Stratford Old Pavilion’s stories -
Funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund
Introduction to the project
A few years ago, while walking Stratford Park, I fell in love with an old building placed just in front of the tennis court. From the outside it looked abandoned, and immediately it called my attention. After many calls and knocking on doors, I discovered that the building was the former home of a Bowling Club which stopped using it as the green areas were severely damaged. Many more stories began to emerge as I kept asking. Surprisingly, I realised there was not much information in our local archive centre about the Old Pavilion, or even about the wider park in general. The only references to the area were about antisocial behaviours and the unwelcoming atmosphere.
Recently Newham Poetry Group has led community initiatives to transform the building into the most vibrant community hub in East London. A group of poets started collecting traces of history from the pavilion and the park. Several generations had witnessed the transformation of the Old Pavilion and its different users.
In 2021 we decided to document the memories of Newham residents about the Old Pavilion and Stratford Park, and deposit them in the local archive to make it accessible to the public. We applied to the National Heritage Lottery Fund and our creative journey started. We made a call out inviting residents to bring their memories, stories, and pictures. We transformed them into poems and short stories and preserved them for future generations. We gathered for months; we listened, we laughed, and we wrote, recorded, expanded. We visited Stratford archives centre and the British Library, and for many participants these were their very first experiences with archives and manuscripts, and their first time visiting the British Library.
The videos of our creative writing sessions as well as the final video that summaries the project are free to access via our YouTube channel. Pictures collected and donated by residents and poems writing as part of the project, are now part of Stratford Archive Center. You also can visit our Flickr page to see the visual material.
Sonia Quintero
Funder and organiser of Newham Poetry Group
Final video here
Video session 1 here
Video session 2 here
Video session 3 here
A few years ago, while walking Stratford Park, I fell in love with an old building placed just in front of the tennis court. From the outside it looked abandoned, and immediately it called my attention. After many calls and knocking on doors, I discovered that the building was the former home of a Bowling Club which stopped using it as the green areas were severely damaged. Many more stories began to emerge as I kept asking. Surprisingly, I realised there was not much information in our local archive centre about the Old Pavilion, or even about the wider park in general. The only references to the area were about antisocial behaviours and the unwelcoming atmosphere.
Recently Newham Poetry Group has led community initiatives to transform the building into the most vibrant community hub in East London. A group of poets started collecting traces of history from the pavilion and the park. Several generations had witnessed the transformation of the Old Pavilion and its different users.
In 2021 we decided to document the memories of Newham residents about the Old Pavilion and Stratford Park, and deposit them in the local archive to make it accessible to the public. We applied to the National Heritage Lottery Fund and our creative journey started. We made a call out inviting residents to bring their memories, stories, and pictures. We transformed them into poems and short stories and preserved them for future generations. We gathered for months; we listened, we laughed, and we wrote, recorded, expanded. We visited Stratford archives centre and the British Library, and for many participants these were their very first experiences with archives and manuscripts, and their first time visiting the British Library.
The videos of our creative writing sessions as well as the final video that summaries the project are free to access via our YouTube channel. Pictures collected and donated by residents and poems writing as part of the project, are now part of Stratford Archive Center. You also can visit our Flickr page to see the visual material.
Sonia Quintero
Funder and organiser of Newham Poetry Group
Final video here
Video session 1 here
Video session 2 here
Video session 3 here
