Entirely blocked from spreading to the North by the unassailable respectability of Wanstead, and prevented from expansion to the East, by half-decent Ilford and to the West by up-coming Stratford, lies the stagnant pool of liquified **** that is Manor Park.
Manor Park. A ******** that is so wretched, it even makes Forest Gate seem charming.
A complete eyesore, Manor Park is nothing but a living dumping ground.
Romford Road scythes through it on the way out of London and represents the only element on any value in the landscape as it’s some kind of road out of there – which is all it’s used for, apart from being a speed-record proving ground for every Asian boy-racer.
For everyone else, it must be torture to have the landscape dominated by that trunk road as “Out” is the last place any of them are going in a hurry.
The place abounds with shambling losers, wastes, the aged and the dumb – and broken-english speaking refugees and dodgers of every race, colour and creed. A hovel and a ghetto at the same time. Failure hangs over the place so heavily you can taste it. Everyone else tastes it too, judging by the big gobbets of phlegm you can see gobbed out on the pavement every ten paces – the different colours inside of it are something to look, I suppose: street art.
Pound shops and take-aways are what there are plenty of – they almost outnumber the benefit-********** that populated the dump.
The Lumiere Building residential conversion made a proud and bold attempt to make itself an outpost of aesthetic modernism in advance of the regeneration of Stratford 2 miles up the road. It was a breathless attempt to attract some people with some kind of profession and regular wage into the area. It was always doomed – it’s all just a bit too far from the action. When anyone with an upbringing of any value, or the slightest splinter of intelligence got sick of living in an ivory tower that happened to be in the middle of a sewer – and when even off-street gated parking and the fact they bought cheap weren’t enough to take the feeling of sinking into a bath of **** out of coming home – Owners sold up quick smart, the Council bought – and so the Wastes, ***** and Tenants moved in to stink up the place with their foul breath and worse habits. Now there are washing lines strung behind it’s panoramic windows, condoms litter the stairwells and piss-stained mattresses block the refuse area.
The Tesco-metro next door is like Precinct 13. God bless Tesco. Just go to Manor Park and imagine that store not being there – you’re left with a bleak stinking waste with the musty and shabby and useless Army & Navy Stores straddling the junction up the road, selling tat to the poor, fishermen and door-staff…
Manor Park – the most complete and irredeemable ******** in London.
