Historical Proposal for GER Stratford Eastward Curve

[R848]

What was the story behind a possible (pre-1900 or post-1900) Great Eastern Railway proposal for an unbuilt Eastward Curve at Stratford, which had it been built would have potentially linked Lea Bridge / Temple Mills to Maryland / Forest Gate?

Am particularly interested in finding out what the exact route of the Eastward Curve at Stratford was since it would have radically changed the face of present day Maryland.

 

[Taunton]

The area to the east of Stratford station built up early on, doubtless for many who worked on the railway, whereas the area on the westward, London side remained undeveloped marshland and Lea valley flood plain, something which to an extent is still visible in the urban structure today, with the old Victorian housing on one side and the Olympic Park on the other. By mid-Victorian times, when an east curve would already be impossible, the GER thus built the loop line round through High Meads Junction etc, so from heading west through the station it looped round in a large 180-degree curve, to join the Lea Valley line. Until the rundown of general freight this was used extensively to get from the GE main to Temple Mills yard. So the move was long handled. The whole area inside the loop was then developed by the railway for further sidings, the old loco depot, etc.

 

[R848]

Not sure when the scheme was originally proposed let alone the rationale behind it, though would it be correct to say the an Eastward Curve was proposed by the GER only to be thwarted by financial troubles and the fact the planned route was increasingly being built up?

The National Library of Scotland Maps site gives an admittingly vague idea for the unbuilt Eastward Curve at Stratford via the 1863 Ordnance Survey - Six-inch to the mile map (though admittingly ignorant about the precise route in question), entailing a route beginning at the old Stratford Works (presuming the scheme is linked to the works relocation) west of Thornham Grove with the link to Maryland station entailing the demolition of everything west of Well Street and south of Waddington Street (if not as far as everything south of Alma Street) in order to create some sort of Eastward Curve.

 

[DerekC]

The "old maps" website has a rather sketchy one-inch map dated 1850 which suggests that an eastern curve would have been possible then without much demolition, but both the Eastern Counties and the Northern and Eastern (still nominally independent at that date) were notoriously short of money. As @R848 says, by the 1860s it would have been very expensive. Is there evidence that the GER did actually develop a proposal?

 

[R848]

The "old maps" website has a rather sketchy one-inch map dated 1850 which suggests that an eastern curve would have been possible then without much demolition, but both the Eastern Counties and the Northern and Eastern (still nominally independent at that date) were notoriously short of money. As @R848 says, by the 1860s it would have been very expensive. Is there evidence that the GER did actually develop a proposal?

Interesting, can you provide a link to the 1850 one-inch map?

Only know the GER did consider such a route though it ended up not being built and became little more than an obscure footnote. More fascinated by the potential value of an Eastward Curve had it been built in spite of the fact no train running from Lea Bridge to Maryland would have actually stopped at Stratford (short of some later developments allowing for some hypothetical route between Hackney Wick and Maryland via some form of Stratford International that diverges from real-life prior to High Meads Loop).

 

[DerekC]

Interesting, can you provide a link to the 1850 one-inch map?.

Here's the link but I am not sure it will work:

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/538500/184500/11/100909

If not you can find it yourself on old-maps.co.uk - search for Stratford and look for the appropriate one. You can only zoom in if you pay, which I do occasionally as a treat to myself!

 

[R848]

Here's the link but I am not sure it will work:

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/538500/184500/11/100909

If not you can find it yourself on old-maps.co.uk - search for Stratford and look for the appropriate one. You can only zoom in if you pay, which I do occasionally as a treat to myself!

Thanks, from seeing the map in question will second your view on the potential viability of an Eastward Curve scheme.

 

[DerekC]

Interesting, can you provide a link to the 1850 one-inch map?

Only know the GER did consider such a route though it ended up not being built and became little more than an obscure footnote. More fascinated by the potential value of an Eastward Curve had it been built in spite of the fact no train running from Lea Bridge to Maryland would have actually stopped at Stratford (short of some later developments allowing for some hypothetical route between Hackney Wick and Maryland via some form of Stratford International that diverges from real-life prior to High Meads Loop).

I share your puzzlement as to what (passenger or freight) services the GER thought an eastward curve would support. The Essex countryside must have been pretty undeveloped then. Docks were concentrated up river. The Eastern Counties had been a partner in the LT&S line to Southend and it's possible that they had some sort of east to north route in mind? In fact if the curve has been built and the Palace Gates line had been linked to the GNR main line it would have made a good freight route. All very speculative and the Palace Gates line wasn't built until the 1870s, so I am not sure that theory works!

 

[R848]

I share your puzzlement as to what (passenger or freight) services the GER thought an eastward curve would support. The Essex countryside must have been pretty undeveloped then. Docks were concentrated up river. The Eastern Counties had been a partner in the LT&S line to Southend and it's possible that they had some sort of east to north route in mind? In fact if the curve has been built and the Palace Gates line had been linked to the GNR main line it would have made a good freight route. All very speculative and the Palace Gates line wasn't built until the 1870s, so I am not sure that theory works!

Apart from the Palace Gates line, there was abandoned plans for both a branch to Winchmore Hill from just after Tottenham Hale (running south of White Hart Lane) as well as a loop line to Enfield Lock (then known as Ordnance Factory) from Edmonton Green (not forgetting as well as the proposed extensions beyond Chingford). As for other lines perhaps an Eastward Curve would have been a less disruptive alternative (or additional branch) route for what became the Goblin between South Tottenham and Barking?