Stoke Newington

I’ve been in Wood Green Library all morning reading up on gentrification, i.e. the process of displacing working class residents and replacing them with middle class types. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that, but you know what I mean. The key case study for this is actually Barnsbury, just down the road, but [...]

Walthamstow

It was with some trepidation that we headed out for a stroll along a soggy Walthamstow High Street this Saturday past. Not because of the usual fears, that the vast hordes of market shoppers would infuriate and aggravate us, or that we’d have so much choice of bowls of fruit that our heads would explode; [...]

Chingford

 
The role call of Chingford’s notables is impressive in an awful kind of way. Starting well with Leslie Phillips, it quickly descends from David Beckham, to Teddy Sheringham, to Samantha Fox, to Daniella Westbrook, to Blazin’ Squad. It’s redolent of the character of the place – situated on London’s very edge and bordering Epping Forest, [...]

Barkingside

 
There are huge swathes of this part of London with little to break them up, and this section of the north east is perhaps the epitome of that. Lengthy avenues are filled with identical suburban homes and traffic, and names like Collier Row, Clayhall, Barkingside, Ilford, Hainault, do little to assist in identifying them. A [...]

South Woodford

 
We’re entering a world of controversy here. What category do I enter South Woodford in? Is it Essex? London North? London East? It’s difficult to know the correct protocol here – my usual tactic of insisting on Essex to the chagrin of Woodforders falls down in the almost incontrovertible evidence of Wikipedia. For that reason, [...]