Close To Home

Today I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a look around my local area. I think we all get used to the place that we live in, so I walked around and attempted to put myself in the position of someone unfamiliar with Stratford, as if I was seeing it for the first time.

There's a lot of public art in the area, including a couple of very large sculptures by Malcolm Robertson, 'Time Spiral' (next to the station) and 'Railway Tree' (at the bottom of the ringroad), both meant to indicate the fact that from Stratford you can get to almost anywhere by public transport, in fact around the base of both of these statues there are compass points to emphasise the fact. There are also a couple that most people never get to see - on the A11 leading out towards Mile End there are some sculptures that occupy the central reservation, as well as a beautiful mosaic of lavender sellers on the side of Warton House which, sadly, seems to be a target for the developers in the run up to the Olympics and is slowly being demolished. I do hope they find room for the mosaic on the side of the building that replaces it...






Stratford is home to some really elegant buildings as well. I wasn't able to photograph it as it is entirely shrouded in scaffolding, but take it from me that West Ham Town Hall, built in 1879, is breathtaking, both on the outside and on the inside where, on the first floor, there is an absolutely huge ballroom. I guess it's just being renovated at the moment - not even Newham council would have the audacity to pull that down! Just across from the shopping centre, there's also the magnificent St John's Church, which unusually has the best website of any local church that I've ever seen. Have a look for yourself here - there's a potted history of the church itself as well as up to date descriptions of what's on,and biographies of all of the recent vicars that have stood in the pulpit. I happen to live in St John's parish, strangely enough. Also, I can't fail to mention the Theatre Royal, which also sits on the ring road. I might try to some pictures to show how grand it is inside, which you wouldn't guess from its fairly plain exterior. Just down the street from where I live there's also the 'old dispensary', a timber-clad building from the 1700s, which weirdly is being used as Newham council's offices for the 2012 Olympics.





There's quite a lot more to see if you happen to be in the area, and I'll try to cover more in a later blog post. The buildings occuped by the University of East London on Romford Road, as well as the Magistrates Court, are definitely worthy of capturing in one of my photo albums. Today's shots can be found here, and also include a photo of the old Rex cinema, and the 'Stratford Circles' installation by Rhoda Webb (but see if you can find it - it's right in the centre of Stratford but rather difficult to spot...)