Bowlzee's Little Eye: November 2013

Friday 29 November 2013

As so often, when I compare these old photographs with the same scene today, it's the street-furniture that is the most obvious (and intrusive) difference in the two pictures. The lady in Edwardian dress in the top photograph has been replaced by a turbaned Sikh gentleman and the tree by a surveillance camera; the Dairy stills sells milk in its capacity as a convenience store.

Thursday 28 November 2013

The fittest James Bond that never-was.

R.I.P. Lewis Collins. 26 May 1946 - 27 November 2013.

Lincolns 566 High Leytonstone - another demolished pub.

Over the last few years I have had occasion to pass by an old pub on Leytonstone High Road in East London, I became aware of it first when it was empty and then when the developers moved in and flattened it – see my previous posts; Another One Bites The Dust 2/9/12; Gone 2/12/12. The disused (by the time I was aware of it) public House known as “Lincolns”, formerly known as “the Elms” was demolished in 2012.

The Public House was thought to date from 1870 and historical maps of the area show the site as open land prior to the construction of the pub. The oldest map found for the site, dating from 1745, shows a secondary road running east connected to the High Road, forming a corner plot which became the location for the Public House. In 1936 the Rex Cinema was built directly opposite the pub and must have brought in a number of customers.

However, as the pub lurched into the 21^st Century it had developed a reputation for anti-social behaviour (stabbings, firearms offences and the like) and its license was revoked and the pub closed down in 2008 following a police drugs raid. There was some talk of turning it into a “local community pub” but the developers sadly triumphed.

I was surprised when passing the pub one day to see that it had turned into an Indian restaurant, over-night. What had actually happened was that in November 2011 the building had been transformed into the Taj Tandoori restaurant for a film-shoot. The film, which was written by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, was The Magnificent Eleven, the Hollywood actor Robert Vaughan was actually on location filming at the old pub.All very exciting, but, the pub's short lived stardom couldn't save it and by December 2012 it was a pile of rubble, one of the over 1000 pubs that closed in the U.K. last year; all very sad I think.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Waiting on Leytonstone Station

Cold and and bored and wishing it was Friday.

Wanstead Underground Station - Then and Now.

I love finding old postcards of places I know well (see top picture) and then taking an updated picture to compare (second picture). Above are the George Pub and George Green, Wanstead, taken about one hundred years apart. The grand Georgian house in the top picture has been replaced by the Brutalist architecture of Wanstead Underground Station and a 1960s block of flats has sprouted-up; what a difference one hundred years can make!