please empty your brain below
I spent a good few months commuting to Little Ilford school from the south coast a couple of years ago, working on the then-new buildings, and the sight of the Sri Murugan temple never failed to lift my spirits after a slog of a journey in the morning.

Also, maybe it's my love of 1930s architecture (which brought me to this blog in the first place, many years ago) but the council blocks over-looking St Thomas's Long Burial Ground have a certain charm to them that later social housing seems to lack.

Jamesthegill | 13.11.20 - 7:16 a.m. | #

Very handsome on both sides of the street. I’ve never been there, but it’s utterly London.

Philip | 13.11.20 - 7:32 a.m. | #

From the photo I see that you visited Haggerston on the day that much of the South East was covered with curious rippling clouds. These caused much excitement in online cloud appreciation groups. Wouldn't it have been a splendid intersection if that had been the day you visited Howards Road.

Frank F | 13.11.20 - 8:48 a.m. | #

Frank beat me to it. Those clouds are gorgeous.

Suse | 13.11.20 - 9:34 a.m. | #

An exceptionally interesting post today, DG! I wonder if the people in the lower maisonettes in that "spepped terrace" suffer a feature of the "clever design" that I have heard of in such properties? Namely, that the area underneath the set-back outer wall of the upper maisonette is prone to severe water penetration during rainfall.

Cau1khead | 13.11.20 - 9:52 a.m. | #

I like the extra information on the road name board for Howards Road (although it should be Howard Road or Howard's Road). That's something I have seen in Normandy and Brittany, but never in this country.

John M. | 13.11.20 - 10:13 a.m. | #

I too thought those council blocks looked great opposite the Georgian.
Architects and councils can get it just right.

Joho | Homepage | 13.11.20 - 10:16 a.m. | #

That's what we like about your blog D G. Off beat and off the beaten track. Carry on with your wanderings

Tones | 13.11.20 - 10:46 a.m. | #

I must say the temple does a very good job at looking like a traditional Tamil one...except for the balustrade along the top, which is not a feature of Tamil temple architecture in the slightest.

anonymous | 13.11.20 - 11:04 a.m. | #

Re "Clever design means even upstairs properties get a garden"

There's a similar design as a 5 storey building (Lennox House) here. I remember it well, because an Aunt we used to visit (regularly, via steam train) lived in there in the 50s/60s. Notably within very close smelling distance of the Brother Bung factory.

Harry | 13.11.20 - 11:10 a.m. | #

Just to the West of Harry's Lennox House memory is a secret garden of gravestones tucked behind a brick wall with decorated wrought motif. Somewhat heartwarming that these treasures are retained.

Digger50 | 13.11.20 - 11:31 a.m. | #

The Science Museum has a collection of Luke Howard paintings which used to be displayed in the long-gone Meteorology Gallery.
Not many online, but viewable here.

MartinO'Holcombe | 13.11.20 - 12:03 p.m. | #

Re the temple, given how pernickety councils normally are about roof lines, blending in with the streetscape etc, how the heck did that get planning permission?

Putters | 13.11.20 - 12:48 p.m. | #

Your final sentence answered the question that had been on my lips!

Fascinating stuff! I love a bit of urban exploration!

Cornish Cockney | 13.11.20 - 12:55 p.m. | #

Guy Debord’s concept of Dérive is an interesting way of discovering the city and new places

Martin | 13.11.20 - 1:32 p.m. | #

Fascinating stuff.
Additional thanks for the link to the British History page about public housing on the Isle of Dogs - have learnt lots about things on my doorstep from that.

IslandDweller | 13.11.20 - 2:44 p.m. | #

Lennox House is another example of municipal architecture getting it just right. The big portal in the middle of that end wall was the gate of a garage for costermongers' barrows in the days when Well Street, just around the corner, was a thriving street market,

Gripper | 13.11.20 - 8:54 p.m. | #

I sometimes walked along Howards Road (and always along Balaam St) on my way to/from school but I never knew why it had that name. It was very interesting reading that short backstory about the area I grew up in.

X-Plaistow | 14.11.20 - 2:01 a.m. | #

I've only recently thought to investigate why my mum's birth certificate says she was born in 1935 at 26 Howards Road, and not where the family lived, a few streets away. She was amazed when I showed her information about Plaistow Maternity Hospital, her mum had never told her anything.
The site is still there, Street View shows it's now an NHS Ambulance station, with a Newham Heritage green plaque on the wall: "Birth place to generations of West Ham and Newham Children".

E13 | 14.11.20 - 9:39 a.m. | #

I’ve always wondered/assumed that those transverse bars on Underground station exterior roundels were divided asymmetrically in that way to carry LONDON and TRANSPORT.

Kim | 14.11.20 - 12:25 p.m. | #











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