Aldersbrook

Aldersbrook is the name given to an Edwardian housing estate in North-East London. It is named after the [http://www.wren-group.net/LOCATION_FILES/ALDERS_BROOK/The_Alders_Brook_text.htm Alders Brook] , a small tributary of the River Roding. It is bound by Aldersbrook Road to the south, Bush Wood to the west, Wanstead Park to the north, and the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium to the east. It is wholly in the London Borough of Redbridge, and borders Watham Forest and Newham. One half of Aldersbrook is in the postcode of E11, the other in E12. The part in E12 was formerly part of Newham.

As described above, it is surrounded on all sides by open space or parkland, making it a desirable "leafy" place to live in an otherwise dense urban area of London. Northumberland Avenue and Aldersbrook Road, in particular, have housing frontage built on one side of the road, affording views of Wanstead Park and Wanstead Flats, respectively, to the properties there. Perhaps reflecting the generally pro-Temperance Edwardian era in which the estate was laid out, there are no public houses at all in the area, save for the bar of the Courtney Hotel, which is at the extreme south-eastern corner of the area.

There is a school, Aldersbrook Primary School, two churches, one Anglian and one Baptist, and a library on Park Road, which seems to keep being threatened with closure but always remains open after campaigns by the locals. There is a short strip of shops on Aldersbrook Road, in the south-eastern corner of the estate, a convenience store in the western end of the estate, behind the Anglican church, and a launderette and another convenience store at the eastern side of the estate.

While the greater body of the estate was laid out in the 1910s, which defines its overall character, there are smaller areas of more recent post-war development. Some examples follow. Brading Crescent area was laid out as a mix of council housing styles in the 1950s: terraces, sheltered housing, and one high-rise block called Jackson Court. At the extreme eastern edge of the estate, behind Clavering Road, are small courtyards of flat-roofed terraced housing laid out in the late 1960s. On the site of the former maternity hospital, modern houses and flats were laid out in the early 1980s to form Alders Close. There is also a tiny pocket of land directly behind the wall of the Primary School which was developed into Albany Mews in the late 1980s.

The estate was designated a Conservation area by Redbridge council in 2002. [ [https://www1.redbridge.gov.uk/planning/conareaappr.cfm Conservation area appraisals] ] [ [https://www1.redbridge.gov.uk/planning/conareamaps.cfm Conservation area maps] ] .

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