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ETON MANOR APPROACH

Eton Manor

Gareth Rees of the Marshman Chronicles website takes you on the kind of walk that he shares with his dog Hendrix every day. Taking in industrial dereliction and artistic creation, Rees’ atmospheric talk conjures up a picture of life on the edges of the urban fabric, where wildlife and humans on the fringes mix. Members of the Eton Manor Association provide a musical backing, with songs once sung on the site of the Eton Manor Boys Club, a club founded in the area by Old Etonians.

Eton Manor Boys’ Club (EMBC), was a sports and social club established in Hackney Wick in the early years of the 20th century. EMBC was established, managed and paid for by a philanthropically-minded group of Old Etonians: Arthur Villiers, Gerald Wellesley, Alfred Wagg and Sir Edward Cadogan. For a nominal weekly subscription, boys and ‘Old Boys’ had free access to everything the EMBC had to offer both in the purpose-built clubhouse in Riseholme Street, Hackney and on the clubs’ own sports ground, the Wilderness (a vast, sporting nirvana developed on 30 acres of waste ground in Leyton in the 1920s).  The Club officially closed in 1967 but many members are still in contact with one another today. All acknowledge the profound impact EMBC had on their lives.

Marker 4:
Red Oak Quercus Rubra

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