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the history of Leyton and Leytonstone
from . dot to … dots – with plenty of spaces
Open spaces : the Lammas Lands
On 1st August 1892 Leyton people led by C G Musgrave, H Humphreys and E C Pittam exercised their rights as ‘commoners’ to enter the Lea valley marsh meadows at the end of the hay season. This entailed pulling up a newly laid railway track which connected the Metropolitan Water Company’s Lea Bridge Road filter beds to the line between Stratford and Cambridge. Only a small part of Leyton beside the River Lea remained as Lammas strips; most of it had been enclosed as fields with individual owners. Judging by the exemption of some of the fields from tithe, some of these enclosures took place before the Abbey of Stratford Langthorne Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII.
the later Victorian and Edwardian times 1890 to 1919
