Stories of the Lane: Place
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Stories from Ilford Lane Part 2
An exhibition by Redbridge Museum and Redbridge Council about the history of Ilford Lane.
Ilford Lane is one of the most historic parts of the London Borough of Redbridge.
The area’s history stretches back over 200,000 years to the Ice Age.
For most of its history, Ilford Lane was a narrow country lane surrounded by farms and fields. It was then known as ‘Barking Lane’ since Barking was the most important town in the area. Its name was changed to ‘Ilford Lane’ in 1900 when Ilford started to expand rapidly.
In 1900, Ilford started to expand rapidly as hundreds of new houses, shops, and facilities were built. In recognition of this growth, the road was renamed ‘Ilford Lane’.
Today, Ilford Lane is a bustling and vibrant part of the London Borough of Redbridge. Uncover its rich history in this online exhibition.
Redbridge Museum, based in Redbridge Central Library, Ilford, explores 200,000 years of history in Ilford, Wanstead, and Woodford. The family-friendly displays are packed full of fascinating personal stories. To find out more, visit www.visionrcl.org.uk/centre/redbridge-museum
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Shopping
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Shopping
Today’s Ilford Lane is one of London’s major South Asian shopping districts. However, it has been a retail centre since the early 1900s.
Many of Ilford Lane’s shop premises were built around 1900 to serve the local area’s rapidly growing population.
William Bush outside his grocery shop, 42 Ilford Lane, 1930s Redbridge Heritage Centre p9193
Bottle sold by J. Patterson, M.P.S, Chemist, 52 Ilford Lane, about 1911-27 Redbridge Museum 1997.1760
Ration book for Sibley Butchers, 77 Ilford Lane, 1940s-50s Redbridge Museum 1997.1847
Record sold by D. Woolfman, Wireless and Gramophone shop, 76 Ilford Lane, about 1939 Redbridge Museum 2008.4266
Bag from Partap Textiles, 123-125 Ilford Lane, 2005 Redbridge Museum 2003.3738
The first South Asian grocery shops opened in the early 1970s, followed by fabric shops and small restaurants. Today, there are over 100 South Asian shops with new ones opening all the time. Ravi and Rani Uppal ran Partap Textiles on Ilford Lane from 1988 to 2022:
“There were only a few Asian fabric shops when we moved to Ilford Lane. After 12 years hard work, we moved across the road to our larger shop in 2002. When we first started it was mostly local trade, more recently we got a lot of customers from outside Ilford. You get a good variety in Ilford Lane, you can eat here, the supermarkets are here but more parking would really help. We did a wide range for special occasions or everyday wear. Bollywood movies can influence styles and colours.”
Ravi and Rani were interviewed by Redbridge Museum in 2005.
Redbridge Museum made this film about shopping in Ilford Lane in 2005:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p57_2KrKOH0
Pioneer Market, 1950 Redbridge Heritage Centre p11302
Bag from Ron’s Music Shop, Pioneer Market, c1950s-60s Redbridge Museum 2023.6249
“You could not stand in the Pioneer Market [in the 1970s], it was bustling with people.”
Bill Matcham and Harry Chittick, formerly of Frank’s Butcher’s, Pioneer Market.
Quote from the film A Pioneer Perspective, 2008
The much-loved Pioneer Market opened at the top of Ilford Lane in 1921. It was built in what had been the garden of a 17th century house called Melcombe Lodge. The house had been bought by Ardeshir Kapadia, an Ilford Councillor and barrister, with the intention of creating a permanent market in the town. Kapadia was a Parsi born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and had come to England to study law in the 1880s. Kapadia wanted to find a home for street traders in Ilford and accordingly helped to create the Pioneer Market. The Market had a variety of stalls including butchers, greengrocers, and clothing. Pioneer Market closed in 2004 as it judged to be out of date and was replaced by high-rise flats known as ‘Pioneer Point’.
In 1984, shops at the top end of Ilford Lane were demolished for the building of Winston Way. This took traffic away from the town centre and enabled the High Road to be pedestrianised.
Shops and houses at the top of Ilford Lane were compulsory purchased by Redbridge Council and demolished. At the same time, the former Ilford Limited factory was demolished and replaced by a Sainsbury’s supermarket.
The photograph shows the construction of an underpass and roundabout at the top of Ilford Lane, which is to the left. The roof of Pioneer Market is on the right. In the centre background is the empty site of the former Ilford Limited photographic factory which closed in 1976.
Winston Way, junction of Ilford Lane, 1984 Redbridge Heritage Centre p12253
This shows 18 and 20 Ilford Lane (west side) shortly before they were demolished for the building of Winston Way. The Kohi-Noor takeway also sold all-butter Indian sweets as well as catering for weddings and functions. South Asian shops gradually started to open on Ilford Lane from the 1970s. The Kohi-Noor moved further down Ilford Lane.
Kohi-Noor Indian takeaway, 20 Ilford Lane, 1983 Redbridge Heritage Centre p12843
Ilford Lane, 1950s National Library of Scotland
Ilford Lane, 2020s National Library of Scotland
This map and modern satellite image indicate the dramatic changes to the layout of the northern end of Ilford Lane during the building of Winston Way in 1984. In the 1950s map, Pioneer Market can be seen at the top of Ilford Lane. This closed in 2004 and were eventually replaced by Pioneer Point whose two towers can clearly be seen on the satellite image.
Opposite the Pioneer Market was a row of shops including the Kohi-Noor Indian takeaway shown above. Behind these shops were the ‘Works’ of Ilford Limited photographic company. On the east side of Ilford Lane is Scrafton Road which completely disappeared when Winston Way and a row of flats for older people were built in the mid-1980s.
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Welcoming the World
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Welcoming the World: Nowadays
Ilford Lane has historically been the most culturally diverse part of Ilford.
This shop opened at 30 Ilford Lane in about 1932. By the 1930s, Ilford Lane was home to a small Jewish community. Most had grown up in the East End and came from families who had escaped the Russian empire. As their economic circumstances improved, they moved out of the East End and settled in Ilford town centre.
Samuels Kosher Butcher, 30 Ilford Lane, 1935 Redbridge Heritage Centre
Dr Bhatia was a G.P. doctor at 207 Ilford Lane from 1935. Dr Bhatia had trained at the University of the Punjab, Lahore (now in Pakistan). By 1939, Dr Bhatia had been joined in his Ilford Lane practice by Dr Jai Deo Prasad, who had trained in Lucknow, northern India. At this time, there were only around 200 Indian doctors in London so they would have been an unusual sight.
Dr Ganpat Rai Bhatia and Dr Jai Prasad, 207 Ilford Lane, 1939 1939 Register, The National Archives / Ancestry
James Alexander set up a housing association on Ilford Lane in 1971. He had been born in Trinidad & Tobago and settled in Seven Kings in 1963, where he worked as an insurance salesman. Interviewed by Redbridge Museum, he said:
“I decided to set up the Trinity Housing Association which moved to Ilford Lane in 1971. It was rather difficult for black people to get a house to rent…
Redbridge Council gave me a hundred derelict houses in Ilford town centre that we refurbished and rented to coloured people, Irish, anybody who couldn’t get it themselves.”Interview with Redbridge Museum in 2005 (OR101)
Trinity Housing Association, 73 Ilford Lane, 1972
© Alexander ArchivesAnwar Hussain ran Anwar’s Halal Butcher’s on Ilford Lane, opened by his father in 1972:
“My dad came to this country in 1958… and came to Ilford in 1972, where I’ve lived ever since. At that time there were no Asian shops on Ilford Lane. Slowly, slowly, they started increasing and now we have all Asian shops on Ilford Lane which is good for business.
It wasn’t as multicultural as what it is today. In them days you only had the Asians from Kenya or Uganda, and the West Indians, but now you’ve got Somalians, Bengalis, Pakistani’s, Indians, Eastern Europeans – we cater for all of them now.”Interview with Redbridge Museum in 2005 (OR121)
Bag from Anwar’s Halal Butcher, 2005 Redbridge Museum 2006.4041
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Second World War: 1939-1945
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When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, around 20,000 Ilford school children were evacuated to escape bombing.
When this failed to materialise after several months, some returned home, only to be evacuated again in June 1940 when a German invasion was expected.
Cleveland Road School pupils were evacuated to St. Austell in Cornwall, Taunton in Devon, and Monmouth in Wales. Gwynith Edwards-Smith was a 10-year-old pupil at Cleveland Road School when she was evacuated in June 1940. She told Redbridge Museum in 2001:
“I remember it was a long train journey to Wales. I was determined to stay with my friend, so we were the last to be billeted. We weren’t treated badly, ate well, and the room was clean. But when I was 12, my mum died. My host didn’t really comfort me, so I simply went to my room to cry. I felt lonely and homesick but like most of the evacuees, I simply had to get on with it.
We had fun with a Woman’s Land Army girl who was billeted with us and I learned to milk a cow at a local farm. But with no mum, I was one of the last to return to Ilford in January 1945.”Uphall School pupils were evacuated to Tiverton in Devon.
Loxford School on Eton Road were sent to a ‘camp school’ in Surrey in February 1940. This was a scheme whereby a whole school stayed together in a camp, rather than the children being billeted with local families.
Hampton Road, showing the devastation after a landmine had exploded on 19 March 1941 Redbridge Heritage Centre p10564
The Ilford Lane area was heavily bombed during the war, particularly during ‘the Blitz’ of 1940-1941. One of the worst incidents occurred on the night of 19 March 1941 when two parachute land mines exploded on Hampton Road and Eton Road, killing 31 people. The church was eventually repaired after the war and reopened in 1954.
St. Luke’s Church, Baxter Road, was severely damaged by an incendiary bomb on 3 October 1940Redbridge Heritage Centre p10500
The Howards chemical factory and Ilford Limited photographic company were key to Britain’s war effort and were targeted by German bombers. Although they largely escaped serious damage, Ilford Limited was damaged by a V2 rocket on 20 February 1945.
Redbridge Museum made this film about the local impacts of the Second World War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmy0kOTTHA4
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First World War: 1914 -1918
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First World War, 1914-1918
Ilford Lane, like the rest of Ilford, was affected by the First World War.
Cleveland Road and Loxford schools were damaged in an air raid during December 1917. By April 1918, Uphall School was being used as air raid shelter and there was another shelter on the corner of Ilford Lane and Khartoum Road.
As food became scarce, Uphall School pupils kept an allotment, as did the Howards factory. A food kitchen was opened at 110 Ilford Lane in February 1918 to provide subsided meals for local factory workers and families. Howards, and Ilford Limited produced materials used in the war effort and as their male employees went to fight, women filled their places. To provide childcare which would enable them to go out to work, Ilford War Day Nursery opened 20 January 1917 at 140 Ilford Lane, before moving to empty shop at 6 Ilford Broadway.
The true cost of the war must be measured in the lives lost. The memorials at Cleveland Road School and Ilford Lane Methodist Church are just two examples of how Ilford Lane’s surrounding streets lost many men killed in the fighting.
Cleveland Road School First World War Memorial Plaque
Redbridge Museum
Ilford Lane Methodist Church First World War Memorial
Redbridge MuseumRedbridge Museum made this website about the local impacts of the First World War: www.redbridgefirstworldwar.org.uk
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Having fun: 1800s - 1900s
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Ilford’s first swimming pool and public baths were built off Roden Street, to the west of Ilford Lane, in 1894.
It was one of the first facilities provided by the newly formed Ilford Urban District Council. Its water was originally drawn from a natural well but it was soon connected to the mains water supply. It was closed when new swimming baths were opened on the High Road in 1931.
Uphall Recreation Ground (originally called Loxford Recreation Ground) opened in 1908 on what had once been part of the Uphall brickfield.
Loxford Park opened in 1932 on what had been part of the Loxford Hall estate.
Ilford Hippodrome Redbridge Heritage Centre p6471
The Ilford Hippodrome variety theatre stood on the corner of Ilford Lane and Ilford Broadway. Opened in 1909, it was a symbol of Ilford’s growing population. Up to 3000 customers watched singers, musicians, dancers, comedians, actors, and acrobats. It was badly damaged by a V2 rocket attack on 12 January 1945 during the Second World War and was demolished in 1957 and replaced by shops and offices.
Empire Kinema Cinema Treasures
This cinema opened in April 1913 at 22 Ilford Lane. On 17 September 1940, the Empire was hit by a German incendiary bomb and lay derelict for much of the war, despite being requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In April 1945, Ilford Limited, whose factory backed onto the cinema, successfully submitted plans to build huts on the cleared site. The whole area was swept away when Winston Way was built in 1984.
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Schools Around 1900s
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As Ilford Lane’s local population grew rapidly around 1900, so several new schools were built in the area.
Cleveland Road School girl’s class, about 1910 Redbridge Heritage Centre p100
Cleveland Road infant and junior schools were opened in 1896. The three-storey building was the largest erected by Ilford School Board and could accommodate 1,800 pupils.
Loxford School
Loxford School for infants and juniors opened on Eton Road in 1904. It became the Loxford Central School for (senior) Boys in 1931. The infants and juniors were formed into Woodlands School next door, on the corner of Woodlands Road. This later moved to its current site on Loxford Lane.
In 1971, Loxford merged with Mount Secondary School for Girls (Uphall Road), and Dane Secondary Modern School (Melbourne Road, Ilford) to form Loxford High School. The lower school was on Eton Road, while the upper school was at Loxford Lane. In 1990, the school amalgamated onto one site at Loxford Lane. Loxford Primary School opened here in 2013.
Woodlands School, Eton Road, 1950s Redbridge Heritage Centre p268
Uphall School sports day, about 1914 Redbridge Heritage Centre p3040
Uphall County Primary School, Uphall Road, opened in a temporary building in 1906 and on its permanent site in April 1909. In 1937, an elegant ‘Moderne’ style block was built to house domestic science classrooms. Here, girls were taught housewife skills, something which was common at the time.
In 1937, the Mount Central School for Girls opened on the Uphall School site. It was probably named after the nearby Lavender Mount (or Mound) on Uphall Farm, which is thought to have been a 16th century beacon mound. Mount School closed in 1971 when it became part of the new Loxford High School.
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Ilford Limited, Roden Street: 1970s - 1980s
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Ilford Limited sales office, Roden Street, 1930s Redbridge Heritage Centre p15268
Ilford Limited made high-quality photographic equipment.The company was founded in Cranbrook Road, Ilford, in 1879 and soon moved to premises in Roden Street, just off the north-western part of Ilford Lane. Over time, Ilford Limited expanded, buying up rival companies, developing new products, and leading the way in scientific research. In 1976, Ilford Limited moved to a modern facility in Basildon, Essex. Its Ilford factory was demolished and replaced by a large Sainsbury’s supermarket which opened in 1985.
Avril Nelson worked in Ilford Limited’s computer department between 1969 and 1983:
“They were a good employer and they did look after people. [There] were families who had always lived and worked there. They were proud of it because Ilford was a prestigious name. It was really well regarded.”
Interview with Redbridge Museum in 2022 (Mp4-071)
Ilford Limited Craftsman camera, 1949 Redbridge Museum 1998.2466
Redbridge Museum and the National Portrait Gallery made this film about Ilford Limited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZEFiPORVM
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Howards & Sons chemical factory, Uphall Road: About 1960s
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Howards & Sons chemical factory, Uphall Road: About 1960s
Howards chemical factory, Uphall Road, about 1960s Redbridge Heritage Centre p7181
In 1898, Howards & Sons bought part of the Uphall Farm estate and built a factory on Uphall Road, at the south-western part of Ilford Lane. Howards had been founded in 1797 and were based in Stratford. They made chemicals for foods, fertilisers, medicines, paint, and many other products. The Ilford factory closed in 1980 after many complaints about pollution.In this photograph, the Howards factory chimney is in the centre. Uphall Road can be seen on the right, leading to Uphall School in the top right corner.
Dave Watt was one of 400 who worked at Howards from the 1920s to the 1970s:
“Howards was one of the first companies in the country to introduce holidays, sick pay, pensions. I mean, it wasn’t a lot. The pension was laughable, but in those days it wasn’t laughable…
Everything that Howards wanted to do was first class. Carpenters, fitters, pipe fitters, plumbers. Every trade you can mention, they had their own.” -
Roads to Empire: 1600s - 1800s
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Roads to Empire: 1600s - 1800s
Bengal Road, 2017 Redbridge Museum
Madras Road, 2017Redbridge Museum
Many of Ilford Lane’s surrounding roads were built between 1898 and 1905.
Most of the houses on these roads were designed for upper working-class or lower middle-class residents. As was the fashion of the time, several of the road names have links to the British empire which was then at its height.
Bengal Road and Madras Road were centres of British power in India. Bengal and its port city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in north-east India was the headquarters of the British East India Company from 1772. Madras (now Chennai) was the centre of British power and trade in southern India. Ilford had many connections to the East India Company during the 1600s and 1700s. Today, by coincidence, Ilford Lane is a centre of South Asian life in Redbridge.
Khartoum Road is named after the capital city of Sudan, which was the scene of a famous British imperial military defeat in 1885. Khartoum was re-occupied by the British in 1898, a victory celebrated in the name of this road. Neighbouring Wingate Road is likely to be named after the Governor-General of Sudan of the time, Reginald Wingate.
Natal Road is a named after a province in South Africa, then part of the British empire. Natal was the scene of battles during the Boer War of 1899-1902.
Hunter, Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman Road are named after British historical cultural groups. The names were probably inspired by the history of the nearby Uphall Iron Age camp.
Staines, Eton, Mortlake, Henley, Hampton, Kingston, and Windsor Road are named after towns on River Thames.
To find out more about Redbridge’s links to the East India Company in the 1600s and 1700s, visit Redbridge Museum.