Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
13
Victoria Park
Grove Rd • Daily 6am-dusk • Cambridge Heath train station or Hackney Wick Overground; bus #277 from
!
Mile End or bus #8 from
!
Liverpool Street
London's first public park (as opposed to royal park)
Victoria Park
was opened in the
heart of the East End in 1845, after a local MP presented Queen Victoria with a
petition of thirty thousand signatures. The only large open space in the area, “Viccy
Park” immediately became a favourite spot for
political rallies
: Chartists congregated
here in their thousands in 1848; Suffragette supporters of the ELFS gathered here,
under the leadership of Sylvia Pankhurst; it even had its own Speakers' Corner attended
by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and William Morris. Since the Anti-Nazi League
played here in 1978, it's probably more famous for its regular use for music festivals.
The world's oldest
model boat club
, the Victoria Model Steam Boat Club, founded in
1904, still meets on most summer Sunday mornings at the park's lakes. Look out, too,
for the (replica)
Dogs of Alcibiades
, two snarling sculpted beasts based on the
Molossian hounds kept by the Athenian statesman and presented by Lady Regnart in
1912. The much larger eastern section of the park contains an extraordinarily lavish
Gothic-cum-Moorish
drinking fountain
, decorated with oversized cherubs and paid for
by Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1861 - it hasn't functioned for years. At the park's
eastern edge are two alcoves from Old London Bridge, brought here in 1860.
Museum of Childhood
Cambridge Heath Rd • Daily 10am-5.45pm • Free •
T
020 8983 5200,
W
vam.ac.uk •
!
Bethnal Green
The elegant, open-plan wrought-iron hall that houses the
Museum of Childhood
was, in
fact, part of the original V&A building, and was transported to the East End from
South Kensington in the late 1860s in order to bring art to the poor. The emphasis has
changed since those pioneering days, and although the wide range of exhibits means
that there's something here for everyone, the museum's most frequent visitors are
children, with plenty of hands-on exhibits and special kids' events at weekends and
during school holidays.
To the right as you enter, are the clockwork and moving
toys
- bring your 20p pieces
for the bigger exhibits - everything from classic robots to a fully functioning model
railway, early computer games and wooden toys - there's often a queue for the replica
Victorian rocking horse. At the back, the museum has a great collection of marionettes
and puppets, which brings you into the doll and figures section, ranging from teddies
and Smurfs to Inuit dolls. The most famous exhibits are the remarkable antique
dolls'
houses
dating back to 1673: they are displayed upstairs, where you'll also find antique
dolls and prams, a play area for very small kids, the ever-popular Wallace the Lion
gobbling up the little schoolboy Albert, and a space for temporary exhibitions.
Olympic Park
W
queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk •
!
Stratford, Pudding Mill Lane DLR or Hackney Wick Overground
London is the only city in the world to have hosted the Olympics three times. In 1908,
the city saved the day when Vesuvius erupted and Rome had to pull out as host. In
1948, London stepped in at short notice and staged the “Austerity Games”, where the
athletes were told to bring their own food and were put up in RAF camps. 2012 was an
altogether more extravagant affair, with a total spend in excess of £9 billion. The focus
of the 2012 Olympics was London's
Olympic Park
- o
cially now the Queen Elizabeth
Olympic Park - situated in a most unlikely East End backwater, on a series of islands
formed by the River Lee (or Lea) and various tributaries and canals. Since the
Olympics, the whole area has been replanted with swathes of grass, trees and flowers
making it a great new park in which to hang out on a sunny day. In addition, the park
is also peppered with those Olympic venues that are set to stay put, plus a number of
cafés to cater for passing visitors.
