{"id":957,"date":"2016-08-28T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/invitation2events.co.uk\/blog\/?p=957"},"modified":"2016-08-28T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T09:45:00","slug":"discovering-londons-countryside-and-urban-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invitation2events.co.uk\/blog\/?p=957","title":{"rendered":"Discovering London\u2019s countryside and urban heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chingford is a suburb of London on the London\/Essex border and\u00a0sits\u00a0on the edge of Epping Forest.<\/p>\n

\"Chingford<\/p>\n

Chingford Countryside<\/h2>\n

Originally the whole parish of Chingford lay within the ancient Forest of Essex<\/a>. The Domesday figures for swine-pastures show that Chingford was well-wooded in the 11th century, although the parish had a considerable amount of arable land, which was increased by subsequent forest clearance.\u00a0Chingford’s woodland is\u00a0still similar in size to its\u00a0area of woodland in the 1640’s.<\/p>\n

Epping Forest and Chingford Plain became popular with day-trippers in Victorian times. As\u00a0London’s largest open space, Epping Forest is a registered charity managed by the City of London.<\/p>\n

Chingford\u00a0Town<\/h2>\n

The town of Chingford began as a scattered farming community. Comprising of three forest hamlets, the inhabitants of Chingford had the ancient right to pasture cattle, branded with their mark, a crowned ‘G’, within the forest.<\/p>\n

There has been a parish church in\u00a0Chingford since Norman times. The present Old Church\u00a0building dates from the late 13th century. However\u00a0the church building had to be abandoned in the 1840’s as it\u00a0was in such a bad state of repair. The Reverend Robert Boothby Heathcote<\/a> decided to build, at his\u00a0own expense, a new church on Chingford Green. The new Church on the Green, designed by Lewis Vulliamy, was built \u00a0in 1844 and established the prominence of the Chingford Green hamlet .<\/p>\n

During Victorian times nearby Walthamstow and Leyton experienced a surge in urbanisation, but Chingford remained an agricultural parish until the arrival of the Great Eastern Railway.<\/p>\n

The Chingford Green conservation area includes a variety of interesting buildings showing Chingford\u2019s development over two hundred years from a small rural community to a suburb of modern London. Details of these buildings can be found in the\u00a0leaflet written and illustrated by Guy Osborne<\/a> for the London Borough of Waltham Forest.<\/p>\n