Yesterday I went to the Becontree estate to take some photos of its churches. Then I added those photos to yesterday's post about churches on estates. I didn't add this photo, even though it was my favourite.
This is St Cedd's in Becontree. It has a lovely postwar copper roof and that was the problem, it wasn't built at the same time as the other churches on the estate, it's a 1964 replacement of a 1930s original. I did add photos of four other churches to my post, but it was late in the day by the time I added them so I was probably wasting my time.
To try to ensure my trip wasn't a complete waste of time I thought I'd show you 15 of my non-church photos, in a feature I like to call...
The news from Barking and Dagenham
• I didn't see any political posters on the Becontree estate but I did see a lot of England flags. They know their priorities out here - Euros not Elections. This wasn't the largest St George's flag I saw but it was the most decorated house. Note the presence of a white van topped with ladders in the front garden - classic B&D.
• A lot of the intermittent grassy patches around Becontree are lightly fenced to deter dog-wandering and kickabouting. How ironic on an estate that loves its football to have erected so many signs saying No Ball Games.
• But on Valance Wood Road I spotted a sign where the 'No' had been scrubbed out with dribbly black paint. I'm not convinced the grassy patch would have supported a game on any meaningful scale, but such is the mindset of the local rebel.
• Here's another rebel parked on Marlborough Road with a similar penchant for black obfuscation. This Audi driver has stuck black tape over the last three letters of their registration plate, supplemented by a separate layer of padding to ensure they're entirely undiscernible. I assume this is an anti-ULEZ ploy and probably works like a dream, right up to the moment the police nab them under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 and impose a £100 on-the-spot fine.
• How joyful to find a Rossi's ice cream van parked up on Charlecote Road. Of all the vans you'd want tinkling at the end of your street, Southend's royal Rossi's must be at the top of the pile. That said, this van falls foul of ULEZ every time it travels so the owner needs to sell at least five cornets before breaking even.
• Meanwhile, down by Rippleside Cemetery, this car wash claims to be 'The world's favourite car wash'. A likely story, I thought, the world has no idea this squirty spot by the Ford showroom even exists. But I checked and apparently it's the brand that's most favourite - IMO have a dozen outlets in London, another 250 in the UK and 600 more across Europe, Australia and the USA, more than any other chain.
• This is utter bolx at Beam Park though. Beam Park is definitely not East London's Brightest New Address, not unless you're a masochist who likes living in a box far away from anywhere useful. There's just one shop, a Sainsbury's Local up the far end, and the long-promised railway station is no nearer ever becoming reality so you're stuck with buses, Ubers and your car.
• There is however now a proper park, if you count a 2.5 hectare dip of landscaped grass as proper. It's called Central Park because it's in the centre of the estate, and exists mainly because building stacks of flats immediately beside the River Beam would be unwise. It opened four weeks ago and has of course already been described by MyLondon as "London's newest park with a river running through it that many residents didn't know exists".
• I walked some of the new streets and they're very very unBecontree, all big brown blocks with gardens for cars and whopping fines from private contractors if you dare park on the yellow lines. And the estate still has a long way to grow because most of the site still looks like demolished Ford processing plant, such is the arterial ambience of East London's Brightest New Address.
• Meanwhile Barking Riverside continues to spread across a hump of reclaimed landfill. It's finally reached the stage where the area around the station looks pretty because what used to be a building site is covered with wild flowers, but the buzz of human activity is still outdone by the bees.
• Up on the 'hill' several new residential streets have recently opened up. A mass of flats (and a few tall narrow houses) have been crowded in, creating interlocking brick-faced canyons, and with every new street the amount of daylight for those who moved in first decreases.
• The People Who Name Streets have had a lot of fun finding famous B&D residents to name the newest streets after. Frogley Park is nothing amphibian, it's for William Holmes Frogley, the unsung illustrator of a unique manuscript illuminating the everyday side of Victorian Barking. As for Amies Terrace that's for dress designer Hardy Amies, Huggett Road is for the suffragette who inspired the upcoming Overground renaming and I confess Podd Street has me baffled.
• These adverts with a grinning David Beckham are everywhere at the moment, I suspect across the country. They're for AliExpress, a Chinese e-commerce portal attempting to break Europe by being an official Euros sponsor, having already won over Russia and Brazil. Looking at the weird tat on their site I'm unconvinced, it's more mass-produced Etsy or Primark on acid, but if you want a Green Donkey Animal Cosplay Zip Hoodie or an 86p stainless steel nose ring, perhaps it's for you.
• This banner outside Ted Ball Memorial Hall spoke to me, given I'm over 55 and therefore target audience. But I'm not sure I'm yet ready to spend 10 hours a week playing "bingo/darts or even bowls", nor am I seeking seaside trips in company, plus I see they've had to scrub their art classes. Here in Bow of course we have The Geezers, see top blog in sidebar, but I'm not ready for that level of social immersion either.
• I thought two things when I saw this street sign in Becontree, firstly "aha, yet another outdated reference to a renamed borough" and secondly "aha! Christmas content potential". But Canonsleigh Road is so quintessentially Becontree (nigh uninterrupted pebbledash) that you can rest easy, I won't be blogging it in December.
