A new pictorial history ‘Around Waltham Forest by Bus, Tram and Train’ by local author Roger Torode has just been published and is available now at V&A books. The book gives a transport history of Waltham Forest since the days when the stage coach to Newmarket ran along Woodford High Road, and includes the local steam trains, trams and trolleybuses, and more recent developments bringing us right up to date with the electric trains and buses we have now.
The book follows the internet talk Roger gave for the London Transport Museum Friends during the lockdown, which was watched by many of us and is now approaching 5,000 views. Since then, he has had access to several large photographic collections, resulting in this book with 120 pages and 200 colour and black and white pictures and posters.
Roger has been Chair of HPPG’s Transport Group for the last seven years and before that was Chair of the Highams Park Forum for its first twelve years. He is actively involved in HPPG’s dealings with TfL and Arriva Rail London, who run our Overground service. He has lived in Highams Park for nearly 40 years and had a thirty-year career with London Transport/Transport for London.
I talked to Roger about the background to the book, and he told me how pleased he is with the wide interest in his internet talk, which was publicised by several of our local History Groups. “These are pictures that stir peoples’ memories of our part of London as it was, how people got about, and journeys they made at a time when everyone used public transport. The book is for all those interested in the history of this area, as well as those with a knowledge of transport.”
He continued, “There are many new pictures from photographers and collections that have not been seen before, as well as a few familiar ones that deserve to be seen again. I was pleased to include a picture of Chingford Hatch level crossing, with a 1950s double decker bus on the 35 passing over it. Very little in that picture is there now, the level crossing replaced by the underpass. And most of the 35s turned at Highams Park Station to go back through central London to Clapham Common. Maybe sometime we will find a picture of a bus making that turn in The Broadway – it must have taken up all of the road and would just not be possible with the traffic there is today.”
I was delighted to see such an interesting and well-illustrated book of our area’s history. The street scenes come alive with local people going about their everyday activities. I have included a few pictures from the book below.
Interviewer: Gordon Turpin March 2022
Highams Park Broadway in the early 1920s with a K-type bus of the London General Omnibus Company on route 35, which was extended to Highams Park in 1921 and served this area for the next 47 years. They would make a U-turn here in The Broadway when setting off back to London and Clapham Common. (Picture from Roger Torode’s collection).
The terminus for the trams and trolleybuses was at the Napier Arms on Woodford High Road, seen here looking towards Woodford Green with the top of Oak Hill on the left. The pub is on the right edge of this picture and is now the Lokkum restaurant. Trams could travel in either direction and had a driving position at each end, like a train, and this one will shortly set off back to Whipps Cross, Hackney and Bloomsbury. The two ladies about to board the tram have no concern about walking in the middle of the quiet road. When this picture was taken in the late 1930s, the Forest Road routes had been converted to trolleybuses, two of which can be seen in the background. A turning circle was constructed for them and is still there, used for car parking by the garage now on the other side of the road. (picture by W A Camwell, from the National Tramway Museum).
Hoe Street Station, now Walthamstow Central, around 1906 with a steam train of the Great Eastern Railway on its way to Liverpool Street. At that time, trains also ran across North London to Tottenham and Highgate. (Picture from Roger Torode’s collection).
Chingford Station in the last days of steam trains, which were replaced by electric trains in 1960. This station was built with tracks running through for a planned extension across Chingford Plain to High Beech, but in 1882 Queen Victoria came to Chingford and declared the forest open to everyone for ever – so the extension was never built. (Alan Jackson collection).
