Loughton
Template:Infobox England place with map Loughton is a residential town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 12.2 miles (19.7 km) north east of Charing Cross in London.
Loughton covers about 3,500 acres (14 km²) of which over 1,300 acres (5 km²) are open forest land and has a population of 30,340. The town is principally residential but is also home to the Bank of England printing works where all English banknotes are printed.
It is part of the London commuter belt and within the north easterly bounds of the M25 motorway. Loughton station lies on the London Underground Central Line. It was opened in 1940, but the railway line dates back to 1856, when the branch from Stratford was opened by the Eastern Counties Railway. The town has a London (020 8) telephone area code as it is close to the Greater London boundary. From 1839 to 2000, Loughton was in the Metropolitan Police District, but on 1 April 2000, it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Essex Police.
Much of the housing in Loughton was built in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, with significant expansion in the 1930s. The Railway Company would not offer workmen's fares to and from Loughton, so development was of a middle-class character. Loughton was a fashionable place for artistic and scientific residents in Victorian and Edwardian times. Debden (also known as North Loughton) is a post-war development intended to ease the chronic housing shortage in London in the 1940s. There are 56 listed buildings and 3 conservation areas in Loughton, and a large and thriving Historical Society, which has published about 20 books on the history of the town.
From 1900 to 1933, Loughton was governed by the Loughton Urban District Council. From 1933 to 1974 together with Buckhurst Hill and Chigwell it formed the Chigwell Urban District. Since 1996, Loughton has had its own town council.
The Arts in Loughton
Performing Arts
Drama
Loughton is home to the internationally renowned East 15 Acting School. East 15 grew from the work of Joan Littlewood's famed Theatre Workshop, and the school’s name acknowledges its debt - Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop was based in Stratford, London, whose postal district is E15. The School, which became part of the University of Essex in 2000, includes the Corbett Theatre in its campus. Regular productions are staged at the theatre, which was named after Harry H. Corbett (1925-1982), himself a Theatre Workshop member and benefactor of East 15. The theatre building is actually a converted medieval flint barn from Sussex which was dismantled and rebuilt in Loughton.
The character actor Jack Watling (1923-2001) lived for many years in Alderton Hall, Loughton. His son, Giles (1953-), also an actor, was born there. Actor and playwright Ken Campbell (1941- ), nicknamed ‘The Elf of Epping Forest’, lives in Baldwins Hill, Loughton. Comedy-drama actor Alan Davies (1966- ) grew up in Loughton.
Amateur drama also thrives in Loughton, mainly performed at Lopping Hall. Performances from Loughton Amateur Dramatic Society, founded in 1924, alternate with those from the West Essex Repertory Company. Lopping Hall is one of the most important public buildings in Loughton. Opened in 1884, it was paid for by the Corporation of London to compensate villagers for the loss of traditional rights to lop wood in Epping Forest, rights which were bought out when the management of the forest was taken over by the Corporation in 1878. Lopping Hall served as Loughton’s town hall and was the venue for most of the parish’s social – and especially musical - activities during the early 20th century. There are ambitious plans by the Trustees for the building’s restoration by 2009.
The full-scale College Theatre on the campus of Epping Forest College is currently closed during major rebuilding work at the college.
Loughton Amateur Dramatic Society
Music
Loughton has a thriving classical music scene, based mainly around two venues, Loughton Methodist Church and St. John’s Church. There are regular concerts from local and visiting artistes, choirs and orchestras, and Loughton Methodist Church hosts the prestigious annual Loughton Youth Music Festival, which showcases talented pupils from local schools and colleges. There is a more international flavour at St. John’s, where the festival choir undertakes extensive overseas tours, and in turn hosts well-known soloists, chamber and operatic groups. The music hall artiste José Collins (1887-1958) lived at 107 High Road for many years. The hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848) lived at 9 Woodbury Hill.
Loughton is also home to the National Jazz Archive (see below), which hosts occasional jazz performances. Gladys Mills (1918-1978), a well-known music-hall pianist who performed as ‘Mrs Mills’, lived in Loughton from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Loughton does not boast of many rock and pop music connections, although Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits was a lecturer at Loughton (now Epping Forest) College, and the Genesis song ‘The Battle of Epping Forest’ is based on a actual event when rival East End gangs fought a turf war in the forest.
Music at Loughton Methodist Church
Music at St. John's Church,Loughton
Dance
Epping Forest District Council’s Arts Unit, Epping Forest Arts, stages occasional dance-based performance works in Loughton, with community and schools participation.
Opera
Loughton Operatic Society stages regular musicals and operas at Lopping Hall. Loughton Operatic Society, founded in 1894, is one of the oldest arts organisations in Essex. There are also occasional operatic performances from touring operas at St. John’s Church.
Visual Arts
Art
The proximity of Epping Forest has made Loughton a magnet for artists for many years. The sculptor and painter Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) lived at ‘Deerhurst’ between1933-1950, and produced some of his best known works there. Artist John Strevens (1902-1990) lived at 8 Lower Park Road. Walter Spradbery(1889-1969), best known for his iconic interwar London Transport posters, lived nearby in Buckhurst Hill. Octavius Deacon was a 19th- century naïve artist from Loughton who painted many amusing scenes of village life.
There are frequent exhibitions by contemporary local artists and photographers at Loughton Library.
Cinema
Loughton Century Cinema was opened by actress Gladys Cooper in 1934, but closed in 1960. George Pearson (1875-1973), a pioneering director and film-writer in the early years of British cinematography, was headmaster of Staples Road Junior School, Loughton 1908-1913. Several films have been set in the Loughton area, including the TV-movie Hot Money (2001), based on real events at Loughton’s Bank of England Printing Works.
Literature
As with the visual arts, Epping Forest has long attracted and inspired writers. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream was written for the marriage of Sir Thomas Heneage Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household to the Countess of Southampton, who lived near Loughton at Copped Hall, where it was first performed in the long gallery in 1594.
Lady Mary Wroth (1586-1652), niece of poet Sir Philip Sidney, lived at Loughton Hall with her husband Sir Robert Wroth, and they turned the mansion into a centre of Jacobean literary life. Ben Jonson was a frequent visitor, and dedicated 'The Alchemist' to Mary and 'The Forest' to Sir Robert. Lady Mary was an author of considerable repute in her own right, and her book ‘Urania’ is generally regarded as the first full-length English novel by a woman.
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) who lived for some time at nearby Waltham Abbey, set part of his novel ‘Phineas Finn’ (1869), which parodies corrupt electoral procedures, in a fictional ‘Loughton’.
William Wymark Jacobs (1863-1943) lived at The Outlook, Upper Park Road before moving to Feltham House, Goldings Road. Best known as the author of the spinechilling short story ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, and humorous nautical yarns,'W.W.' also wrote numerous sardonic short stories based in ‘Claybury’, which is a thinly-fictionalised Loughton. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) stayed as a child at Goldings Hill Farm. Arthur Morrison (1863-1945), best known for his grim novels about London’s East End, lived in Salcombe House, Loughton High Road. Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) was a children's author who lived in Loughton. Hesba Stretton was the pen name of Sarah Smith; her novels about the street children of Victorian London raised awareness of their plight. Another children's writer, Winifred Darch (1884-1960), taught at Loughton County High School for Girls 1906-1935 (now Roding Valley High School).
William Morris (1834-1896) lived nearby in Walthamstow and was instrumental in saving Epping Forest from development. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was also inspired by Epping Forest, and was frequent visitor to nearby Chigwell, where he set part of his novel ‘Barnaby Rudge’. Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh (1930- ) was educated at Loughton County High School for Girls and subsequently worked as a journalist in Loughton at the West Essex Gazette. Some of her fiction is set in Epping Forest, and Little Cornwall, the hilly area of Loughton close to Epping Forest, takes its name from her description in the novel ‘The Face of Trespass’.
Poets associated with Loughton include Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848), and Sarah Catherine Martin, author of the nursery rhyme ‘Old Mother Hubbard’ is buried in the churchyard of St. Nicholas Church, Loughton. William Sotheby (1757-1833), poet and classicist, lived at Fairmead, Loughton. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) lived at Beech Hill House, High Beach 1837-1840 where he wrote parts of his magnum opus ‘In Memoriam’. John Clare (1793-1864) lived at a private asylum at High Beach 1837-1841. The First World War poet Edward Thomas(1878-1917) also lived at High Beach 1915-1917. The poet George Barker (1913-91) was born at 116 Forest Road, Loughton.
Loughton’s first Literary Festival will be held in 2007.
Museums
Loughton does not have its own museum, but is home to two important national archives. The British Postal Museum Store houses objects ranging from the desk of Rowland Hill (founder of the Penny Post), to Mobile Post Office vehicles and an astounding assortment of letter boxes. The archive has public open days once a month.
The National Jazz Archive is housed in Loughton Library; it is the national repository and research centre for printed material, photographs and memorabilia relating to jazz, with an emphasis on British jazz. Founded by jazz trumpeter Digby Fairweather in 1988, it contains an unrivalled collection of British jazz recordings, photographs, posters and memorabilia. The Archive is open most weekdays and holds regular celebrity and live jazz events.
References
External links
- Loughton Town Council
- Loughton and District Historical Society
- Loughton - White's Directory of Essex, 1848
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