The London/Essex border - Woodford Bridge

TQ 42 92
The London/ Redbridge /Essex boundary has crossed Chigwell Road going south east and then crosses Manor Road and then turns east.

Thames Tributary River Roding
The Roding flows southwards

Post to the west Woodford Bridge
Post to the north Woodford Bridge
Post to the east Claybury

Sites on the London, Redbridge, side of the boundary

Ashton Playing Fields
Ashton Park. Playing fields of 50 acres administered by a trust. It is close to the river and made after draining the water meadows, It has a with pavilion and community centre built in 1937 with a modern design by Herbert Welch of simple rendered walls, and low wings. It was given by H.S. Ashton of Ingatestone 'to encourage the right use of leisure'- as is noted on a lettered tablet. A matching tablet records his death in 1943 and that of his son in 1942. The track was built in 1973 and was the first synthetic one in Essex. It originally had a Rubkor surface which replaced a cinder track which was to the side of the current one and had to be demolished in 1973 due to the building of the M11. One of the straights of the cinder track is still part visible.

Chigwell Road
The village centre is around the lower green at the junction with Manor Road.
Terraces Two-storey Victorian, dated 1867- 8,
Shopping terrace Victorian with Gothic upper windows.
White Hart, a coaching inn rebuilt c. 1900, quite an elaborate half-timbered effort with three gables.
637-641, 643, 645 647-9. – A row of older cottages much altered. With central stacks

Green
Church Hall. Built in 1860 as school and schoolhouse in red brick
Council houses. Pleasant gabled pairs
Thurlby House, now flats, the cream-stucco exterior hides a complicated history. The central section is probably late 18th in origin with new windows and porch, added in the early 19th and then a Victorian service wing. The entrance hall has elegant stairs. It was used as a branch library and also by Dr. Barnados pre- Second World War. There is a little graveyard in the grounds.

Manor Road
St Paul’s Church. Set on a sloping green. Built 1853-4 by Charles Ainslie but damaged by fire in 1880 and restored by W.G. Bartleet & Son in 1886. It is a Gothic church built of ragstone. It has a tower porch and a steeple with broach spire. War Memorial with a figure of St George, 1920. 19th stained glass and a roundel in clear glass, the border with tiny animals; 1987 by Alan Younger.
Prince Regent Hotel. Gwynne house. Rebuilt on site of medieval Guynes Manor. 1816. for Henry Burmester by J.B. Papworth. It has a neoclassical front; and a Doric porch. The interior was changed c. 1980 for hotel use, but the curving top-lit stair still had its stick balusters which are typical of c. 1800. The garden front has a trellis porch. It was used as a centre for Dr. Barnardo's Homes from 1910 to the 1970s. Then this substantial hotel extension was added by the John Brunton Partnership, on a curve, brick with slated roof, with car park below. It forms a link to the former Barnardo's chapel which is now hotel bedrooms. This chapel dates from 1932 by W.H. Godfrey, a long brick building... The grounds were built up with cottage homes for boys, now replaced by housing known as Gwynne Park
Police Station, in the fork of Chigwell Road and Manor Road, 1900 by J. Dixon Butler, small but carefully detailed, brick with stone dressings to the ground floor bay; upper floor corbelled out, tall chimneys. The entrance has been moved. Tiny outbuilding behind
The Cottages, opposite the pond, a pair with hipped roof, pastel-blue-painted weatherboarding, and two tiny bay windows, so immaculate that they appear pastiche.
Guide Dogs London Centre, built on part of the Barnardo's site in 1984-6 by Hanson Rowe & Partners, is a dark brick cluster, discreetly set back.
Crown and Crooked Billet the top of the green, the mansard-roofed, late c18 in origin.
Claybury Hall. Rebuilt 1790-1 by Jesse Gibson for James Hatch on a bluff at the end of the estate, with a spectacular view. Built of white brick from Woolpit, Suffolk. Simple entrance front with parapet and porch with paired columns. The entrance was moved to the front on Repton's advice. The garden front has a bow window surrounded by a colonnade of columns. The interior, damaged in a fire, was restored in 2002. There is a stone staircase, near the bottom of which is a bell, dated 1785, suspended from a wooden frame. The stable block, only part of which was still standing in 1964, was similar in style and date to the house. In 1791 Hatch commissioned Humphrey Repton to advise him on replanning the park

Roding Lane North
Finch House, 18th

Woodford Bridge,
Long history of aggravation and floods. 1962 widened and County Council previously turnpiked. Oldest area of Woodford. Area of bridge over Roding from Abridge

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