was very different from that in the primarily Victorian houses that populate the rest of Capel Road today.

The article references several sources that people researching the histories of their properties may find helpful.

The area today

The area covered by this article today is largely occupied by a row of houses built in the late 1990s – see photos below.

Modern houses at the western end of Capel Road (2016)

The history quest began with site photos of a petrol station (see later) located at 10 Capel Road. Half a century earlier, that site had been the location of Manor Farm, run by the Banes family, as suggested by these newspaper adverts from 1899 and 1907.

Barking, East Ham and Ilford Advertiser 18 February 1899

Westminster Gazette 28 October 1907

The site soon became occupied and managed by Thomas Henry Mullins, who gave the address (still known as Banes’ Manor Farm – see photo) for selling a cart (see below).

Banes Manor Farm sign, Capel Road c1907

Barking, East Ham and Ilford Advertiser 31 August 1907

Mullins was a Somerset-born dairyman who lived at 10 Capel Road during the 1911 census. He was one of many country- folk who migrated to towns and cities, maintaining their previous rural occupations. In his case, it was cow-keeping. Several cow-keepers lived near Wanstead Flats until the 1990s, when they let their often small number of beasts graze on the land.

Thomas Henry Mullins - 1911 census - Ancestry

The reasonably prosperous Mullins died in 1916, as this extract from the probate register indicates.

Thomas Henry Mullins - Probate Records, Ancestry

As these clips from the British Newspaper Archives catalogue indicate, the dairy would appear to have been wound up in 1921.

The Gazette - 5 July 1921

It's not entirely clear what happened on the site for the next decade and a half, but by 1937, it featured in a Watsonian Sidecars brochure, selling motorcycle spares. This advert was accessed via an eBay search, which can be an excellent source of images for historical research.

Watsonian Sidecar brochure, 1937

The location was soon converted into Bradley’s Autodrome – a service station, Hillman car dealer, and car repair business. See below.

West Ham and South Essex Mail 06 January 1939

This would have been when the photos that provoked this research were taken. The first is a photo of the petrol pumps, located on the site of the modern houses.

The second is a West Ham-registered car with a number plate dating to the 1930s awaiting a fill-up. A close inspection shows that the service station sold both BP “Ethyl” and Shell products, indicating that the garage was independent and not tied to a sole supplier.

Strangely, the location was described as doubling up as a refreshment room run by Morris James Gregory (see this 1940 Trade Directory). 

1940 Trade Directory

We have no further details of this business. However, a photo emerged recently on Facebook, spotted by a friend of the blog, Tony Morrison, showing these tearooms occupying the site next door, 11 and 12 Capel Road. Unfortunately, it is undated.

A collection of photos in the Newham Archives, dating from 1957, shows that  Autodrome was still an active business. 

Above - 1957 Newham archive photos of the Autodrome, Capel Road

An advert in Commercial Motor magazine from the 1970s suggests was by then trading in Land Rovers and other commercial vehicles.

Commercial Motor magazine, via Google Books

At some time after this notice was placed, the site was taken over and run as a Q8 (Kuwait) fuel station, bearing the familiar logo below. The green posts at the foot of the 2016 photo, above, of the houses now occupying the site were from the Q8 forecourt. They have subsequently been removed. Unfortunately, we do not have pictures of the service station under this badging. We would be grateful to anyone who could supply any.

Q8 logo - on Capel Road service station - 1990s

Capel Point

Tony Morrison’s eagle-eyed skimming of Facebook uncovered a photo showing pre-WW2 1-4 Capel Rd, adjacent to the garage – below.

Front of pre-war 1-4 Capel Point (via Facebook)

These houses were bomb-damaged, and the pictures from the Newham Archive 1957 series on bomb damage clearly show an Anderson shelter at the rear of 1-4 Capel Road.

Back of 1-4 Capel Road, 1957 - Newham Archives

The houses were demolished to be replaced by Capel Point below around 1965.

Capel Point today - source: Google Maps

Footnote. Other articles, by Peter Williams,  about Capel Road can be found here and here.

Wanstead Flats and D Day – 80th anniversary

80 years ago, allied troops staged the biggest seaborne invasion in military history, landing thousands of soldiers on the beaches of Normandy. The liberation of Europe had begun.

Our part of east London played a role in the D Day operations. Throughout the war, Wanstead Flats was the scene of military activity, with anti-aircraft guns, barrage balloons, and a radar array part of London’s defences against the Luftwaffe. 

Anti-aircraft battery on Wanstead Flats

The anti-aircraft defences meant that the Flats and the surrounding area were frequent targets of German bombing, and some houses in the area still bear the scars of war.

Wanstead Park Avenue after an air raid

In the summer of 1944, the Flats became a muster point for troops joining the invasion force. On the 50^th anniversary of D Day in 1994, one veteran remembered how they found out they were on their way to France. On 28^th May, he received his pay packet in French francs. “That told us where we were going” he recalled, but from then on everyone was confined to barracks. An elaborate operation was underway to persuade the Germans that the invasion would be much further east than Normandy in the Pas de Calais. Secrecy was vital to maintain the deception.

From early June troops moved from Wanstead Flats to the Royal Docks to board ships joining the invasion fleet.  A huge convoy of army vehicles was also assembled, and a resident of Latimer Road just south of Wanstead Flats remembers seeing the streets filled with army vehicles as a little girl. Another local resident recalled that after the Americans arrived, their heavy artillery was to be seen along Capel Road. Then overnight, they were gone, on their way to France.

Field guns and ammunition in East Ham High Street North, heading from Wanstead Flats to the Royal Docks

Throughout the summer, troops passed through the area to join the invasion force. Then, later in 1944, German troops began to arrive on Wanstead Flats – as prisoners of war. A small camp opened just south of Lake House Road, which housed some of the hundreds of thousands of troops captured in the months after D-Day.

Little remains of the wartime installations on the Flats, but it is possible to see one of the mess huts used by the crews of the anti-aircraft batteries. It is next to the changing rooms on Aldersbrook Road, now used as a store by the City of London ground staff. A peacetime use for a wartime installation. 

The hut used by anti-aircraft crews in World War II is now a store used by the City of London. It is on Aldersbrook Road between the changing rooms & the Esso filling station

 

 

Fires and drought on Wanstead Flats - a reflection

This August is a significant anniversary month for Wanstead Flats; the fortieth since drought dried area up, and the tenth since it encountered a major fire.

So, we felt it an appropriate moment to remember, both them and previous fires on the Flats - celebrate would hardly be the word! Peter Williams looks back.

2016 is the fortieth anniversary of the Great Drought in Britain when the country was ravaged by grass and heath land fires for over two months. From 22 June until 26 August -  nine weeks - the weather was consistently dry, sunny and hot. The summer of 1976 marked the culmination of a prolonged drought which had begun in April 1975.

By April 1976 the drought had become extremely serious, not only for the water-supply industry but also for agriculture. The topsoil in East Anglia had turned to dust and was being systematically eroded by stiff easterly winds, and farmers warned of poor yields unless the rains came soon. They didn't.

A Drought Bill was rushed through Parliament, water consumption was restricted as reservoirs and aquifers dried out, the parched countryside turned from green to brown and from brown to white as the last vestiges of moisture disappeared, and there were extensive heath and woodland fires in southern England. Finally a Minister for Drought, Dennis Howell, was appointed to co-ordinate water conservation. Within three days it had started raining!

The centrepiece of the summer, meteorologically speaking, was a truly unprecedented heatwave which lasted from 22 June to 16 July - 25 consecutive days - on each of which the temperature climbed to 27C or more (the 80s F) somewhere of other in the  UK.

Even more remarkable, the temperature reached 32C (the 90s F) on every one of the 15 successive days from 23 June to 7 July, inclusive. (Source Philip Eden website weatheronline.)

2006 was also a drought year in the UK.

9 August 2016 marked the tenth anniversary of the largest fire on Wanstead Flats for many years. It burned several acres of ground and made the news. It was a hot dry summer and the fire started near the north end of Centre Road.

There was a strong north westerly breeze blowing so it spread rapidly to the south east amongst the long grass only stopping when it reached the cut grass of the playing fields. The damage covered an area equivalent to 15-20 football pitches.

Eight fire engines attended and Centre Road was closed for several days whilst they were damping down hot spots which kept flaring up in the hot, dry and windy conditions. The last fire engine left nearly a week later.

In fact, there is a long history of fires on the Flats – the first account is from 1835 of a fire covering 20 acres:

Morning Advertiser - 13 August 1835

There was no organised fire brigade at this time (just tiny wooden parish manual engines) so there was no option but to call out the army’s Royal Engineers from Woolwich Barracks. The sappers dug trenches to contain the fire, not to fight it. Interestingly, to this day the fire brigade in Paris is a regiment of the French army and hence are called Sapeurs (sappers) Pompiers.

Here is a further report on this fire, with the interesting addition of a supposed cause:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/books?id=eeQ_AAAAYAAJ-1858

(The relationship between "gipsy partying" and Wanstead Flats is an interesting one and will be the subject of a future article.)

Fires continued to be a feature in the nineteenth century, often caused by what we now call anti social behaviour:

Cheltenham Chronicle - 13 August 1887

Essex Newsman - 15 September 1906

The pictures below give some impression of 2006. Fire engines were deployed onto the flats.

Large columns of smoke covered Forest Gate east of Centre Road and drifted south over the houses. There was no risk to property however.

A ghostly fire engine on the Flats. You can see how dry this grass was in 2006.

Centre Road was closed for a couple of days as water supply was a problem and the hoselines ran across and down it. This is near the Centre Road car park.

This specialist hoselayer was deployed from as far away as Southgate. Other specialist fire appliances were brought in. Note hoselines down Centre Rd junction of Forest Rd. It was nice to walk down the road with no traffic across the Flats for once.

Looking south towards Capel Point, at the corner of Woodford Rd/Capel Rd, and Canary Wharf in the distance. In total 30 acres was affected. Note how the paths were not burnt as they are gravelly and compacted so the fire tended to jump them. Some wartime features were exposed by the fire.

The same view 13 August 2016. Notice
 how the vegetation on the right (mainly
 broome) has grown so extensively

This image is from Google earth, dated

 September 2006, and clearly shows the fire damage.

The light area in the photo, above, is the Centre Road car park. Top right corner is Aldersbrook Road changing rooms and car park. The pattern of burning is quite clear, with the origin, top left, of burnt area. There was a stong breeze from the north west. Note how the paths remain very clear.

Since the end of cattle grazing on the Flats in 1998, due to the BSE crisis, there has been a significant issue of the spread of such scrub. There have been no major fires in the last few years to limit its spread.

The Corporation of London are planning a programme of scrub reduction in a managed way involving some local voluntary groups including the Wren Conservation and Wildlife Group. Broome is an important home for wildlife especially birds, but there needs to be a balance between open grassland and the more scrubby areas; that balance traditionally would have been maintained by grazing with cattle nibbling out certain plants and encouraging diversity.

Newham council parks police white CCTV
 vehicle on the Flats on 9 August 2006

In 2006 the Newham's parks' police service courted controversy and was later closed down. Maverick officers put blue lights on vehicles when they should not have (as they were not official 999 emergency vehicles), and there were several other scandals associated with them, including using Metropolitan Police paperwork in tackling what was anti social behaviour, not crime, e.g. incorrect disposal of waste by shopkeepers.

They “arrested” some boys on Aldersbrook Road near the Flats even though they were not in Newham at the time but in Redbridge. Indeed the picture above shows them operating on the flats which are in Redbridge where they had no legal authority as they were a Newham council force.

An independent solicitor, Amanda Kelly, was commissioned to conduct an investigation into the Newham parks police. As the Waltham Forest Guardian reported it in May 2006:

An investigation has been launched into claims that two boys were unlawfully held and questioned by parks' constables outside the boundaries of Newham.

If true, the incident will do further damage to the reputation of the division, which was condemned as badly trained and poorly run by an independent inquiry last year.

The report by solicitor Amanda Kelly found that the service was riddled by unproven allegations of abuses of power, corruption racism and bullying.

Despite having powers of arrest inside parks, the constabulary have the same authority as members of the public on the streets and are not permitted to patrol outside Newham.

Kwaljit Singh, 17, of Campbell Road, East Ham, told the Guardian that he was attempting to cross Aldersbrook Road in Wanstead when a van carrying up-to six officers blocked his passage.

He admitted that he shouted at the van, which then stopped and reversed. He said he panicked asnd fled, but was pursued by the constables who caught up with him.

He was joined by his friend Sahmi Mohammed, 14, of Whitear Walk, Stratford, and the two were ordered into the back of the van.

According to an official log seen by the Guardian, when constables noticed Sahmi was wearing a tag the police were called and asked if there was any reason why he should be detained.

A police officer refused to give the constables any information and they were forced to release the two.

Kwaljit said: I admit I did shout at the van and panicked a bit, but they were intimidating and calling me names. I knew straight away who they are because they often stop me and my friends, but they did not identify themselves and tell me what my rights were.

The log records the incident as taking place "out of borough" and listed an anti-social behaviour category listed as "shouting/swearing".

A council spokesman said : "We have been made aware of an alleged incident in Aldersbrook Road and are investigating the matter".

See also:  http:/www.blowe.org.uk/2012/08/how-is-this-not-impersonating-police.html

Footnotes

1. Not the 2006 fire but this is Capel Road Forest Gate with the flats in the background.

This Land Rover, above, was a former fire engine appliance served with SFOR, (the United Nations stabilisation force) in the former Yugoslavia.

You can see SFOR label on the rear bumper nearside. It could regularly be seen driving round Forest Gate, where it was photographed in late 2005, still with its crests on the doors. 

It was on civilian registration plates having been re-registered on leaving the defence forces, and blue lights removed. Defence Fire Service stickers were still on the doors though:

In 2015 it was reported on a specialist’s website - It now drives around Wythenshawe in Manchester.  It is more black than red but still looks the same: same back door and still has the fire stickers on the driver and passenger door!


2. Author Peter Williams is both a local historian and a historian of the fire brigade.