Wanstead Park

Wanstead Park is a grade II listed municipal park covering an area of about 140 acres (57 hectares), located in Wanstead, in the London Borough of Redbridge, historically within the county of Essex. It is bordered to the north by the A12 road, to the east by the River Roding and A406 North Circular Road, to the south by the Aldersbrook Estate and the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium and to the west by Wanstead Golf Course. It is administered as part of Epping Forest by the City of London Corporation, having been purchased by the Corporation in 1880. Today's park once formed part of the deer park of the former manor house of ancient Wanstead Manor, which included much of the urbanised area now known as Wanstead. In order to understand the history of today's municipal park of Wanstead, the history of the ancient manor of Wanstead needs to be examined. For this purpose the modern green spaces of the Park, golf course and Wanstead Flats should be considered as one entity.

Ordnance Survey maps mark the site of a Roman Villa in present day Wanstead Park. Archaeological excavations carried out in 1985 indicated a Roman presence here from the 1st to the 5th century AD, but did not locate any specific site of a Roman villa. A mosaic discovered in 1715 by gardener Adam Holt measured "... from north to south ... 20 feet, and from east to west about 16; that it was composed of small square brick tesserae of different sizes and colours, as black, white, red, &c., of all which I have specimens; that there was a border about a foot broad went, round it, Composed of red dice, about ¾ of an inch square, within which were severall ornaments, and in the middle the figure of a man riding upon some beast and holding something in his hands; but, as he opened it onely in a hurry, and in different places, he was able to give no bettor account of it." (Smart Lethieullier, Aldersbrook, July 12, 1735). According to Lethieullier, owner of the adjacent manor of Aldersbrook, the pavement "was situated on a gentle gravely ascent towards the north, and at a small distance from the south end of it I remember a well of exceeding fine water, now absorbed in a great pond". Lethieullier's first letter mentions "foundations", which he believed to be Roman, at some distance to the south of the pavement, and on the very edge of the Wanstead estate "about 300 yards due south from the said well and pavement, there were, in my memory, the ruins of foundations to be seen, though now destroyed by planting trees round the park pales". A second letter also mentions the "foundation of a Roman building", "at a small distance" from the site of the pavement. Lethieullier goes on to state that in the summer of 1746 workmen showed him "urns" "of the coarsest earth" and bones they had discovered, which he believed to be the remains of Roman burials, as well as at least three coins.

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