History
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Langthorne Park was opened on 17th June 2000.
The park derives its name from the Stratford-Langthorne Abbey, founded in 1135 and which owned 1500 acres of local farmland. It was on some of this land that the West Ham Union Workhouse was built in 1842 to provide "relief to the poor". It housed up to 1000 inmates from the surrounding areas of Walthamstow, Leyton, Stratford and West Ham. West Ham County Borough Council ran it as a home for the chronic sick, aged and infirm known as the "Central Home". In 1948 it was reborn as "Langthorne Hospital", specialising in the care of the elderly. By the late 1980s, however, the site was declared surplus to requirements. The main original workhouse building was acquired by the Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust and has been converted into residential accommodation with the rest of the site acquired by Waltham Forest Council in 1996 for the Langthorne Park development. The park features a number of specially commissioned art features enhancing both the physical environment of the park as well as providing visual representations of the site's long history. |
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