The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Salisbury, Wiltshire using a ½d. stamp on Wednesday the 11th. September 1907. It was sent to:
Miss A. Bird,
24, Ock Street,
Abingdon,
Berks.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear A,
Thanks for card & wishes.
Glad you enjoyed your
holiday, you had nice
weather, it must have been
very nice on the water.
Did you go inside St. George's
Chapel? It is grand.
Much love,
Aunt Bessie."
St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style.
Wanstead Park
Wanstead Park is a municipal park covering an area of about 140 acres (57 hectares), in Wanstead, in the London Borough of Redbridge, which was in Essex until 1965.
The park is bordered to the north by the A12 road, and to the east by the River Roding and A406 North Circular Road.
The park's southern border is the Aldersbrook Estate, the site of the former Wanstead Sewage Works and the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium. To the west is Wanstead Golf Course.
Wanstead Park is administered as part of Epping Forest by the City of London Corporation, having been purchased by the Corporation in 1880 from Henry Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley.
Today's park once formed part of the deer park of the former manor house of ancient Wanstead Manor, which included much of the urbanised area now known as Wanstead.
The present park retains some of the layout of its former existence as Wanstead Manor House's grounds, though the park's western boundary lies some 330 yards east of the house's site. In 1992 a Management Plan was initiated to try to re-establish something of the formality of the grounds of a "Great House".
The park is Grade II* listed.
-- Layout of Wanstead Park
The park is approached from Wanstead in the north via Warren Road. The road at the entrance to the Park is not under the management of the local council, and the un-surfaced section of it, which separates the park from the golf course, ends at a well-known landmark by the Heron pond called the "Posts".
Along the east side of the unmade road there are several entrances to the park. One leads to the Glade, a broad grassy ride cut through the woodland and running in a direct easterly line from the former site of the house - it extends five hundred yards due east down to the Ornamental Pond.
The other main entrance for pedestrians is at the north-east corner of the park, from Wanstead Park Road south of Redbridge tube station, via the footpath crossing the busy A406 North Circular Road.
-- The Wanstead Park Grotto
An east London highlight, the Grotto is the 18th. century survival of one of the grandest houses ever built in England, Wanstead House. Built on the edge of a lake between 1760 and 1764, the Grotto cost £2,000, and was spectacular.
Lined with fossils, crystals and carved stone, it was an entertainment space as well as an exotic eyecatcher in a period when grottoes and follies were in high fashion.
After the house was demolished and the Grotto was opened to the public it was much visited and admired. However in 1884, a fire broke out in a storeroom and, because the lake in front was being cleaned and was empty, there was no water to extinguish it.
The grotto was badly damaged by the fire, with only the outer walls remaining.
Over the last 137 years since, a vast amount of reports have been written and proposals put forward on the Grotto’s future.
By 2020, the site was on the Heritage at Risk register. Heritage of London Trust (HOLT) have kick-started its restoration, getting an urgent condition survey on the landing stage which was at imminent risk of total collapse, jeopardising the whole structure, plus raising funds of £24,000.
HOLT have since been liaising with the City of London and Friends of Wanstead Parklands, and phase one of the project - the landing stage - was completed in 2022.
-- Activities and Events at Wanstead Park
In late April the Chalet Wood is awash with flowering bluebells. The Temple is open every weekend, with displays on the history of Wanstead Park including finds excavated from the 18th-century grotto and the 'Lost Roman Villa'.
Entrance is free, and there is also a shop offering free leaflets on Epping Forest and other guides and booklets, as well as traditional toys and other items.
The City of London Corporation runs a programme of events at the Temple and its surrounds, including family craft days, open-air theatre and musical performances.
Another event is Music in Wanstead Park, which is held at the beginning of summer.
Fishing is permitted on the Ornamental Waters and the Perch Pond, but only in season.
-- The Ecology of Wanstead Park
Trees include a 346-year-old European oak, which in 2020 was dying and losing branches, a further 330 to 340-year-old European oak, a 280 to 300-year-old wych elm, a Eurasian aspen, and a 465 to 480-year-old European yew.
Many European beech trees in the park are over 200 years old. Bluebells grow in the woods, and common gorse along one lake. Fauna includes Eastern grey squirrels, red foxes, Canada geese, and mute swans. Parakeets are also evident in the Summer.
Recently introduced paths have opened up further areas of the park. Soil degradation is common because of high levels of human activity, with litter a further problem. The lakes often dry out in summer, leading to less aquatic life.
The Camden Town Murder.
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 11th. September 1907 marked the date of the Camden Town murder in London.
Robert Wood, an artist, was tried for the murder of prostitute Emily Dimmock, and acquitted after a defence by the famous courtroom lawyer Edward Marshall Hall.
On the 11th. September 1907, Emily Elizabeth Dimmock (known as Phyllis), a part-time prostitute who was in a relationship with Bertram Shaw, a railwayman, was murdered in her home at Agar Grove (then St. Paul's Road), Camden.
She had returned there from The Eagle public house, Royal College Street. After sexual intercourse her attacker had slit her throat while she was asleep, then left in the morning. On the evening of the 12th. September, Shaw returned home during the evening to find it locked.
He borrowed a key from a neighbour, and upon entering, found Phyllis lying naked on the bed, throat cut from ear to ear. It was a savage but skilful attack on her from the nature of the wound. Nothing much had been taken from the flat, and the motive was a mystery. The case quickly became a sensation.
-- Investigation and Trial of Robert Wood
After initial difficulty, the police investigation led by Inspector Neill centred on Robert Wood, an artist. A former girlfriend of Wood's, Ruby Young, recognised his handwriting on a postcard found in Dimmock's room. This had been published in many newspapers; she mentioned the similarity of the handwriting to a friend who worked in Fleet Street.
Wood was put on trial for the murder, during which Marshall Hall displayed the kind of effective and dramatic cross-examination for which he was known. Marshall Hall was convinced of Wood's innocence, and also of the fallibility of the prosecution case.
The judge Mr Justice Grantham departed from the pro-conviction stance he was expected to take mid-summing up, and made it clear he thought the jury should acquit. They did, after retiring for 15 minutes between 7:45 and 8:00 pm.
-- Walter Sickert
The artist Walter Sickert adopted the phrase 'The Camden Town Murder' for a series of etchings, paintings and drawings in 1908–09, in each of which the subjects are a clothed man and a nude woman.
-- The Murder in Popular Culture
The murder was dramatised in an episode of the radio crime anthology series The Black Museum, in 1952, starring Orson Welles.
A television series, Killer in Close-Up, dramatised by George F. Kerr, featured the case in the episode "The Robert Wood Trial". The episode was produced by Sydney television station ABN-2 and broadcast on the 4th. September 1957.
More than thirty years later, the court case featured in an episode of the BBC series Shadow of the Noose in 1989, with Jonathan Hyde as Marshall Hall, and Peter Capaldi as Wood.
