Preface by the editors
Loughton is extremely fortunate to have had William Chapman Waller as its historian. By painstaking labour over a 35-year period, he established a great deal of the history of the manors, and of the descent and formation of the landholdings as they were in the late nineteenth century; so much so that modern Loughton historians have had to do little work on its basic historiography themselves. The period from 1900 onwards saw a great change in the make-up of Loughton, both in the built environment and its social composition.
Landholdings that Waller had traced as they evolved over the centuries were broken up for building, either in smali lots, or, in the case of the Maitlands’ sale of most of North Loughton to the [CC, in a massive tranche. For the most part, the large houses that occupied those land holdings, whether ancient or from Waller’s own time, were demolished, and more but smaller houses built in their stead, so much so that recognising the landscape of 1900 in some parts of the town is now all but impossible.
Waller understood that a record of Loughton as he knew it would be as important for the future as were the court rolls, forest records, and abstracts of title he used for his research into centuries before the nineteenth. That is why he says he started the Itinerary, hoping that it would be useful to some yet unborn historian of Loughton. In fact, the Itinerary was lost to the town for 83 years, because it descended with Waller’s family who fortunately preserved it. Richard Morris found it in 2000, when he was researching his Memoir of Waller (published earlier in 2001 by the LDHS). Recognising its uniqueness, and worth as an historical document, the editors decided without delay to typeset and annotate it, and to publish it as a unique record of the town as it was in Edwardian times. The Itinerary’s uniqueness derives from its combination of topographical description and its discursive, almost gossipy look at the and....

Baldwins Hill
The path leading to it passes the Whitaker Almshouses, the inhabitants of which have recently (with one exception, under 70) ceased to be paupers’ and become ‘State pensioners’ [under the payment of old-age pensions] with 5/- a week. One of them is a Mrs Gilbey, whose husband was a cousin or something of Sir Walter, who sends me 10/- a month to hand to her. In the old man’s time he allowed them more. She is a good looking old body, over SO now, but able bodied. The gardens are always a trouble — the old people can’t work them and not all have relatives willing to do so, though some have. I have had some dug over this winter by Mrs Gilbey’s son, who was out of work; but I’m afraid it is a labour of Sisyphus.
Passing the allotments (on the left is a small wooden bungalow, built long ago) we arrive at Baldwyns Gardens — a collection of cottages, due to small grants made by Miss Whitaker to ‘deserving cottagers’. I bought a bit of ground and put up two — Whitethorn Cottages. [Waller is here referring to Wroth’s Path — Whitethorn Cottages became nos 12—14.] On part of the ground stands the Colour Factory a small but thriving local industry. One [Arthur Pillans] Laurie (now Chemistry Professor to the Royal Academy (1912)) fellow of King’s College Cambridge, a science man, set to work on artists’ colours, made a small company and set it going. 

Brittens Cottages & Gardeners Arms
The corner opposite the pump [Britten’s Cottages] is a rookery. I offered to buy it from Free and he asked £500 for the block, which was valued at £210 as a fair price. The cottages were made originally out of an old barn and are back-to-back. However, we don’t seem to develop any more disease there than elsewhere, though I hear there is a good deal of overcrowding.
The Gardeners’ Arms is well managed by Hughes, who has been there now many years. The shop next door [and cottage, later 101, now part of the pub car park], which his predecessor built for his daughter and then found that the site was copyhold, was a great nuisance to me, inasmuch as it cut off the view and was the only spot on which anything could be built without my consent to overlook us. And it is hideous — perhaps that is too strong a word, however. Below it are several cottages built at different times by G Hughes, who unfortunately employed the poorest architect at first, or none, and disfigured the bill for ever. For the second couple next Grout’s, he ...

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