Living in Wanstead: area guide to homes, schools and transport

Green acres, good schools and great shops in the north-east London suburb of Wanstead draw trendy types seeking family homes and a gentler pace.
Green expanse: Wanstead Park, 140 acres managed as part of Epping Forest, with the Temple visitors’ centre
Anthea Masey12 February 2016

No stranger to drama, the north-east London suburb of Wanstead has seen rooftop protest in recent history and, as home to Snaresbrook Crown Court, has been the media focus during countless high-profile criminal trials.


Last September saw the 20th anniversary of a residents’ war against the M11 link road. After years of protest the bulldozers rolled in - whereupon locals declared their neighbourhood the Independent Free Area of Wanstonia, built a tree house in a 250-year old chestnut at George Green and took to the roofs in Cambridge Road. Some even ventured to take over the rooftop at the Muswell Hill home of John MacGregor, then Tory transport secretary.


Famous cases heard at Snaresbrook include that of Darius Guppy, Eton-educated friend of Mayor Boris Johnson, who was convicted in 1993 of staging a fake jewel heist. In 2009, singer and DJ Boy George was jailed for false imprisonment, and in February last year, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster got 11 years for supplying a gun to Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked the August 2011 riots.

 
Wanstead, 10 miles from central London on the southern edge of Epping Forest, has Leytonstone to the south and Woodford to the north. Wanstead and Snaresbrook Tube stations, on the Central line, sit at either end of the pretty High Street, providing fast journey times to the City and West End.
 

£950,000: an extended Victorian six-bedroom house in Sylvan Road, with a large garden and a swimming pool


What there is to buy
The area around the High Street has mainly Victorian cottages and terrace houses, and Kevin Briley, of local agent Churchill Estates, says a two-bedroom cottage will set you back about £500,000. Three-bedroom terrace houses fetch between £550,000 and £650,000, with four-bedroom houses starting at the £650,000 mark.
 
Estate agent Hetherington is selling a six-bedroom, double-fronted Victorian house in Sylvan Road for £950,000. The Warren Estate, west of Blake Hall Road, has mainly three-bedroom Thirties semis, although there are some Edwardian houses. A four-bedroom Thirties semi-detached house sells for about £650,000.
 
The Aldersbrook estate, between Wanstead Park and Wanstead Flats, the southermost part of Epping Forest, is slightly cheaper. A three-bedroom Edwardian terrace house there would sell for £500,000 to £550,000.
 
Churchill Estates has a two-bedroom Edwardian semi in Ingatestone Road with a 90ft garden for £525,000. Eagle Court is a Thirties development of mock-Tudor mansion flats on Hermon Hill, where one-bedroom homes start at about £270,000, with two-bedroom flats from £325,000.
 
The gothic clock tower of the former Wanstead Hospital is a local landmark, also in Hermon Hill. The listed hospital buildings were converted into flats in the Nineties and one-bedroom flats in Clock Court sell for about £240,000.

Welcome break: co-owner Debbie Roper takes an order at Time for Tea in Wanstead High Street 


Postcodes: the Leytonstone postcode, E11, also includes Wanstead, Snaresbrook and part of Aldersbrook — the rest of Aldersbrook falling into the Manor Park E12 postcode.

Best roads: St Mary’s Avenue, Felstead Road, Draycott Road and Tennyson Avenue in the area to the east of Blake Hall Road; The Avenue and Grove Park to the east of the High Street.

Up and coming: the Bushwood area of Leytonstone is where buyers who can’t afford Wanstead look for a Victorian terrace house below £500,000.

Travel: Wanstead is on the A12, close to the North Circular road and within easy reach of the M11. The two London Underground stations - Wanstead on the Hainault loop of the Central line and Snaresbrook on the Epping branch of the same line, with 20-minute journey times to Bank and 28 minutes to Oxford Circus - are in Zone 4 and an annual travelcard costs £1,800.


The area attracts: Kevin Briley says many young professional couples are selling flats in trendy east London, in the likes of Hoxton, Shoreditch and Dalston, to buy houses with gardens in Wanstead.
 
Staying power: the village-like atmosphere, good schools and easy access to green spaces and the wider countryside make Wanstead a popular place to put down roots, although some find it hard to make the leap from a £500,000 two-bedroom cottage to a larger family house at £700,000.
 

Council: Redbridge council is a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, with no party in overall control. Band D council tax for the current year is £1,398.53.

Photographs: Graham Hussey

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants: the High Street has a wide pavement on one side - just right for stopping to chat. There is a mix of big-chain names including Boots, Tesco Express, the Co-op, Costa and Starbucks, plus independent cafés, boutiques and restaurants.

There is also AG Dennis the butcher, baker Percy Ingle, greengrocer Harveys, and family-owned Robins Pie & Mash shop. The Larder is a popular deli and café, and actress Una Stubbs was recently spotted in Time for Tea, a tea shop in the High Street.

Restaurants include Otto, which is Turkish, and Sumo Fresh, a Japanese eaterie selling sushi, but Provender, a French brasserie, has the most ambitious menu.

There is a Belgique patisserie branch in Cambridge Park, and The Nightingale is a favourite local pub, in Nightingale Lane. There is a farmers’ market on the first Sunday of the month in the High Street. However, posts on the local bulletin board, Wansteadium, call for the street’s retailers to up their game.


Open space: listed Wanstead Park covers 140 acres at the south of Epping Forest, administered by the City of London Corporation. There are bluebell woods, a grotto, lakes and the 18th-century Temple, which is used as a visitors’ centre. From Wanstead there are miles of walks deep into Epping Forest.

Leisure and the arts: there is a summer season of open-air theatre outside the Temple in Wanstead Park. The nearest multiplex cinema is the Odeon in South Woodford. The closest council-owned swimming pool is at the Fullwell Cross Leisure Centre in Barkingside, although there is a nearer pool in the Sylvestrian Leisure Centre at Forest School that is open to residents when the school isn’t using it. Wanstead Golf Club is in Overton Drive.

WHAT THE LOCALS SAY ABOUT WANSTEAD
@swift_social good independent restaurants, easy commute to the City/West End/Canary Wharf, village feel. Perfect for young families.

@stuarthurwitz Gt high st, sporting clubs, state & ind schls, parks,open space, transport links. Village feel #London postcode #Wanstead

@annholmes3 Short commute to city, Epp Forest, #Wanstead Flats, decent schools, little communities, Westfield, High St, Farmers Mkt, Festivals

@annholmes3 Nice park & play area, loads of families, pop up cinema, vintage/antique fairs, St Gabriel's Church, #Aldersbrook Estate

@VictoriaJech walk around Hollow Ponds and Wanstead Park. almost forget you're in the city

@Lornamedia I live in Wanstead, it's fab, village feel on central line, friendly, great restaurants and walks.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE: WANSTEAD
Which actor, involved in a recent spat with Education Secretary Michael Gove over the depiction of the First World War by the media and “Left-wing academics”, learned his history as a boy in Wanstead?
Sir Tony Robinson, who played Baldrick in Blackadder, was a pupil at Wanstead High School.

Which church was moved stone by stone from St Pancras?
The United Reformed Church in Nightingale Lane, which has recently undergone a £1.4 million refurbishment, once stood in the parish of St Pancras in north London but was moved to Wanstead in 1867.

Which heiress came to rue the day she had anything to do with the Duke of Wellington’s nephew?
Catherine Tylney-Pole was the country’s wealthiest woman. She inherited Wanstead House, a Palladian mansion to rival Versailles in size. In 1812 she married William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s nephew, and over a period of 10 years he managed to lose most of her fortune. The family became so burdened with debt they auctioned off the contents of the house and in 1825 the building was effectively sold for scrap and demolished.

Schools

State primary

Education Secretary Michael Gove has given in to pressure from parents and decided not to force academy status on popular Snaresbrook Primary School, after it was put into special measures by the Ofsted government education watchdog.
 
Most other Wanstead primary schools are judged to be “good”, with Our Lady of Lourdes RC in Chestnut Drive and Nightingale in Ashbourne Avenue judged to be “outstanding”.
 

Private primary
Private primary and prep schools include St Joseph’s Convent (girls, ages three to 11) in Cambridge Park and Snaresbrook Prep (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Woodford Road.
 

Comprehensive and grammar
Many local children transfer to the local neighbourhood comprehensive, Wanstead High (co-ed, ages 11 to 18). However, the best performing local schools are Beal High (co-ed, ages 11 to 18), in Woodford Road, Ilford, and Valentines High (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Cranbrook Road, also in Ilford, both judged to be “outstanding”. Redbridge has two selective grammar schools — Ilford County High for boys and Woodford County High for girls.
 

Private
The nearest private all-through school is Forest School (co-ed, ages four to 18, but with boys and girls taught separately from 11 to 16) in College Place on the edge of Epping Forest. Bancrofts (co-ed, ages seven to 18), another popular private school, is in Woodford Green.

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