This neighbourhood is located to the northeast of Walthamstow Central, featuring Victorian terraces and a mix of interwar and post-war housing, including some interesting mock-Tudor style houses. The area stretches from Lloyd Park and Walthamstow town centre in the west to the suburban housing just south of the North Circular Road, which represents the northern boundary of the neighbourhood. To the east, the area is also fronted by the southern tip of Epping Forest. Before this however, you will rech Waltham Forest Feel Good Centre, a new sports centre including an eight-lane, 25-metre competition pool with diving boards, amongst many other facilities. In fact, the area has an abundance of sports grounds, such as the LRT Sports Ground and Hale End Sports Ground near the North Circular Road. Overall the area is predominantly residential, with a number of schools and a Homebase on Forest Road. The Overground line between Wood Street and Higham’s Park cuts through the neighbourhood vertically, and although the area itself is not served by a railway station, there are many only a short walk or bus journey away. Walthamstow Central station brings the centre of the city within just 15 minutes on the Victoria line.

As per many parts of suburban London, Upper Walthamstow grew during the Industrial Revolution, with medium-sized Victorian terraces sprouting throughout. The area has seen the rise of many infrastructure projects, including the North Circular Road, which was upgraded in the 1970s, though not to the full grade separated motorway it was planned to be. Looking further back, the George Monoux College has been around in some form or another for almost 500 years. The founder, Sir George Monoux, was born in 1465, and spent a lot of time in Walthamstow. He established alms-houses and a school in Walthamstow Village in 1527, which operated there for 353 years before moving to its current location in 1927.

William Morris lived in what is today the William Morris Gallery. He was a textile designer, artist, writer and socialist. He lived in the house from 1848 to 1856, living with his widowed mother and eight siblings from the age of fourteen to twenty-two. Having been trained as an architect, he quickly moved on to designing furniture and wallpapers when he moved into his house in Bexleyheath. He had a profound influence on church decoration and houses in the early-1900s. The William Morris Gallery was opened in 1950 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, the culmination of plans to establish a gallery devoted to the designer since the time of the start of the First World War. The Grade II*-listed building is a Georgian house, built in the 1740s and set in Lloyd Park.

Edward Lloyd took over from William Morris after his family left their house in 1856. He was a businessman who published ‘Penny Dreadful’ novels, full of melodrama and half-copied stories. He also published vampire novels long before Bram Stoker’s Dracula and is alleged to have said to one of his illustrators that “there must be more blood, much more blood”. His newspapers (The Daily Chronicle and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper) were among the century’s best sellers. He has been known (for both good and bad reasons) as the father of the cheap press.

Epping Forest is London’s largest open space, at over 2,400 hectares, and has been managed by the City of London since it was saved from the ‘enclosure movement’, which saw much of the English countryside’s shared common land converted to private enclosed land. Nearby Hainault Forest fell to this trend, which brought together a coalition of people aimed at protecting Epping Forest as for the common benefit of Londoners. On 6 May 1882, Queen Victoria opened the Forest to the public, turning the area from crown to public lands.

Walthamstow has never been a gentle bourgeois suburb, and there continues to be poverty around the area. Its distance from central London means that the trendy developments of Hackney and Hoxton have not yet reached the area. However, residents say that the transportation access is amazing, and Walthamstow street market is an exceptional place which is rarely found in other parts of London – being a giant fresh produce market with great variety in the middle of town centre. Crime rates are also low, though the opinions on schools differ greatly.

Recently the area has seen some exciting changes. New developments include The Scene, a complex with a cinema, restaurants and new homes, the Solum II Station development, with a hotel and homes, as well as the phased refurbishment of the former EMD Granada Cinema. Looking forward Walthamstow Mall is set for redevelopment, in a scheme which will also involve the renovation of the town square and the creation of 350 new permanent retail jobs. Nearby St Mary’s Church is also set for redevelopment. Sitting within the Walthamstow Village conservation area, this sympathetic new scheme seeks to create a thriving community hub that includes cafes, an art centre and an education space, as well as a working church.