According to the National Street Gazetteer there are only seven Squares in Waltham Forest. Three are long thin loops on council estates with a scrap of grass up the centre, and four are part of modern housing developments overlooked by newbuild flats. I plumped for one of the latter because I hoped it might stretch to three paragraphs.
We're on Wood Street, an east Walthamstow neighbourhood with a run of half-decent shops. Around ten years ago the council saw the opportunity to do up an existing precinct and a car park, also to replace past-it flats on the Marlowe Road Estate with a mass of mixed-tenure apartments. The development was called Feature 17 in honour of the fourfilmstudios that existed around Wood Street between 1910 and 1924 - not precisely here, but that doesn't matter when you're a branding agent in need of a local heritage angle. I'm still not sure why the upgraded plaza got renamed Troubridge Square, given that the only famous Troubridges derive from a baronetcy that originated in Plymouth, not E17.
The only survivors from the former precinct are a very tall CCTV pole and five concrete cubes, each with a single letter spelling out PLAZA. Another row of concrete cuboids suffices as unvandalisable seating, and the remainder proved so bleak they came back later and added three small flowerbeds. An enlarged Co-op got built before they knocked the old one down and this gets most of the footfall. It's also the canvas for the portrait of an inspiring local resident, as captured by fellow resident and photographer Matt Joy. In warmer weeks the potentially lively part is the grid of dry deck fountains at the far end (on at 10am, off at noon), but for now the large playground area is where lots of parents take lots of kids.
At ground level on the south side is the new Wood Street Library. It replaced the landmark building on the corner of Forest Road, which is now a block of flats, and now finds itself beneath another block of flats in a move nobody round here wanted. According to the council "the new library is fit for purpose and offers a more cost-efficient and modern way to deliver vital library services to the community", but I'd say it looks quite light on books. Also the bus stop outside the demolished building is still called Forest Road/Wood Street Library so perhaps somebody at TfL could sort that. Meanwhile the plan is to complete the redevelopment of the Marlowe Road Estate by this time next year, having added 440 homes, and only then will Troubridge Square and its overbricky environs be complete.
