IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Taverners Way, LONDON, E4 6DJ

At the time of this photo, trains between Chingford and London (Liverpool Street) were operated by WAGN (West Anglian / Great Northern). This is WAGN electric unit 317723.

On the face of it this is just an ordinary residential road that was originally developed once the railway came to Chingford in 1878. But the houses on the left are highly decorated and topped out with extraordinary dragon finials on the gable ends! Note too the post with radiating overhead telephone cables, still a common sight down many residential streets.

The station at Chingford is a terminus: see Image for a brief history by another contributor. This train, although alongside a platform, was not in passenger service, but stabled (out of service) along with several others in adjacent sidings. The photo was taken on a Sunday when fewer trains are required to run the service to London. This is unit no. 315847, operated by WAGN (West Anglia Great Northern).

Many class 317's and 315's waiting in the sidings ready for rush hour.

Passenger trains were extended from Shernhall Street in Walthamstow to serve the Chingford terminus in Bull Lane (now King's Road) over a single track which opened on 17th November 1873. As it was intended to extend this branch to High Beech, there was just a temporary wooden structure at Chingford and locomotives were watered from an old farm pond. With the opening of the extension, the platform at Shernhall Street was closed and replaced by a permanent station at Wood Street. The permanent terminus at Chingford on the very edge of Epping Forest was opened on 2nd September 1878 at some distance north of the original. It possessed a large station house on the down side. It had been intended to extend the line via Sewardstone to High Beech but this coincided with Queen Victoria travelling in the royal train on the Chingford line on 6th May 1883 to declare Epping Forest open to the public. In the excitement, opposition to the desecration of the Forest by a railway killed the extension off once and for all. The platforms at Chingford were extended in the 1920s and four new carriage sidings provided. Chingford was a popular resort for North Londoners at summer weekends and on Bank Holidays and as many as 100,000 people would use the station on a Bank Holiday until just after the First World War. Chingford station has the two platforms seen here as well as extensive carriage sidings. This view looks in the direction of Walthamstow Central and Liverpool Street. The weather was cold and wet all day and was quite as miserable as it looks.

The view from a charter train which originated at Crewe. Stabled in the sidings are Class 315 electric multiple units numbers 315843 and 315860

Class 317 No.670 waiting to depart from Platform 1 Chingford Station.