The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a 25.7-mile-long (41.4 km) ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting various suburbs and other trunk roads in the region. Together with its counterpart, the South Circular Road, it mostly forms a ring road around central London, except for crossing of the River Thames, which is done by the Woolwich Ferry.

The road was constructed in the Interwar period to connect local industrial communities and by pass London. It was upgraded after World War II, and was at one point planned to become a motorway as part of the controversial and ultimately cancelled London Ringwaysscheme. In the early 1990s, the road was extended to bypass Barking and meet the A13 north of Woolwich, though without a direct link to the ferry.

The Crooked Billet Pub on Chingford Road, seen here c1910, was first mentioned way back in 1742 and rebuilt in 1930. The Crooked Billet stood close to the new North Circular Road and Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium. The pub was demolished in the 1980s due to road widening.

The River Ching is a tributary of the River Lea, flowing from Epping Forest, 

2 Latv Anar, aft hav stol wag from a fac into TOTTEN, and after a chase inv murders and a tram and a van Kira kings, shot themes rather than surrendering at the railway emb beside the road, OAK HILL COTTAGE

The Halex factory was situated on Larkshall Road and was a major local employer from 1897 to 1971. The factory was established by the British Xylonite Company to produce a variety of goods mostly from plastic.
It pioneered the manufacture of celluloid in the AUK. The Halex company had a virtual monopoly on manufacturing table tennis balls. HALEX-branded toothbrushes dominated the market, as well.

The factory closed in the early 1970s and has since been knocked down and replaced by new smaller factories and industrial buildings. A  plaque on Jubilee Avenue marks the spot where the building stood; it reads "Plastics Historical Society. On this site, from 1897–1971, stood the Halex factory of the British Xylonite Company."

Some of the land in this area is now owned by supermarket chain Tesco, which was initially refused permission to build a store on the site in June 2007 by then Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly after a protracted process of planning applications dating back to early 2005. The reasons cited for the refusal involved the size of the proposed store and the building not being in keeping with local Victorian and Edwardian buildings. However, in 2009 a revised planning application was passed despite the efforts of some local residents to stop this from happening.

Terraced houses, flats, live-work units have been built around the store and shops.

A recent campaign seek  to honour the men of Highams Park who worked in the Halex Factory and gave their lives in both world wars. The campaigners also succeeded to see the return of the local war memorial to its original site.

Originally, 1873, HALE END. Rebuilt 1900. The CHINGFORD BRANCH LINE from LEA BRIDGE to SHERHALL ST (1870}, ext.1872 to HACKNEY DOWNS (connecting with BETHNAL GREEN and LIVERPOOL ST.STA), and 1873 to CHINGFORD. When the TOTTENHAM AND FOREST GATE RAILWAY began to serve it, the name given was HIGHAM PARK & HALE END, in order to publicise the new development, and that blurred the identities of the 2 places
Since 2015, the line is part of the LEA VALLEY lines.

Built 1925, from here a signalman controlled the crossing until 2002. Now, the gates are operated from a central office in LIVERPOOL ST.STA.

The BOX is the only surviving line on the line and was saved from demolition, thanks to the HPK FORUM and the local MP, D. SMITH with the interrogant of turning it into a museum or a tea room…

Another one of the pseudo-Victorian clock installed to commemorate the NEW  MILLENNIUM, in 1999

George Robert Edwards was born at Highams Park in Essex in 1908, the son of Edwin George Edwards, then a stationer at Walthamstow, and his wife, Mary, née Freeman, who died two weeks after George was born. He went to school locally, then to the South West Essex Technical College and on to London University, where he gained a BSc in Engineering – and a lifelong devotion to cricket.
He designed the Viscount and oversaw the development of Concorde

Opened in 1911 as the HPK ELECTRIC THETRE, with a capacity of 500 people. The REGAL name was adopted in 1928. Façade and entrance foyer were revamped in 1935 in an ART DECO style

Closed in 1971, becoming a bingo club and a snooker hall until 2014.
Planning application for a café, a 2 screens cinema and 30 homes was placed, permission given and works were supposed to begin in 2019. 

In 1970 DEEP END scenes were shot here, with JANE ASHER, DIANA DORS  and JOHN MULDER BRIWN

The only public amenity of the area (saved from closure and relocation, or downsizing) by the well organised local campaigners

“We are a lively, evangelical church with a vision to ‘Seek First the Kingdom of God’, by deepening our relationship with God and by demonstrating the love of Jesus in our neighbourhood”.

The church of ALL SAINTS, Selwyn Avenue, originated in 1898 when All Saints, Castle Avenue, a red brick structure with stone dressings in the Perpendicular style, was built as a mission of St. Peter's. Elizabeth Ainslie (d. 1901) of Rolls in Chingford contributed to the cost of the building, and by her will gave £1,000, the income from which was to be used towards the stipend of the mission curate until a separate parish of All Saints should be formed, and then to become part of the endowment of the benefice. A conventional district was formed for All Saints in 1907. A new parish, taken from those of St. Peter and St. John, was formed in 1912, the advowson of the vicarage being vested in the bishop. In the same year a new and larger parish church, designed by Hoare & Wheeler, was built in Selwyn Avenue, where there had been an iron mission room, known as St. Matthew's, since 1908. (fn. 180) The building, of brown brick with Decorated windows, is incomplete at the east end. The original church in Castle Avenue, subsequently known as ALL-SAINTS-ON-THE-HILL, became a chapel of ease to the new church. Part of All Saints parish was transferred in 1956 to that of St. Anne, Chingford.

In 1764 ANTHONY BACON acquired the manor and erected a new house, in its Eastern boundary, with WOODFORD. The house, 1798, was designed by WILLIAM NEWTON, was known a HIGHAM HILL, and today it survives as WOODFORD COUNTY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

HOUSE and 323 acres of land were sold in 1790 to JOHN HARMAN who wished to extend the surrounding forested land into a private park for the Manor House.

He employed HUMPHREY REPTON to suggest alterations to the house and to landscape the gardens into a park. H.R was the foremost landscape gardener of his day. He is renowned for his redesigning of the estate, merging the garden with the larger landscape. It totalled 93 acres of park (in the 1930s only 28 acres remained).

The house was owned later by the WARNER family (the BIG W of WALTHAMSTOW HIGH ST.!)

HR was born in BURY ST.EDMUNDS in 1752. He lived in ROMFORD (HARE ST.). Other examples of his works are WOODFORD HALL and CLAYBURY HALL. “The views from front and back are of that extensive kind to which painting neves does justice”. He took no notice of the views to the entrance front (off the HIGH ROAD) “since the scope behind the house is so ample”. He wished to “command one of the most pleasing scenes in nature” by removing the kitchen garden and redistributing the trees, of different species, age, size.

The creation of the LAKE by damning the RIVER CHING was intended to be a leading feature, and “such an obvious improvement” to the landscape.

Following his usual custom and passion for painting and drawing, HR prepared one of his RED BOOKS describing the alterations he suggested. The book, bound in Morocan scarlet leather, contains watercolour sketches and proposals of improvements showed in painted flaps that fold across the sketches. You can see this RED BOOK in the VESTRY HOUSE MUSEUM.

His SUMMER HOUSE was not realised though. However, a later construction on the lake, that HARMAN requested, was built from the stones of OLD LONDON BRIDGE. It is said that some of those stones remain to this day on the lakeside.

Here, the development of HIGHAMS was designed to cater for the middle classes. After a false start, including MONTALT ROAD LODGES, in 1897, the HIGHAMS ESTATE, of some 90 acres, was developed in the 1930s., promising an “exceptionally healthy elevation (230ft above sea level) and a fresh and invigorating atmosphere of decidedly health giving quality”. Definitely, this has been designed as an area of special character.

It comprises over 300 semi-detached and detached homes bounded by The Highams Park to the west, Chingford Lane to the north and east, and Oak Hill to the south.

The roads that make up The Highams Estate are:

• Crealock Grove (1930): named after MALCOLM CREALOCK, a director of the Warner Estate and Law Land Building Dept.
• Henry's Avenue (1930): named after SIR HENRY WARNER
• Keynsham Avenue (1934): until 1897, Courtenay Warner owned an estate near KEYNSHAM in SOMERSET
• Lichfield Road (1933): Courtenay Warner was a Liberal MP for LICHFIELD, STAFFS. 1896 - 1923
• Marion Grove (1936): origins of this name are unknown
• Mason Road (1933): commemorating the family's involvement in Freemasonry
• Montalt Road (1897): named after Earl de Montalt, 4th Viscount Hawarden and father-in-law to Courtenay Warner
• Nesta Road (1932): named after the Hon. Nesta Douglas-Pennant who married Edward Warner in 1920
• Tamworth Avenue (1934): TAMWORTH, Staffs. was part of Courtenay Warner's Lichfield constituency
• The Charter Road (1930): Courtenay Warner was the CHARTER MAYOR of Walthamstow

In 1891 the larger part of the remaining estate  was sold to the CORPORATION OF LONDON, which opened it to the public as part of EPPING FOREST. The CITY maintains the semi natural woodland, including the lake  while the park is maintained by the LBWF

1930s. SIR EDWARD WARNER succeeded to the estate and sold 20 acres of undeveloped land to WALTHAMSTOW, for £8.000. A remaining part of  8 acres he dedicated it to the Council, subject to the whole being used as a public open space. All this was completed in 1937.

After WW2 the park became a refuge for those left homeless by bomb damage. 175 pre-fab houses were built to address the shortage of housing, remaining until 1961. The network of wide paths within the park are the survivors of the roads laid out by the Council 

The London County Council built the Friday Hill Estate in Chingford from 1938 into the 1950s. The Council bought the site from the Heathcote family, owners of the nineteenth-century Friday Hill House (which itself stood on the site of the historic manor house of Chingford Earls). After the last of the Heathcotes died in 1940, the LCC used the house into a community centre, at the heart of the estate. As with many of the Council's cottage estates, the building of Friday Hill caused controversy in the local area, where residents expressed their concerns about the destruction of parkland and an influx of East Enders.

Friday Hill House, on the crest of the hill, designed by the architect Lewis Vulliamy (1791–1871), was built in 1839, for ROBERT BOOTHBY HEATHCOTE, Lord of the Manor of CHINGFORD EARLS (or COMTIS), and Rector. He was a local benefactor, paying for ST.PETER & ST.PAUL’S CHURCH (CHINGFORD), also of VULLIAMY’s design. It served as the manor house of the Heathcote family, replacing an earlier Jacobean house on the site (built in 1608, and probably the same woodwork is still in place). Panelling and fireplaces survive today, and the family CREST is over the front door
The manor house had farmland of 160 acres (0.65 km²). Louisa Boothby-Heathcote (1854–1940), who had succeeded as lady of the manor in 1915, was the last resident of the house.

After the 1939-45 war, the estate, 160 acres of farmland, was sold to London County Council who built the large housing estate and converted the house into a COMMUNITY CENTRE (until 2006, then in 2012, it became part of  LBWF’S LEARNING  EDUCATION SERVICES. Now, home)

Woodlands, meadows, hedgerows, a pond, trees and shrubs, grassy areas with wildflowers, which attract birds and butterflies.

This Tudor style dovecote dates from the sixteenth century. At that time, pigeons were kept and fattened up for eating. The dovecote, had nesting space for 250  This dovecote is depicted in the Mosaic that you will see later in CHINGFORD.

Eating dove’s flesh was considered a force against plague and pestilential diseases, and against trembling and palsie, and good for sight. Of course, fattening pigeon s was strictly the prerogative of the rich and powerful, and constituted a constant supply of meat (75 young birds were produced weekly).