Wanstead Park

Wanstead Park is a municipal park covering an area of about 140 acres , in Wanstead, in the London Borough of Redbridge. It is also a district of the London Borough of Redbridge, which was in Essex until 1965. The park 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, the site of the former Wanstead Sewage Works 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 from Henry Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley. 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. The present park retains some of the layout of its former existence as Wanstead House's grounds, though the park's western boundary lies some 330 yards east of the house's site. In 1992 a Management Plan was initiated to try to re-establish something of the formality of the grounds of a "Great House".

The park is approached from Wanstead in the north via Warren Road. The road at the entrance to the Park is not under the management of the local council, and the un-surfaced section of it, which separates the park from the golf course, ends at a well-known landmark by the Heron pond called the "Posts". Along the east side of the unmade road there are several entrances to the park. One leads to the Glade, a broad grassy ride cut through the woodland and running in a direct easterly line from the former site of the house - it extends five hundred yards due east down to the Ornamental Pond. The other main entrance for pedestrians is at the north-east corner of the park, from Wanstead Park Road south of Redbridge tube station, via the footpath crossing the busy A406 North Circular Road.

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