45 Squared 6) CYGNET SQUARE, SE2
Borough of Bexley, 75m×60m
Here's a new square in the heart of Thamesmead, very much a second attempt to get things right. When the new town was built at the end of the 1960s this was TavyBridge, a broad concrete walkway leading from acres of concrete housing to the banks of Southmere lake past an elevated parade of shops boasting a butchers and a VG supermarket. Initially it looked fabulouslyfuturistic but decayed somewhat later, no longer a beautiful thing but a mostly-shutteredfacade facing a glum de-roofed car park.
Thus when wholesale renovation of the estate began in 2013 this was precisely where demolition started, courtesy of the Peabody Trust, and many a droog would have been happy to set the wrecking ball in motion.
The new waterside space opened in 2021 and is called Cygnet Square. I didn't see any cygnets on my visit but it's the wrong time of year, nor would Duck Square or Seagull Square have quite the same ring. The focal point is now a large piazza surrounded by newbuild flats with a large blocky community hub in pride of place and a stepped terrace down to the edge of the lake. It's a more pleasant place to linger but also lacking somewhat in character, indeed a lot of New London now looks much like this and were it not for the lake you could be anywhere. I also suspect there's just as much concrete in the blocks of flats as there was before but now covered by brick-effect panels as is the modern way.
The original plan was for a substantial water feature at the heart of the square - two large shallow pools with a walkway slicing inbetween. Unfortunately between the artist's impression and the start of construction this was scaled down to a single, much smaller pool, and in the end there was no money even for that and they paved the whole thing over. You can still see where that smaller pool would have been because the nicer herringbone pattern stops and has been infilled with cheaper slabs. A few long wooden benches face the non-existent water feature and perhaps they're a nice place to sit in the summer but in February they look pointless and forlorn.
The only reason to visit, unless you live here or are walking past with a dog, is the aforementioned large blocky community hub. This is called The Nest and is fundamentally Thamesmead's new library, a big step-up from the former portakabin on Binsey Walk. The interior is light and airy with timber beams, a large waterfront window and something glass and dangly hanging from the ceiling. When I popped in a number of residents were taking advantage of the children's shelves and also various siderooms, one of which is a busy IT suite for anyone who won't or can't work from home. I confess I was expecting a cafe given there's bugger all else nearby, but maybe developers only put those in when they're trying to kickstart a new development not support an existing one.
A shop or two would help to bring Cygnet Square to life but there are none, only hoardings inviting businesses to email Annabel to express an interest in a Class E opportunity. One prime site is occupied by the Thamesmead Arts and Culture Office, or TACO! for short, although that's closed until 20th February for 'essential works' so it's hard to tell how throbbing it normally is. An ecstatic bar takeover with karaoke and cocktails is due at the end of next week. Round the corner the Cygnet Square Playspace boasts three swings, a slide and some clamberables, all surrounded by privately-overseen car parking spaces with the ever-present threat of a £100 fine. If you decide to visit the monthly market that fills the square with meaty smells and the library with crafty workshops, best use active transport.
Construction continues further up the lakeside along what used to be Binsey Walk, where the former lowrise stepped concrete flats are being replaced by stacky towers in various stages of development. In exciting news the promenade once made famous by the film A Clockwork Orange has reopened, although only as a narrow alley watched over by a roost of builders and hoisted joists so a shadow of its former self. Its hoardings now double up as the Thamesmead Art Wall, which in its current state is a string of scrappy graffiti well worth respraying over. Alas it seems Cygnet Square is essentially a replacement disappointment, as if Peabody are densifying without yet getting the placemaking right, but folk from Thamesmead are well used to schlepping long distances to get anywhere so plus ça change.
45
45 Squared 7) SHAKESPEARE SQUARE, IG6
Borough of Redbridge, 75m×60m
Shakespeare Square is the same size but utterly different, the recreational centrepiece of a postwar council estate of little importance. It lurks on the very edge of the capital within the Grange Hill/Fairlop sector of the Hainault Loop, a slope of grass surrounded by terraced blocks of three-storey flats with shared stairwells. Ilford council built it in 1950 as a final extension to suburbia, then in 1960 Chigwell council developed the woodland on the other side of the boundary and nobody has ever linked the two with even a single alleyway. The local roads were all given names with a 16th century connection, hence Shakespeare Square links to Tudor Crescent, Hathaway Close and Wolsey Gardens. I'm going to suggest that you'd have to live locally or have relatives here to ever have visited, i.e. you can freely ignore everything in the next couple of paragraphs.
It's very postwar, an island of flats amid a sea of houseproud avenues. It's also generously sparse, with patches of green tucked all over as well as a central green lawn with well-established clumps of shrubbery. Four very thin paths lead diagonally to the centre of the square, like the straps on a folded parachute, and in the middle is a terribly municipal patch of playground. What you get as a Redbridge child is a climbing frame with rope bridge and slide, two sets of swings designed for younger and older, plus a patch of rubbery surface where I suspect a roundabout once spun. Even on a frosty day it still attracts dads with a small toddler to entertain. As for older kids sorry, the occasional trees make a kickabout impractical, plus if you get any closer to the flats it's No Ball Games By Order Of The Housing Manager.
The most controversial thing to happen in Shakespeare Square of late is the building of a five-storey block of flats in the southern corner. In 2020 Redbridge council identified five small scraps of land that might be suitable for housing infill on the basis that people need homes more than they need grass, and subsequently chose to replace the largest scrap with 24 affordable flats. Residents had mixed views ("We do not want council property being rammed in like sardines." "I do not want to be more overlooked than I am now. "Where will we park our cars? Where will we dry our washing? Where will the bins be kept?") but the flats were built anyway, a small modern eruption 70 years out of place. It barely scrapes the surface of London's housing crisis but given the impracticality of one resident's opinion ("Destroy the estate and build a new one") it's the best Redbridge council can do.
