IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Royal Crescent, ILFORD, IG2 7NX

This pleasant park is the Ilford War Memorial Gardens, located on the A12 Eastern Avenue just west of Newbury Park tube station. According to the aerial photograph on "Where's the path?" (http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm?lat=51.575089229596195&lon=0.0899505615234375&gz=17&oz=8>=1), the flowerbed behind the memorial itself is in the shape of a cross. View taken looking north-northwest from the A12.

Taken from the steps of Image] this is the formal War Memorial garden laid out in the form of a cross, and clearly visible as such in satellite imagery.

The hotel's website proudly proclaims that at dusk the hotel "glows purple". This night shot confirms it glows both purple and blue. Part of the hotel can also be seen reflected in the large puddle in the foreground. Image

The Newbury Park outpost of this well known budget hotel chain is very large and spread over several floors. Its main claim to fame seems to be that when dusk arrives it "glows purple". See the evening photograph:- Image

In the way of a description the photographer can do no better than to quote, with all due acknowledgement, directly from the London Borough of Redbridge sign in the foreground. "The Ilford War Memorial Hall records the names of 1,159 Ilford men killed in the 1914-1918 War. The Memorial Hall was opened on 25 June 1927 by Lady Patricia Ramsay (formerly H.R.H. Princess Patricia of Connaught). It was intended to serve both as a memorial and as the entrance hall to the new Children's Ward - known as the Walter Stevens Wing - of what was then the Ilford Emergency Hospital, later to become the King George V Hospital. The Children's Ward (since demolished), the Memorial Hall, the Memorial Gardens and the Memorial Monument at the entrance to the gardens were paid for by money raised from donations to the Ilford War Memorial Fund. Despite the original intention, the Memorial Hall was never used as the entrance to the Children's Hospital and, when the hospital closed in 1993, few people knew about the Memorial. However the historic significance of the building was recognised, and a case was successfully made in 1995 for the Memorial Hall and the Memorial Monument to be added to the statutory list of buildings of architectural or historic interest (Grade II). The building was restored as part of a planning agreement between the London Borough of Redbridge and the developers of the adjoining hospital site. The Council is now responsible for its upkeep. For reasons of security, it is not possible to allow unsupervised access to the Memorial Hall but it open on Remembrance Day and at other times of year. It is also possible to obtain access at other times by appointment." The building, which is octagonal in plan, was designed by the architects C J Dawson & Allardyce.

Ilford War Memorial was unveiled in 1922 to commemorate soldiers from Ilford who had died in the First World War. It comprises a stone obelisk surmounted by a cross on a tall stone plinth raised on three steps, with a bronze life-size figure of a soldier on its south side, designed by the sculptor Newbury Abbot Trent (1885-1953). It is located in Newbury Park, some distance north of the centre of Ilford, in the War Memorial Gardens on the north side of the A12 Eastern Avenue. It is a Grade II Listed Structure.

Now here's something you don't see everyday - a Toys R Us store (and giraffes, come to that)! This building was constructed in the mid 1990s as there wasn't another toy store around here, and so we desperately needed one (our nearest Toys R Us before then was in Lakeside in Thurrock!) Currys was previously over the road next to Charlie Browns, but they clearly needed a bigger store so they moved in next to Toys R Us. The old Currys and Charlie Brown's building is now B&Q, which was constructed in 2004 and opened in early 2005. There are, therefore, now two B&Q stores next to each other in the same retail park (the other B&Q store has been there as far as I can remember)! B&Q call it on their website a "Mini Warehouse". View taken from Horns Road looking towards the Premier Inn hotel in the background.