The road to Stratford
Defoe would have loved this!
His book is a celebration of Great Britain, and particularly London. In the preface, he says that the work is “a description of the most flourishing and opulent country in the world”. But this is no static or backward-looking account – he sets himself to cover “the improvement, as well in culture, as in commerce, the increase of people, and employment for them”. While by no means blind to the less well-off and the risk of business failure – not least because he had suffered a few himself – he is always on the look out for growth and positive developments.
So he could not fail to be excited by the approach he took to Stratford, from Bow Bridge
over the River Lea, which then marked the border between London and Essex, as it did until 1965. To the left of what is now the A11, High Street, are a series of tall glass buildings. Through the remaining gaps between them, you can see the facilities built for the 2012 Olympics – the Stadium itself, now the home of West Ham United and renamed (unimaginatively?) the London Stadium, and the ArcellorMittal Orbit sculpture. To the right, currently behind hoardings while the work is done, is a huge new development at Sugar House Lane, which, according to its promoters, is being “transformed into an energy-efficient, creatively designed, truly mixed-use neighbourhood, a place alive with the hustle and bustle of residents, retailers and local business people alike.” It will include 1200 new homes, a hotel, and plenty of space for businesses.
Heading further into the centre of Stratford, the history and complexity of the town become more apparent. There are a few fine Victorian buildings, recalling the rapid development in the mid 19th century, as industries moved away from the centre of London across the River Lea, boosted in 1839 by the railway, which made Stratford a new sort of transport hub, as it remains today. St John’s Church was built in 1834 (even before the accession of Queen Victoria) to provide for a growing local population who otherwise had to walk to West Ham to worship. Across the road to the south, the Old Town Hall opened in 1869, a fine example of civic pride, complete with balcony and flagpoles.
On the other side of the road beyond the church is the Stratford that predates the glass and metal structures. BrightHouse, Ladbrokes, and some less-than-fashionable pubs, and the Stratford Centre, the 1970s mall and indoor market: it was quite busy when I was there, but the contrast with the glitzy Westfield Centre, built as part of the Olympic programme, is all too obvious. That is where the high-end shops are, and while everyone can walk round there, many local residents will actually be making most of their purchases elsewhere.
Stratford has been part of the London borough of Newham since a 1965 reorganisation of local government. The borough has the highest black and minority ethnic population in London – 71% of residents in the 2011 census – and also has the highest ethnic diversity. And it’s growing fast: certainly in terms of numbers of people, it shows the highest increases in London both through migration from overseas and from “natural change” (ie more births than deaths).
Change, of course, is nothing new for Stratford. Defoe noted that the village (as it was then) had “more than doubled” over the last 20 or 30 years, with “every vacancy filled up with new homes”. Unlike other places on his tour, there is virtually nothing he would recognise: only St Mary’s church in Bow, on my walk. Since the 1720s, Stratford has seen agriculture, industrialisation, railway activity, the Blitz, de-industrialisation and successive post-War rebuilding efforts. The impact of all this, and the effects of the current changes – physical, economic, and social – on longer standing residents, are what I want to understand better as I work up this project.