Our Chairman gave a talk yesterday up in Woodford on the origins of Redbridge street names, and I was reminded of this from a newspaper in 1894. Cameron Corbett was busily laying out the Grange Estate north of the station (York Road to Northbrook) but needed another road. 🧵

With her ground-breaking achievements, Kitty Clark may have inspired many more #WomenInSTEM during her time at Ilford Limited! Find out more about the company at Redbridge Museum: visionrcl.org.uk/museum

Kitty was also a pioneer in developing mass miniature radiography, a technique used to screen for the deadly lung disease tuberculosis. 🫁 She received an MBE for her work on this in 1945.

To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, here’s a mini thread dedicated to Kathleen ‘Kitty’ Clara Clark (1896-1986), a scientist who worked for local photographic company Ilford Limited. 🧵 Open this thread to read on! ⬇️

More archive than art but we’ll take part in today’s @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange anyway with this photograph from our collection of Victorian skaters on the frozen lake at Wanstead Park, February 1895 ⛸️

Our next talk is by one of our own Committee members, Lynn Haseldine-Jones, who looks at Woodford in Old Postcards. Next Monday 9th Feb in the Gloucester Room - 7 for 7:30pm.

Ilford HS president Jef Page is speaking to the Woodford Historical Society about the origins of Redbridge street names on Thursday 12th Feb @ 2:30pm up at All Saints, Inmans Row in Woodford Wells. I wonder if he'll cover Inmans Row itself?

A little added extra to our map - the difference a few short decades bring! This publication has two maps about 25 years apart, it's utterly incredible how profound a change the railways made to the UK landscape! www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/london803.htm

1925 was a pretty key year for The Area Formerly Known as Redbridge* with the sale of both Shackman's & St Swithin's farms - and you can read about it here: *by those of us of a certain age... ilfordhistoricalsociety.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/...

The Ilford Swimming Baths opened on the High Road on this day in 1931. These photos from our collection show the baths under construction on 18 September 1930. Do you remember going there to swim? 🏊

2nd Lt. Herbert Musgrove Beck of Ilford was killed in a flying accident on this day in 1918. Now on display at Redbridge Museum, this wooden cross originally marked his grave in the Military Cemetery in Amiens, France. Discover the journey of the Beck cross on our #WW1 website: vrcl.uk/4sNCeJf

Tomorrow!

It's been a very cold week for us! This diary entry by John Hanson of Woodford recorded similar weather on this day in 1820 ❄️ If Hanson's Fahrenheit thermometer read 30° below freezing, and the freezing temperature is 32°F, can you figure out how cold it would have been on a Celsius thermometer? 🌡️

Our first talk for 2026 is one on Famous Quakers of West Ham given by Mark Gorman and Peter Williams. 7 for 7:30pm on Monday 12th Jan in the Gloucester Room, Redbridge Central Library.

Our first acquisition of the New Year – this 1980 pen and watercolour work by Essex artist Frank Alwin showing the Ilford Playhouse on Cranbrook Road, Ilford, a former Grade II listed church building. (1/2)

Happy New Year from Redbridge Museum! 🥳

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to all from Redbridge Museum! 🎄

Happy Christmas from all at the Ilford Historical Society!

#Santa takes a break on Christmas Eve with a quick concert in this cover of photographic company Ilford Limited’s ‘Between Ourselves’ staff magazine for Christmas 1960 🎅 #ArchiveAdventCalendar @arascot.bsky.social

With nothing drastically urgent that needs doing, I'm wandering around the British Newspaper Archive, and came across this piece about a temperance meeting in Ilford for juveniles. I'm now intrigued by a...poem?..called "Farewell, broken chairs and tables".

Anyone have any interesting #FestiveTraditions? Here’s the Valentines Swimming Club ready for a dip in the boating lake on Christmas morning, 1915! 🥶 #ArchiveAdventCalendar @arascot.bsky.social

Local company Kelvin Hughes made navigational equipment from their factory in Hainault from 1917 until 2012, and rewarded employees and their families with big themed parties every Christmas! This one took place in the 1960s – can you guess the theme? #ArchiveAdventCalendar @arascot.bluesky.social

It’s Christmas Jumper Day! Are you going for a novelty jumper or a more traditional one, like this jumper featured on the cover of a 1940s knitting pattern purchased from a shop on Ilford Lane 🧶

Our new volunteer Maya has been listing our Kenneth More Theatre programmes and has found one for a production of The Wizard of Oz from Spring 1986. Follow the yellow brick road to Redbridge Drama Centre this Christmas to see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: visionrcl.org.uk/events/the-w... #PantoDay

Our August Newsletter is now up on the website to read (and enjoy!). We're all over the map this time with articles about Redbridge, Gants Hill, Goodmayes, Valentines Mansion, Barkingside, and Ilford. ilfordhistoricalsociety.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/...

Our final meeting of 2025 is this coming Monday 8th December where we will have a talk from Georgina Green about Jane Austen, a quiz, and mince pies! Gloucester Room, Redbridge Central Library in Ilford, 7 for 7:30pm.

No, I know this isn't Ilford...but it's still a wonderful way of cruising round late 18th century London courtesy of Richard Horwood's map of 1892-9. www.romanticlondon.org/explore-horw...

Something I found for my talk last night on Parks & Recreation was this wonderful piece about South Park, literally in the same month that the park was opened in May 1902. A 'regular quarrel on the water'? The solution - ensure that boating and model boats were given separate parts of the lake.

A lovely piece from our collection for today’s #Museum30 theme of Stitch – a ‘Friendship Cloth’, owned and used by the donor’s grandmother, Sylvia Ashbridge of Grove Park, Wanstead, who had friends visiting for tea sign and embroider (or embroidered herself) their names from around the year 1870. 🪡

As we mark Remembrance Day this weekend, find out more in our exhibition and film, Redbridge and the Second World War: youtu.be/Lmy0kOTTHA4 Find out more about Redbridge and the First World War: redbridgefirstworldwar.org.uk

To remember Ilford citizens killed in the war, a memorial plaque and book was unveiled in Ilford Town Hall in April 1949. This is now available to view at Redbridge Heritage Centre.

Next Monday!

County boundaries weren't always as neat as we'd like them to be. The area around Meppershall in Bedfordshire was particularly complicated giving rise to this cartographical equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders: HARTFORD SHIRE intermixed with BEDFORD SHIRE The Limits uncertain #MappyMonday

Happy Halloween! Watch out for all things creepy crawly in your travels tonight 👀 These spooky spiders were handmade by local resident Gladys Harrison and now live very harmlessly in our museum store! 🕷️

The next talk in the series is, well you can see - it's one of mine and I'll be speaking on the subject of Parks & Recreation. 7 for 7:30pm start on Monday 10th November in the Gloucester Room in the library in Ilford.

Today is Ilford’s Charter Day – when the town officially became a Borough by Royal Charter on this day in 1926 📜 Crowds lined the streets to welcome the Duke & Duchess of York who visited Ilford to mark the occasion. 🔗 Visit 'Village to Suburb' at Redbridge Museum to discover more: vrcl.uk/museum

A wonderful blog about our collections and display on Redbridge's Jewish stories by Dr Rachel Lichtenstein 👇

Recently spotted on Ilford High Road – the F. W. Woolworth ‘ghost sign’ still in place beneath the new Superdrug store signage being installed this week. Woolworths opened in Ilford in 1912. In 1938, the exterior was renovated in the attractive white Art Deco style that still stands today.

We have just joined BlueSky! Since our foundation in 1880, we have reproduced an unrivalled selection of historic maps, plans and views of London. We also publish books and monographs containing original research. See more of what we have to offer at: londontopsoc.org

On 22 June 1948, the Empire Windrush docked in Essex, the first of many ships and planes bringing around 500,000 Caribbean migrants to Britain from 1948 to 1971. Discover the stories of Redbridge’s Windrush generation in this new permanent exhibition at Redbridge Museum. 🔗 visionrcl.org.uk/museum

Our next talk will be given by our president Jef Page and commemorates the 250th anniversary of the birth of J.M.W. Turner. 13th September in the Gloucester Room, Redbridge Central Library after the AGM.

Do you have a #LocalHistory you'd like to tell? Why not share it through the BALH's website! Whether it's a podcast, blog piece, 10-minute talk or other format, we have a range of ways of sharing your stories. Find out more, here: www.balh.org.uk/blog-ways-to... #WeAreLocalHistory

I wrote an article about an early theatre plan for the Ley Street / Balfour Road site - think C&A and Wilko. Of course only now - by accident - do I find the plans for the public library that was in the running for that site a couple of years later. Sigh.

A great action shot of Woodford Rugby Club players in 1983! 🏉 The Club was formed in 1924 and used a pitch next to the Woodford Wells Cricket Club in Monkhams Lane, Woodford. They later moved to a ground in Highams Park, where they still play today. #NSHD2025 @sportingheritage.bsky.social

Our next talk will be given by our president Jef Page and commemorates the 250th anniversary of the birth of J.M.W. Turner. 13th September in the Gloucester Room, Redbridge Central Library after the AGM.

Just the other week I visited the Fuelling the Railway Revolution exhibition at the rather wonderful #AucklandProject #MiningArtGallery (Bishop Auckland, County Durham). Amazing how quickly steam-driven railways spread across the country.

200 years since the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway today! So what you want to do is to read how the railway came to Ilford, right? Of course you do...pp 15-19 in our April '22 Newsletter. ilfordhistoricalsociety.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/...

Chingford station c.1900. Built in 1878 to replace the station near Chingford Green, it was soon a popular destination for tourists visiting Epping Forest. In 1882 Queen Victoria travelled by train to Chingford station for the ceremony at High Beach dedicating the Forest to the people. #Railway200