|
Hainault Forest Website
|
|
Written
and Designed by Brian Ecott |
|
SOCIAL
HISTORY |
|
Hainault
Forest in the Thirties |
|
|
|
|
|
Foxburrows
Farm
1938 from Dog Kennel Hill. The lake is in the top middle -
left of the picture |
 |
 |
|
Close
up showing School room and sleeping huts (removed in 2015). This
part of the forest was within Dagenham boundary prior to the
London Borough changes in 1964. |
Close
up showing the Forge, the Pillared Barn and the Boat swings |
 |
|
Pillared barn
where Mrs Lucas ran a refreshment room. Photo © Victor George |
|
 |
|
Foxburrows Farm
1938 showing Foxburrows Farm road and the Farm pond in the
bottom left of the picture and 1-4 Foxburrows Cottages in top left
of the picture. More details below. |
 |
 |
|
Farmhouse and
well stocked cottage garden. This was demolished in the 60's to
make way for changing rooms for the many football pitches on the
grassland. The changing rooms are now derelict |
Unknown building on the
grassland opposite the barns. Any ideas?
Could it be a toilet or a
pen for geese which appear to be in the field? |
 |
|
A family taking tea in the
forest in the 1930's. The farmhouse table is set with a teapot,
water and milk jugs and cups and saucers and a small tablecloth.
Other forms and tables can be seen in the picture. It is known
that a Mr and Mrs Lucas that lived at No 2. Foxburrows cottages
used the Pillared barn to serve refreshments for many years and to
do birthdays and wedding catering in the barn. Lottie Harvey
who was born at No 4. Foxburrows Cottages explained "
In
the Foxburrows barns Mr and Mrs Lucas, who lived in one of the
cottages, had a teashop. There were long tables covered with white
tablecloths. They served set teas, there were slab cakes, jellies,
and jam sandwiches, or a high tea could be provided. Tea was
poured from large teapots. Wedding receptions were catered for and
two of Lottie's brothers had their receptions there. Sweets could
be purchased there. Mrs Lucas made Christmas cakes and the
Harvey's had one every year. Around the walls were stuffed animals
and antlers and outside on a tin roof real monkeys were chained.
Under the eaves the swallows made their nests every summer."
Even in
2017 the light blue pillars are present in the pillared barn. |
 |
 |
|
More pictures of
the thirties family in the forest. |
|
Doreen
Phillips from Chadwell Heath
remembers the proprietress of
the Tea room - a Mrs Lucas who kept live monkeys in cages in the tea room
in addition to the stuffed animals and deer antlers. Mrs Phillips can
still recall the horrible smell of the monkeys!
|
|
|
|
The thirties
family cycle in the forest |
|
Gus from
Sussex wonders what happened to the old Tea room that he visited in
the early forties. It was full of stuffed Pike and Perch in glass cases,
deer heads, antlers, stuffed foxes and other animals. He used to fill
sandbags with chestnuts, hang them over the pannier on his cycle, and
cycle back through the forest. At the Tea room he sat in front of a very
nice open fire roasting chestnuts with a couple of friends, putting logs
onto the fire, before cycling over Hog Hill for home. "On one occasion in
the summer I was on the top of Hog Hill with a friend and we thought we
would collect some blackberries. We pitched the cycles up against the
bramble hedge and climbed up on them picking blackberries. On the way down
I stepped onto the crossbar and slipped, dislocating both my arms and
shoulders. My friend went to the Tea room to summon help. A policeman came
and there was an army lorry approaching which he stopped. He made them
take me to Oldchurch Hospital as an emergency since I was in quite some
pain. They put my cycle in the back of the lorry. I learned later that
they had an unexploded bomb in the back which had just been defused!!"
|
|
 |
|
Hainault Lake
1938 looking from the south-west |
|
 |
|
Hainault Lake
1938 looking South towards the Romford Road. See below right for
Legend. |
|
 |
 |
|
Legend for Hainault Lake
1938 looking from the south-west (top above) |
Legend for Hainault Lake
1938 looking South towards the Romford Road |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
On Cabin Hill
c.1936-8
Back: Sid Williams,
Isabella Williams nee Underwood, Unknown lady.
Front: Iris Huckstep,
Elizabeth Williams, Barbara Huckstep, Unknown boy. Photo: ©
Barbara Oliverio, daughter of Elizabeth (above).
|
Hainault Baptist Church members
photographed at the same place in April 2010.
|