High road Leytonstone

This moody and evocative image from 1875 captures High Road, Leytonstone, at a time when this once-rural village on the outskirts of London was beginning to urbanise. Rows of modest shopfronts line the street on the left, while horse-drawn carts and soft gaslight define a scene still rooted in the 19th century.

In the background, the spire of St John's Church, completed in the 1830s, rises through bare winter trees — a silent witness to Leytonstone’s transformation. By the end of the 1800s, the arrival of the railway would bring dramatic growth to the area, turning it into a vital suburb of East London.

1875 was also the birth year of Alfred Hitchcock, born in Leytonstone just a few streets away. Little did the people in this photo know that their neighbourhood would one day be associated with the master of suspense himself.

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