Vestry House, now the Local History Museum for the London Borough of Waltham Forest, stands within the village of Church End, Walthamstow. This secluded area still preserves a rural atmosphere, although it lies only a quarter of a mile from Walthamstow's main shopping centre and barely six and a half miles from the City of London.
The Village boundaries are formed by the western end of Church Path, the eastern end of St. Mary's churchyard, Church Hill to the north and the railway cutting to the south. This area is only about 300 yards square, yet within it are eight scheduled historical monuments, including the three oldest buildings in Walthamstow, thirty nineteenth and early twentieth century houses and cottages and more than a dozen varieties of trees.
The green in front of the Museum is a remaining portion of the Church Common, and Vestry Road, slightly realigned when the railway cutting was made, developed from a footpath across the common to the church. At the southern end of the green is a stone capital which was originally part of the General Post Office at St Martin-le-Grand, built in 1829. When the building was demolished a local stonemason, Mr. Frank Mortimer, bought the capital and gave it to Walthamstow. It was set up in Lloyd Park, but was transferred to its present position in 1954.
Vestry House, a two storey building of brown stock brick, was constructed in 1730 by order of the Vestry. This body, 'a meeting of all ratepayers in vestry assembled', had been responsible for many aspects of local government since the sixteenth century, and originally met in the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Church End. Walthamstow formed a single parish at this time and had only one Vestry, in spite of the fact that it contained five villages and five manors. This meant that Church End was an important centre for local administration as well as social and religious life. The Vestry's responsibilities were both ecclesiastical and secular, and included providing for the poor with the rates collected from local householders. An act of parliament of 1722 permitted the building of workhouses for the more economical and efficient care of the poor, and in 1726 Walthamstow Vestry decided to experiment with the idea, renting premises on Hoe Street for the purpose. This proved so successful that in 1729 they decided to build a new workhouse.
At that time the Church Common covered 27 acres to the south of Church End. The Vestry purchased an acre of this land close to the village for £6 on which to build their workhouse.
A workhouse
A simple eight roomed symmetrical house was initially built on the site at a cost of £343, 12s, 3d. The ground floor room to the left of the front door was to be used for Vestry meetings, and the rest of the building was to be occupied by the 'paupers'. The inscribed stone plaque erected above the entrance to mark the completion of the building still remains in position and declares:
"if any would not work neither should he eat" .
The rear portion of the house was enlarged in 1756 to provide a work room and extra sleeping accommodation for the ever-increasing number of paupers being admitted to the workhouse. This extension was originally separate from the earlier structure, and the gap between the two buildings was roofed over in the early 19th century. The Vestry Room was more than doubled in length in 1779 by being 'projected out into the yard' at the front, and given its own external doorway. This extension also provided more space in the workhouse upstairs.
When the workhouse first opened the average number of paupers living in it was between thirty and forty, although by the 1820s there were usually eighty or more. They were given clothes which were badged on the shoulder with 'W P', standing for 'Walthamstow Poor', and were provided with rather a plain and monotonous diet of three meals a day including large quantities of porridge, soup and bread, washed down with a surprising amount of beer, which was sometimes brewed on the premises. They also had medical care from an apothecary, and the children were taught to 'read, write and cast accounts'. Both children and adults had to work at various tasks in return for their keep. The 'Watch', the forerunner of the police force, also operated from Vestry House, and a watch house or cage for the accommodation of prisoners overnight was erected outside the building in 1765. This was demolished in 1912, the site being marked with a plaque.
In 1834 the West Ham Poor Law Union was formed including Walthamstow, Leyton and various other neighbouring parishes. Six years later the Walthamstow paupers were moved to a large, new Union Workhouse, which is now the Langthorne Hospital, in Leyton. Vestry House continued to be used by the Vestry, with some of the vacant rooms being taken over by the Parish Clerk.
A police station
When the Metropolitan Police 'took possession of the district' in 1840 they applied to occupy the 1756 extension of the building, and from 1841 until 1870 it served as their police station. One of the cells can still be seen in its original state complete with graffiti written on the walls by those who were locked up inside it.
An armoury
In 1870 the police were transferred to a new station in Lea Bridge Road and their old premises were taken over by the Walthamstow Volunteers for use as an armoury. In 1891 they in turn moved out to a new drill hall in Church Hill Road, and the 'old armoury' as it now came to be called was then used by a local builder for the next forty years. The Vestry continued to use the older part of the building, but the Public Health Act of 1872 separated the secular and ecclesiastical administration of parishes, and the following year twelve men were elected to form a Local Board for the Urban Sanitary District of Walthamstow. The Local Board took over the secular powers of the Vestry and the latter continued to function in an ecclesiastical capacity until eventually its powers were transferred to an elected Church Council in 1921. Nowadays the Vestry meets only once a year for the election of churchwardens.
Despite the administrative changes of 1873 Vestry House continued to be used by both the Vestry and the Local Board for the next three years. However, the need for a new Town Hall was felt, and in 1876 the Public Hall in Orford Road was altered and enlarged to serve this purpose. Some time after the Local Board had transferred to its new premises the Vestry began to rent rooms for its meetings in the Town Hall, and thus its long association with Vestry House came to an end.
Later years
From 1882 until 1892 the oldest part of the building was used as the headquarters of the Walthamstow Literary and Scientific Institute, after which it became a private house, occupied by the Maynard family until 1912, and then for the next eighteen years Miss Constance Demain Saunders, JP.
The foundation of a local museum
In 1930 Miss Demain Saunders offered the remainder of her lease of Vestry House to the Walthamstow Borough Council (the successor to the Local Board), and it was decided to use this historic building to house a museum, the aim of which was to be 'an educative and popular introduction to the social and economic history of our town and district'. A large amount of local material, including many archives, was transferred from the Walthamstow Central Library to the new 'Museum of Local History and Antiquities', and forty members of the Walthamstow Antiquarian Society volunteered to staff the Museum when it opened for one year on an experimental basis. Without the help and enthusiasm of the Antiquarian Society it is unlikely that the Museum could have been established, and even today the Society, now the Walthamstow Historical Society, has strong links with Vestry House.
The Museum proved to be a great success, with ten thousand visitors in the first fifteen months. It was therefore put on a more permanent footing and an assistant curator was appointed. The 1756 extension meantime continued its separate existence as a builder's yard, but in 1933 with the expiration of the leases on the premises the Borough Council was able to purchase the whole building and to extend the Museum.
World War Two
The Museum was forced to close with the outbreak of war in 1939, and did not re-open permanently until 1950. Since this date it has been actively increasing its collection and encouraging research on many aspects of local history. In 1965 with the creation of the new London Borough of Waltham Forest the Museum took on a responsibility to cater for Chingford and Leyton as well as Walthamstow, and the collection has been growing ever more rapidly since this date.
The museum today
On entering the Museum the visitor passes through the front hall into what is now the lower gallery. This was originally divided into two rooms, with the Vestry Meeting Room at the front and what seems to have been the workhouse master's room at the back. He and his wife had their own fireplace and cooking utensils here, whilst the paupers in their care did their cooking and eating in the front and back kitchens which were probably the two rooms to the right of the hall, now the museum shop and office.
At the top of the staircase leading from the hall the visitor arrives on the landing, from which the doorways once gave access to the bedrooms. Those above the offices have remained as separate rooms, whereas those on the west side of the building have made into one large gallery.
The garden originally stretched as far as Church Path to the north, but seven cottages were built on that side in about 1840, and were occupied by the policemen who were using part of Vestry House as their station. Four of these cottages have been demolished but the three along Church Path remain, albeit rebuilt. A triangular slice was cut off the south side of the garden by the construction of the railway which began in 1866. In compensation for the ground lost another triangular piece of land was added on the western side of the Vestry House. This is the plot which lies at the junction of Church Path and St Mary Road.
In workhouse days the garden was used for the cultivation fruit and vegetables to supplement the diet of the paupers. Nowadays it provides a pleasant outlook from the building and a display area for some of the larger exhibits which cannot be shown inside, including a Roman coffin, a milestone from Markhouse Road, and the pump from Jeffries Square.
In order to pass through to the 1756 extension of the building the visitor must return to the ground floor and walk through the passageway which now links the two parts of the building. The ground floor of the 'old armoury' is now known as the Panelled Room, the walls being covered with panelling brought from one of the old manor houses of Walthamstow, Essex Hall, built in 1596. It was being demolished in 1933, just as the Museum extension was being planned, and the woodwork, including the carved fireplace was rescued and used to cover the bare brick walls, Church Hill House, also in Walthamstow, was being demolished at the same time, and its main doorway, dating from 1784, was saved and fitted to the external wall of the Panelled Room, facing the green.
A doorway on the left of the Panelled Room leads through to what used to be the workhouse exercise yard. This had a twelve foot high wall around it, but was not roofed over until 1934 when extra space was needed in the Museum. The two little rooms at the northern end, now used as stores, were altered probably for the brewhouse, but appear to have been altered later also for some other purpose. Above the Panelled Room is the Loft used as a dormitory in workhouse days. Until 1933 the only means of access was by a ladder. This now serves as a study room for students working on archives and local history.
Vestry House Museum is financed by the London Borough of Waltham Forest and serves as the base for the borough's museum ,archives, and local studies library. Further information about the wide range of services offered by these services is available on request.
