Homes For Heroes.

Some walks take a while to happen. Saturday's LbF walk, Homes for Heroes, was originally planned for 2021 but a combination of covid lockdowns, train strikes, weather, and sheer lack of interest resulted in it being postponed a number of times. But good things come to those who wait and yesterday Bee, Pam, and myself finally got out to the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham for an exploration of the Becontree estate (more on that later) and the parks, waterways, and architecture of the area.

 

It was fun too. Or at least I thought so. I'd got up early (an achievement in itself after my first full week back at work in umpteen months), wandered down to Honor Oak Park station (bumping into Bec and baby Etienne on the way - standard, but this time with added Gareth), and took the Overground to Whitechapel and the District line to Becontree where I wrestled with the Guardian crossword and quiz.

Arriving early, I thought I'd do a brief recce of the first part of the walk (so as not to go wrong) so headed into Parsloes Park. Once I'd taken in the soaking wet unsafe metal climbing frames that looked more like Sol LeWitt climbing frames, the sky opened up so I retreated quickly to the D&D Hill Cafe. The hill in question not being much of one, just a bridge over the railway lines.

Bee was first to arrive and Pam wasn't far behind. We each had a veggie breakfast (no tomatoes for me) which was delicious (except for the sausage which was of the vegetable rather than the Quorn or Linda McCartney kind) and was washed down with both a cup of tea and a can of pop. It was good to have my appetite back and back good.

We had a good gas and set off into Parsloes Park. The rain had now stopped but it was still pretty overcast. Parsloes Park was opened in 1935 by the Labour/Liberal MP Christopher Addison and is named after the Passelewe family who owned land round here in the 13th century. A stretch of the Gares Brook (a minor Thames tributary) runs through and there's a Bobby Moore Sports Hub. England's World Cup winning captain having been born in Barking in 1941.

From Parsloes Park, we took Keppel Road (Pam taking the chance to remind me of the time that Judith Keppel knocked me out of Eggheads - on sport, she can shove her Eleanor of Aquitane up her arse) into the Becontree estate itself, the area I'd hung the walk on. Though I wasn't foolish enough to imagine anyone wanted to spend five hours walking round a housing estate so I chucked some parks and pubs in to keep the punters happy. A people pleaser, that's me.

Once we'd crossed the centre of the estate, the circular Valence Circus, and taken in a sign that had been changed from NO BALL GAMES to BALL GAMES (this is a strong football area as you will come to appreciate but I wonder if the preponderance of NO BALL GAMES signs across the country in the past has been a factor in England not winning anything since 1966, I bet you don't see NO BALL GAMES signs in Brazil or Argentina), it was time for me to read out my longest piece of spiel of the day. Bee, as you can see, either listened intently or posed as if to give that impression. Either way, I'll take it.

Becontree was built as the largest public housing estate in the world between 1921 and 1935 (the original date I'd planned was intended to mark its centenary) and some say it still is. The Housing Act of 1919 permitted London County Council to build housing outside the then County of London and they were inspired by Raymond Unwin (1863-1940), a prominent engineer, architect, and town planner who had, himself, been inspired by William Morris and John Ruskin.

In 1912, Unwin had published a pamphlet called Nothing Gained By Overcrowding in which he recommended building short terraces, spaced twelve to the acre on 'cottage estate' principles. The end of World War I provided fresh impetus as working class, urban, soldiers returned home in poor health. Hence Becontree was built and it's pretty obvious why these became known as 'home for heroes'.

By the time of Becontree's completion in 1935, there were 26,000 homes housing 100,000 people across Ilford, Barking, and Dagenham but there were few services and little work until the chemical company May & Baker moved to the area from Wandsworth and, more famously, the Ford Dagenham plant opened up. When I was a kid, I remember my dad calling Ford Cortinas Dagenham dustbins.

The name Becontree comes from the ancient Becontree hundred (an administrative division) and, before that, from an Old English word meaning 'tree of a man named Beohha'. Notable residents have included Alf Ramsey, Terry Venables, Sandie Shaw, Max Bygraves, Dudley Moore, and former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. These days its a pleasant, if unremarkable, place with many of the homes altered to cater to the tastes of new inhabitants (I wrote some thoughts on vernacular architecture generally, and Becontree specifically, back in 2022 and you can read them here) but one feature we couldn't help noticing, and liking, were the double doors and the arches they were behind. It struck me as something from a friendlier, more neighbourly, time but I may be wrong.

Soon we moved into Valence Park where stands one of the Great Trees of London (a holm oak by the lake that you wouldn't know was a great tree of London unless you'd done some research like me) which had Pam singing Great Trees of London to the tune of Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London (it'd been a week of werewolves for me).

It's also home to the Valence House Museum (in the last remaining of the five manor houses of Dagenham) which contains displays relating to the Becontree estate and an exhibition of restored items from the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation. We didn't go in, time is of the essence on these walks, but we did take in a rusty mangle, a pretty and pungent herb garden, and a rusty Ford Capri made by the artist A.J.Baldwin in tribute to the Ford Dagenham plant. I liked it. I like rust and I like For Capris.

We left the park near an Art Deco adjacent library and took the A1083/Green Lane down to Becontree Heath past a wooden house with a brick roof (didn't anyone learn anything from the story of three little pigs?), the interestingly named FIDDLERS FOOD & WINE, and a house whose roof had been burnt clean off.

Most interesting of all, architecturally certainly, was the modernist Dagenham Civic Centre (now, seemingly, used, quite bizarrely, by Coventry University). The Art Deco looking building went up in 1936 and the architect responsible, Ernest Barry Webber, was also behind Hammersmith's Town Hall and Southampton's Civic Centre as well as rebuilding Portsmouth's Guildhall.

 

 

 

 

We loved it - you can tell by the amount of snaps. From there it wasn't long before we were in the heavily landscaped, almost like Teletubby land, Central Park and, from there, it wasn't long before we found ourselves in Eastbrook Park, Eastbrookend Country Park, and Beam Valley Country Park. Just as the sun was climbing high and bright into the sky.

 

This area was quite the discovery. Absolutely delightful. It felt quite wild and though we didn't see any adders,barred grass snakes, slow worms, or great crested newts we did see a cute bunny rabbit and a friendly chap sat on a bench with his dog drinking a can of Stella Artois - and why not!

There was a little sculpture park featuring hedgehogs, owls, and a picture frame from which some hideous monster appears to be emerging and there are lakes with fantastic names like Chase Waters, Bardag, Tom Thumb, Hook's Hall Pond, and The Slack. There was even a Slack Bird sanctuary and, yes, the jokes write themselves.

After crossing the railway line we followed the course of the Rom, or Beam, river (a small and slow Thames tributary that starts in, you guessed it, Romford) until we reached the A112/Dagenham Road. We followed that for a while and then cut through a housing estate to find our first pub stop, the Cross Keys.

 

 

 

 

 

It didn't, initially, look that inviting but the taped up windows were merely Hallowe'en decorations and the men daytime drinking were all harmless enough and I wasn't going to argue with £10.10 for three pints (my Doom Bar was £2.50 - London Pride the same price and I'd have had that it hadn't been off, I was feeling a sense of London pride).

The jukebox blasted out The Specials, Madness, The Beat, Bad Manners, The Funboy Three, Talk Talk, and some stadium era Simple Minds and we had a good old chinwag before heading off. I seem to be free of the acid reflux at the moment so I didn't even need to be sick. Either in the toilet, sink, or urinal.

We stopped outside to take a look at the Dagenham Parish Church (a local church for local people) and then headed off along Church Street, Church Elm Lane, and Dagenham Avenue coming off into and through Goresbrook Park before heading past Becontree where we'd started the walk and along Woodward Road and Lodge Avenue to the Roundhouse pub which I'd earmarked for our second stop.

 

 

But it was closed. Which was a pity. Because I had some bloody good spiel about it. It's a pub that should be on any rock pilgrim's to do list because it's got some serious history. Established as 1969 as the Village Blues Club and, until 1975, considered East London's premier rock music venue the list of acts who have played there is remarkable. Take a deep breath:-

Led Zeppelin, Fairport Convention, Caravan, Howlin' Wolf, Deep Purple, Soft Machine, Pentangle, Free, Tyrannousaurus Rex, Yes, Pink Floyd, Spooky Tooth, Procol Harum, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Osibisa, Funkadelic, Atomic Rooster, The Velvet Underground, Can, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, Status Quo, ELO, Wizzard, Dr John, Genesis, Budgie, Thin Lizzy, the Average White Band, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Queen, Magma, Cockney Rebel, Gong, Lindisfarne, Dr Feelgood, Motorhead, Judas Priest, UFO, 10cc, Leo Sayer, and Sailor.

Worth a glass of champagne, eh? The pub was the work of specialist pub architect Alfred W Bloomfield (1879-1949) who was also responsible for The Bedford in Balham, the French House in Soho, and The Horns in Shoreditch which I think is now a strip bar. There's one last surprise too. The road that leads to the car park is named after one of Barking's all time greats. Bragg Close was opened by Billy himself on the 24th August 1999 and the Bard of Barking dedicated it to Ben Tillett, the founder of the dockworkers union.

Sadly it's none too fancy a road. Unable to grab a pint in this storied institution we cut through nearby Mayesbrook Park, where we saw a crow in a face off with two Egyptian geese, and out on to Upney Lane where Bee left us. Pam and I continued down Upney Lane and grabbed a couple of scoops in the pleasant Acorn pub. Bournemouth were beating Arsenal 2-0 on telly but we were too busy chatting to pay much attention.

 

By about 7.30pm it was time for food, so we walked down Longbridge Road to Barking proper and to the not for profit HumDum Pakistani restaurant where I meant to, but didn't, dish out some spiel about Barking. How the name comes from Berecingas ('the settlement of descendants of a man called Bereca), how Underworld released an album called Barking in 2010, and how Barking's notables include Tony Adams, Trevor Brooking, Billy Bragg (but of course), Captain Cook (who moved here in his 30s), 2009 Britain's Got Talent winners Diversity, John Farnham (of You're The Voice fame), Nick Frost, Phil Jupitus, Ross Kemp, Paul Konchesky (these footballers!), Vera Lynn, Bobby Moore, Sara Pascoe, Martin Peters, Stacey Solomon, John Terry, Bobby Zamora, Mary Wollstonecroft, and Brian Poole and the Tremoloes. Truly the place is a home for heroes.

 

The people who run HumDum are heroes too in my eyes. All the lights were on and they had no other customers but they let us, against their usual rules, bring our own beer in and made us a chaat and a saag paneer that cost us just over £11. Not each, in total. Ridiculously cheap and I thought a £2.50 pint of Doom Bar would be the bargain of the day.

 

HumDum was cheap and cheerful and everything we left was going to be used to feed the homeless so there is nothing but good things I can say about the place. We were out earlier than normal and hopped on the tube together. I jumped off at Whitechapel where there was some kind of incident going on and seven empty trains came through the station without stopping before one actually took me back to Honor Oak Park and, eventually, home. It had a been a really good day with really good company and I'm so happy that my walking, and walk arranging, mojo has returned. 

 

Thanks to Bee and Pam (two very lovely and very low maintenance friends) both for joining me on this walk and for providing some of the photos I've used in this here blog. There's only one LbF walk left this year and that's on 29th December. Here's Looking at Leslie Greene - The British Moderne will take us from Elephant & Castle to Chalk Farm and no doubt there'll be some festive shenanigans en route. Would be good to see you all.