IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Sidney Road, LONDON, E7 0EF

This is where you arrive in the northernmost part of Forest Gate, with Wanstead Flats on the left and Centre Road on the right.

Wanstead Flats cover 135 hectares and form the southernmost part of Epping Forest. Despite various attempts over the years to develop them, they remain a treasured open space in an otherwise heavily built-up area.

Angel (or, more correctly Angell) Pond was named after Lewis Angell, the first borough engineer of West Ham. It is not really much of a pond, more an area of boggy ground even in this winter view. Wanstead Flats is the most southerly part of Epping Forest.

Taken from Capel Road looking towards Woodford Road.

The fountain at the southern end of Wanstead Flats was erected in memory of Joseph Fry (1809-1896) who had organised the construction of many drinking fountains, for people and horses, around London.

Not so much a pond in July 2011, more like a boggy puddle. The pond was named after Lewis Angell, who was responsible for the construction of the pond during the winter of 1893-94. At one time there was a bandstand nearby, which is why it is sometimes referred to as Bandstand pond.

This house is on the corner of Pevensey Road and Hesketh Road. It is fortunate that there is an outside post box as there are at least six notices on the front, warning of dogs.

Wanstead Flats form the southernmost portion of Epping Forest. A perambulation of 1225 defined the southern boundary of Epping Forest as the main road from Bow Bridge via Stratford to Romford. The woodland extended south at least as far as Plashet at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086 (Plashet was a Norman-French name meaning a type of forest enclosure). Most of the woodland on what is now Wanstead Flats disappeared during the Middle Ages, and by the end of the 18th century the only unenclosed forest here was a few pieces on the southern fringe of Wanstead Flats. Further enclosure of the flats by Earl Cowley in 1871 caused protests, led by the City of London which was a commoner of the Forest after the purchase of Aldersbrook Farm to build the City of London Cemetery. These protests eventually led to the Epping Forest Act of 1878, which preserved the remaining Forest, including Wanstead Flats, from further encroachment or enclosure. This is Jubilee Pond, near Lake House Road and Dames Road, late on a chilly winter's afternoon.

The southern end of Epping forest marked by this City of London information board.