Wanstead (St. Mary)
The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £6. 13. 9., and in the gift of Lord Mornington: the tithes have been commuted for £377, and the glebe comprises 83 acres. The church, rebuilt about the year 1790, is of brick and Portland stone, with a fine Doric portico, and a cupola supported on eight Ionic pillars; the interior is of light and elegant appearance. In the chancel is a window of stained glass by Eginton, representing Christ bearing the Cross, in imitation of the altar-piece in the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford; also a superb monument to the memory of Sir Josiah Child, who died in 1699. A free school, in connexion with the National Society, is partly supported by the proceeds of £200 three per cents., the bequest of George Bowles, Esq., in 1805. On the high road is the Infant-Orphan Asylum, of which the foundation-stone was laid by his Royal Highness Prince Albert, on the 24th of July, 1841. The institution was originally established in 1827, at Dalston, in the parish of Hackney; but it becoming necessary to provide larger and more convenient premises, the present handsome edifice, for the admission of 400 children, was erected at a cost of about £40,000, and opened with much ceremony, the King of the Belgians presiding, on the 27th June, 1843. It is in the Elizabethan style, contains an excellent chapel, and is surrounded by extensive gardens. About the year 1735, a tessellated pavement of considerable dimensions, some brass and silver coins, fragments of urns, and other relics of antiquity, were dug up on the south side of Wanstead Park.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.