We received a call from a family in Ardleigh Road to say they were redecorating their home, stripping wallpaper and kept uncovering layers of old wallpaper. In fact we had three calls from them, as they kept uncovering more Warner wallpaper. A closer inspection of the Bedford Lemere album shows some of this wallpaper at the time. The Ardleigh Road properties were built in the 1920s, and the Bedford Lemere album was taken in 1903 so they used the same wallpaper and interior design for many years. Seen here is a section of the floral wallpaper used to decorate a […]

Each property and resident I have photographed, I’ve shown the 1903 Bedford Lemere album to, so I thought it worth sharing a photograph from it here as they have prompted many conversations and much interest. And the album has inspired the interior photography which will form part of this project. This album was commissioned by the Warners to showcase their properties and to document the different types of property available in Woodford, Walthamstow and Leyton. Rooms are meticulously presented, possibly staged. The interiors look quite opulent, packed with ornaments, patterns and different textures. The photographs were taken by Bedford Lemere, […]

Delivering flyers about the project door-to-door around the Ex Warner properties, has been a great opportunity to start looking closer. I’ve begun to look for even the tinniest evidence of the Warner estate past, and even with many layers of over paint and intervening years, it’s often possible to glimpse a former identity hidden beneath. KG

Now I’ve started noticing it, I can see the original Warner green paint everywhere. The doors and window frames used to be yellow and green and were repainted annually by the Warner company. Now the properties are in mixed ownership there is no standard colour and most of the doors and windows have been replaced. Some people keep their doors that colour, but I keep noticing other details too, iron grilles, gutters and drains that have the old green on them, even my own door frame got a bit scratched and underneath I could see the green showing through. LH

Had a good day yesterday trying to find the locations included in the 1903 album by Bedford-Lemare that we are studying for the project. It was great to finally work out which trees were still there, which windows we can still recognise, and to track down the places where they must have been standing when they took the photos. Occasionally we would spot a person we hadn’t noticed before- shopkeepers standing in the doorways or an old man in his garden. LH