Forest Gate

Forest Gate is named after a gate whose whole job was stopping cattle from wandering off Wanstead Flats onto the Romford Road, and for a long time people treated the place the same way the cattle did, somewhere to graze briefly on the way to somewhere else. The Elizabeth line changed that, and the estate agents now walk buyers round the Woodgrange Estate's Edwardian terraces as if they had found them under a tarpaulin. A lot of the new arrivals wanted Walthamstow, got outbid, and now tell anyone who will listen that Forest Gate is what Walthamstow used to be, which is a lovely thing to say about the place you settled for.