EAW043647 ENGLAND (1952). Eagle Pond and the Royal Wanstead School, Wanstead, from the north-west, 1952

Eastern avenue A12

The Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum, based in Hackney, was founded by the philanthropist Andrew Reed in 1827. In the 1830s, owing to a lack of space in the current building, Reed applied to the Crown Estate for a section of land in Snaresbrook, then part of Wanstead Forest, and a grant to help fund the building of a new premises. The application was successful and construction started on 27 June 1841. Architects George Gilbert Scott and his partner William Bonython Moffatt were chosen to design the orphanage; the foundation stone was laid by Albert, Prince Consort in 1841. The Infant Orphanage Asylum was officially opened on 27 June 1843 by Leopold I of Belgium. It is designed in the Jacobean gothic style and cost £35,000 to construct. The 1881 census records 74 staff and over 400 children at the institution. It was renamed the Royal Infant Orphanage in 1919. The charity's eligibility criteria required that children had to be either fatherless or entirely orphaned; under the age of seven; and that their late fathers would have to have been considered by the trustees to be either "creditable" (not earning less than £50 a year upon their death), "respectable" (£100 a year), or "very respectable" (£400 a year). In exceptional circumstances, the institution accepted children whose fathers were still alive but "subject to confirmed lunacy or paralysis", according to a reporter for the Derbyshire Courier. Once admitted the institution would house and look after the children up to the age of 15. The youngest recorded child to reside at the orphanage was a six-month-old girl in 1849. An infirmary was added in the 1850s, followed by an assembly hall in 1862 and a swimming pool in 1880. By 1860 there were 595 fatherless children housed at the orphanage. In 1939 the building became the Royal Wanstead School. The building continued as a school until 1971 when it passed into the ownership of British government who converted the building into a crown court at a cost of £1.6m in 1973. The building opened as a crown court on 26 November 1974. Since becoming a court, the building has had various extensions added externally and has received many alterations to its interior. In 1988 an outer annex, not connected to the original building, was built to accommodate further court rooms, to a cost of £3 million. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaresbrook_Crown_Court

Eagle Pond

Royal Wanstead School

Chestnut Drive

Cambridge Park Road

Spratt Hall Road

Gordon Road

Snaresbrook Station

Christ Church

Wanstead High School

The Basin

St Mary's Church

George Green

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