Wanstead Flats
The greater part of the whole area of some 1.35 square kilometres (334 acres) is flat, open grassland on the river gravel of the Taplow Terrace, which overlays the London Clay.
In the northwestern part of Wanstead Flats, the grassland merges into a predominately oak woodland called Bush Wood, which gives its name to the Bushwood area of Leytonstone.
The northern part of Bush Wood is tenuously connected to Leyton Flats and the rest of Epping Forest by footpaths through the Green Man roundabout.
[3] Though historically part of a royal forest, the nature of the area encouraged people to turn out cattle and other animals to graze upon this unenclosed land.
At the end of the 17th century, an avenue of sweet chestnut and lime trees was laid out on the western side of the Flats into Bush Wood, leading eventually to Wanstead House; John Evelyn is believed to have been the designer.
[5] A fair has been held on Wanstead Flats during the Easter holiday since the mid-19th century, following an earlier tradition of an annual cattle market.
[4] After drainage and levelling work in the 1890s, the London Playing Fields Committee approached the City authorities with a view to establishing football and cricket pitches.
[5] On the night of 17/18 August 1915 during the First World War, German Zeppelin L10 dropped a string of bombs on the Wanstead Flats, fortunately resulting only in broken windows in 73 nearby houses.
[7] During the Second World War, Wanstead Flats was used as a site for anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers, searchlights and barrage balloons to defend against German bombers, especially during the Blitz.
In 1944, a hutted camp was built on the Flats as an assembly point for troops preparing for the Normandy Landings; the same buildings were later used to house Axis prisoners of war.
The move was strongly backed against local opposition by the Labour Government; the housing minister, Aneurin Bevan, declaring that "I regret very much that we have had to do it, but the people of East Ham must have shelter...
A public enquiry opened on 3 December 1946, the application to build on the flats being opposed by the City of London, 379 formal objections and a petition containing 60,000 signatures.
Finally, in April 1947, the government announced that although the Epping Forest Act did not prevent the land from being compulsorily purchased, the scheme would not go ahead.
Two men, Mark Page and Terrance Webb, were subsequently arrested on suspicion of illegally dumping chemical pesticides near the lake.
[14] Another precaution for the security for the 2012 Summer Olympics was the siting of surface-to-air missiles on the roof of Fred Wigg Tower, Leytonstone, a residential high-rise building adjacent to and overlooking Wanstead Flats.
The only running water used to be a year-round spring that was the source of one of the 'marshy' areas dominated by rushes that exist in some of the more poorly drained parts of the Flats.
Most of these were planted towards the end of the 19th century as a response to efforts by the Epping Forest Committee to break up what was perceived as a monotonous area of grassland.
Older than these is an avenue of trees in the NW portion of the Flats, running from close to Ferndale Road in Leytonstone to Bush Wood.
