Lammas Lands, Leyton, Columbia Market & Bethnal Green: On Sunday 17th December 2006 I went to an event by local residents seeking to protect the Leyton Lammas Lands from the sprawling London 2012 Olympics before going to a meeting with a friend at Columbia Market. Unfortunately on my way there I got a phone call telling me he was unable to make it, so I took a few pictures there before walking on in a roundabout way to visit another friend in Bethnal Green. Below I’ll post what I wrote back in 2006 (with minor corrections) and some of the pictures from that day.
Loss of Common Land
Leyton Lammas Lands, Marsh Lane, Leyton
History seems about to repeat itself in Leyton, although the outcome may be different this time. It was in 894 that King Alfred drained Leyton Marsh and gave the local people the right to graze their animals on the Lammas Land created. (Details in this post come from a leaflet written by Lorraine Metherall and Neil Bedford, published by the New Lammas Lands Defence Committee (NLLDC) and from Martin Slavin’s Games Monitor web site – now archived here.)
In the 1890s, the East London Waterworks Company tried to take over the Lammas Lands, and on Lammas Day, 1st August 1892, a large demonstration met on the marshes and ripped up their fences. The company tried to sue one of the people involved, and locals set up the ‘Leyton Lammas Lands Defence Committee‘ (LLLDC) and fought the case in court. The water company ended up admitting defeat, paying all costs and giving money for a local essay prize.
The efforts of the LLLDC led to the ‘1904 Leyton Urban District Council Act‘, in which parliament vested the lands in the council, making them responsible for maintaining them as “an open space for the perpetual use therof for exercise and recreation…”. The act made them a permanent public open space in return for the giving up of the lammas rights, and was confirmed by parliament in 1965.
Over the years parts of the land have been taken for other uses, including railway sidings, Gas Board land and, more recently, the Lea Valley Riding School and Ice Rink. When the Lea Valley Regional Park acquired most of the Lammas Lands by compulsory purchase in 1971, they for some reason felt able to ignore the 1904 act, and have blocked public access to some areas.
The latest threat to Leyton Lammas Lands come from the London Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Although outside the Olympic area, the Lammas Lands are a handy place to dump the unwanted, in this case the allotment holders of Manor Gardens. In the late 1880s the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Eton College and prompted them to set up a charitable settlement in Hackney. The Eton Manor Settlement bought up land, including lammas land in Hackney and Leyton and set up various sports clubs and related activities including the Manor Garden Allotments.
Although the ODA is apparently set on jettisoning inconvenient requirements that were a part of its original agreement – such as the need to replace common land – it apparently still has to re-site the allotments, and its preferred site is on Marsh Lane, part of the Leyton Lammas Lands. Unfortunately the current land is unsuitable, being heavily polluted with a relatively thin layer of topsoil on top of wartime rubble.
Making them usable means removal of some existing soil and bringing in many lorry loads of new topsoil, probably half a metre over the whole site. This would mean an new vehicle access to Marsh Lane, bringing traffic the few yards from Orient Way, along with widening Marsh Lane with the loss of some of the fine avenue of trees currently on both sides. This would also need to stay open for the use of the allotment holders, and would almost certainly result in the newly widened Marsh Lane becoming a heavily trafficked short cut to Church Road.
The ODA needs the support of the local council for their application, and the NLLDC hope to raise enough local support to make them think again. It is of course possible that the courts could be asked to ensure that the provisions of the 1904 act are enforced.
[The Manor Gardens allotments were moved here in 2007 but the site allocated was in very poor condition. The ODA reneged on its promise to return them to their original site – but eventually in 2016 they were given a new site – only one fifth the area of their original site – on Pudding Mill Lane. This is now under threat from more and more tall buildings around it blocking out the sun.]
Leyton
A few more pictures from Leyton.
Columbia Market
I was in the East End partly to meet a mate at Columbia Market, but in the end he couldn’t make it. With Christmas just over a week to go, prices were high. I calculated we’d just sent several hundred pounds worth of eucalyptus twigs to the incinerator after I did a bit of pruning recently, and those three holly trees in the back garden would be a goldmine. Strangely, even at these prices, some people seemed to be buying the stuff, though by the end of they day there did seem to be quite a lot of plants being loaded back into the lorries, and there were certainly plenty of Christmas Untrees left.
Real trees of course have roots, and we always get one that has them, and grow it on for a few years between January and December. A few die off, and others eventually get too big to get through the door, and there are three that would suit Trafalgar Square down the garden. [Two huge and still growing but I had to fell one of them a few years ago.]
A few more images – including the Christmas Tree machine
Bethnal Green
I took a few snaps, and then wandered through Hackney and Bethnal Green on my way to visit another friend who had written a book, The Romance of Bethnal Green, on the area and is using some of my pictures, to take a look at the design.
There was some nice light on some of the streets and buildings, and Queen Adelaide’s head curiously lit up as I passed.
More pictures from Hackney and Bethnal Green
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