Wood Street Tall Tales

Traipsing the streets of E17 yesterday in preparation for my Walthamstow walk for the Appetite Festival on 1st June I stumbled across an amazing piece of street art. The title is Wood Street Tall Tales and is by Vic Lee. A picture of the whole art work can be found here - scroll down - and the real thing can be found in Wood Street near its junction with Forest Road. I now wonder how long it has been there as the artwork is showing on Google Streetview. From this blogpost it looks like it's been there for a year!

The first section that jumped out at me was the one about Vikings (probably because there is in fact a shop selling clothes and accessories for Vikings in Wood Street.) My photo unfortunately cuts off one of the words. The biggest what in Europe? Biggest stag? It is a tall tale remember!

With the Marathon coming up on Sunday here's another tale although most of this is true. John Inceri was proprietor of a cafe in Wood Street and in 1920 initiated what was for many years the annual "Wood Street Walk". It was an 8 mile run and open to anyone living within a half mile radius of Wood Street. The main prize was a complete Christmas dinner!

I am sure I will visit again in my preparation for my Walthamstow walk so will add some more photos when I do and also find out what the cut-off word is! Like many similar projects around London it probably doesn't get enough viewings.

My Walthamstow walk for Appetite takes place on Saturday 1st June (2pm-4pm) to coincide with the Appetite Food Trail so obviously will include a couple of tastings along the way. More details soon. My Chingford walk takes place on Sunday 9th June at the same time.

The author of this blog (Joanna Moncrieff) is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who specialises in food and drink themed walks in the West End (and soon Chingford & Walthamstow too!)