‘No Ordinary Bicycle’ exhibition

With a change of plans my partner and I found ourselves remaining in the stow this weekend. With inclement weather we decided to go and check out the new exhibition at Vestry House museum.

Before we got to the exhibition space we found the room to the left of the entrance had had a redesign. When I moved to the stow it had a fascinating exhibition of Walthamstow’s cinematic history but that was replaced by a boring, generic room about the Tudors. However it now has a show about Vestry house itself and tying into that the history of poorhouses of the time. There is also an 1822 map of Walthamstow and my partner and I had fun picking out landmarks.

We then moved on to the new temporary exhibition. ‘No Ordinary Bicycle’ celebrates the desinf achievements of Walthamstow born engineer John Kemp Starley. He invented the modern bicycle as we now know it, with equal size wheels and a chain driven rear wheel utilising a diamond shape frame. But with his improvements came a social revolution of affordable transport. This is explored in amusing detail in the 15 minute animated film and then expanded on with the surrounding material.

It’s a fascinating show, illustrating how good design can have huge social change contributin to female emancipation and expanding the gene pool!

Walthamstow Avenue FC

I was chatting with the guy who’d come to read my gas meter and he told me my estate of flats used to be Walthamstow Avenue FC’s football ground. I googled and found some wonderful old photos of the stands and ground. And one of the entrance to the estate as it is now. It’s funny to think the club was here until 1988 and then my flat was built in 1989. In the very last photo the photographer was standing pretty much where my flat is judging by the council flats in the background.