Today we made an outing to Walthamstow. We were meeting a friend later on at the William Morris Gallery which we hoped to visit.

Aboard the 55 bus

We caught a number 55 bus to Walthamstow Central.

Walthamstow Central bus station

The bus brought us to Walthamstow bus station and we walked from there to the Mall.

The Mall

The Mall is one of Walthamstow’s main shopping centres. As we had some time before our friend reached us, we came here for a coffee break.

Pret A Manger

We tried Costa but there were no seats left (seating has been reduced everywhere to enable social distancing to be maintained). So we went to Pret instead.

Walthamstow Market

We walked throughWalthamstow Market which is quite large and was very busy.

Poundland

We visited Poundland (yes, we’re cheapskates 🙂 ) but didn’t buy anything.

Wilko

We also walked round Wilko’s, just to look, really, as we had no purchases in mind.

Hassan’s

This looks more like a tip than a shop, doesn’t it? But it is a shop.

Old Burton’s store

We have seen and photographed this building on previous visits. It’s an old store built by the Burton’s tailors chain. There are foundation stones visible dated 1931.

The cat in the window

We made our way from the Mall to the William Morris Gallery. On the way we spotted a cat at the window of a house and of course took a photo of it! The cat seemed less impressed than we were!

Decorative doorway

We photographed this unusually decorative doorway. It belonged to what is now a residential block. The lettering seems to spell out “Norwood House”. It was apparently built in 1895 by a Mr Norwood, a butcher of Walthamstow.

The Rose and Crown

This fine old pub rejoices in a traditional pub name and has so far escaped the modern fad of giving pubs stupid new names.

The William Morris Gallery

When we reached the William Morris Gallery, our friend had not yet arrived. To visit, we had needed to reserve timed tickets. We had arrived too late for those we had reserved and so did not manage to visit the Gallery on this occasion.

The gallery garden

Behind the house is a large and well kept garden. Today it was full of visitors.

A water feature

There was water in the garden but I didn’t have the opportunity to discover whether it is an artificial body of water or perhaps a live spring or river.

The gallery cafe

The gallery has a cafe, called the Larder, and you can enter this without a timed ticket. We came here to have coffee and wait for our friend.

The Bell

Our friend finally arrived and we started back towards Walthamstow Central and the Mall where we intended to have lunch. On the way we passed a pub called the Bell which bears the date 1906.

The Turkish restaurant

For lunch, we went to the Turkish restaurant called Gökyüzü. We have eaten here several times previously and so we were confident in the quality of the food. We were not disappointed.

In the restaurant

We had my favourite in Turkish cuisine, lentil soup, followed by pide with Turkish tea.

Aboard the 55

Our friend went off in one direction and we in another. We boarded the 55 bus and just in time as it started to rain. During the journey, though, the sky cleared.

Aboard the 38

At Clapton Pond we transferred to a 38 bus which brought us back to the Angel and home.

We were sorry to have missed a chance to revisit the William Morris Gallery but, all being well, there will be other opportunities.