Doctor Carrot Guards Your Health

Bob's taught quite a bit in and around Walthamstow, so since he was in the neighbourhood again today, we decided to do a walking tour of Walthamstow Village. It turns out that there is in fact a very lovely village-y bit of Walthamstow hidden away in the middle of the urban mess that seems to make up the rest of the area, and we were glad we came exploring to find it. Our first stop was at the Vestry House Museum, from which we didn't expect much--but it was a pleasant surprise!

Housed in Walthamstow's former vestry house, originally built in 1730, the museum's back garden is filled with artifacts like this early 20th-century signpost

and this machine, said to be "a very common sight in backyards during the Victorian era and later." Can you guess what it does?

It's called a "mangle" and it enabled quicker drying by squeezing water out of washing that was run through the rollers. In addition to housing the local administration, the vestry house was also the site of the the local "cage"--an adjacent building where prisoners could be held overnight.

The museum is filled with all sorts of items from Walthamstow's past, including this trio of lovely carts:

Employees of Walthamstow's Law Land Building Department were paid hourly, and punched in and out by swinging this machine's arm around and slotting it into their employee number, thus leaving a printed time on the paper inside the device:

"There's no cooker better than the Marmion":

Here's another mangle (what a name):

Quite a few of the displays centred on food rationing, and the more I peered into these displays, the less I could imagine eating this type of diet.

Still, rationing was very much a part of many Britons' lives, with effects lingering through to the present. As the smallest example, Bob and I felt slightly guilty last summer when we stayed with Grahame and Josephine, and they first served us coffee. We asked if they had any sugar, and as she brought some over, Josephine mentioned that she had given up on sugar during wartime rationing, and just never got back into using it. "We were just doing our bit," she said nicely as we spooned the valuable sweet into our coffee. We both suddenly felt the weight of our privileged lives, where food rationing is just a display in a museum instead of an everyday hardship--when we run out of sugar, we just go to the store to buy more! Speaking of sugar, in the 18th century it was sold in cones like this one, for easy storage:

When sugar was needed, a hammer was used to break up the cone and then "sugar nippers" were used to further grind the sugar into powder or lumps. After we left the museum, we passed these attractive almshouses:

The sign reads: "Thefe houfes are erected and endowed for ever by Mrs. Mary Squires widow for the ufe of six decayed tradefmens widows of this parifh and no other. AD 1795." Nearby Orford Road held the area's important shops during Victorian times, and there is still an attractive grouping of shops along this short stretch. Brooms and brushes are no longer sold from this attractive storefront--it's now the home of a theatrical agency.

Regular readers will know I'm far more partial to dogs than cats, but this kitty in another shop window was a bit too photogenic to pass up--and look at that tail! It's like there's a raccoon hiding behind the cat!

Orford Street even has its own fancy deli/ restaurant/ music venue, which incorporates the first part of Walthamstow's postcode into its name--a business tactic that is much more popular in London than you may think. I suppose there's no quicker shortcut to associating a business with a place, but it still seems a bit lazy to me . . . still I guess expanding E17 into Eat 17 shows a bit of imagination. In any case, the food looked great, but the prices were definitely of the central London variety (way out from the centre).

Along with such a foodie haven, this building was one of the last things I expected to find in Walthamstow:

The 15th Century timber framed house was first restored in 1934, at which time the brick portion you can see in the photo was purposely built to mimic deformed Tudor brickwork. When the house was again restored in 2001, this 1934 addition was kept "as part of the history of the house." The small church and graveyard across from the house added to the feeling that we were somewhere other than northeast London.

On our way back to the station, we passed another set of pretty almshouses, dating to 1527:

Walthamstow also has one of London's longest street markets, but by the time we made it back to the station, the market was closing up for the day, so we just headed home, content with seeing a lovely bit of a neighbourhood that we didn't think had such an oasis--all the more reason to keep exploring!