West Ham Park’s Hidden Histories Events

West Ham Park
July 2024

About this record

As part of the Newham Heritage Month, West Ham Park’s Hidden Histories project interviewed locals on their memories about the park which celebrates 150 years this year.

Photo credit: Riitta Hakkarainen digital collage with 1900s postcard image

We interviewed local people who used the park, collecting memories and recollections through oral history interviews. We explored archives looking for old pictures of the park and old maps of the area including Newham Archive, Historic England, Metropolitan Archives and National Library of Scotland (which holds maps) as well as exploring a small informal archive held by the park. We bought some vintage postcards of the park from the early 1900s online. We were also in contact with the Friends of West Ham Park and Staff from City of London Corporation who are involved in running the park.

To share what we learned, we, Riitta Hakkarainen and Umia Kukathasan created a short film from interviews, archive images and shots we took of the park. The screening was at a sharing event at Stratford library where visitors could also see archive materials and it was an open forum to share memories of the park.

We also created two celebratory events in West Ham Park in June 2024. A history-walk guided-tour with art-trail. This melded more traditional history with personal histories of the people that we interviewed.

A history-walk guided-tour with art-trail. This melded more traditional history with personal histories of the people that we interviewed. Photo credit: Minerva Carvalho
Local artist Killian Becker created artworks that formed the art trail to illustrate highlighted memories from the interviews. Photo credit: Minerva Carvalho
We also ran a cyanotype print workshop as a way to create new memories in physical form. To create the prints, materials used included fallen leaves gathered from the park. Photo credit: Minerva Carvalho
People created a paper print to keep and prints on triangles of cloth that were used to make bunting to hang in the park, creating a public artwork to celebrate the 150 year celebrations of West Ham Park in July. It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet and create bonds with other local people in an informal and creative setting. Photo credit: Umia Kukathasan

To share our project with a wider London and international audience, we created a radio show for broadcast on London’s Resonance 104.4 FM and online at resonancefm.com. We will upload the link once it’s available online.

Sincere thanks to contributors.

For their time kindly sharing their personal stories:

Nicola Maamari
Bryan Collier
Nargis Qayyum
Zeba Qayyum
Magdalene Titoli
Joseph Federico

From Friends of West Ham Park:

Nicky Brown

From The City of London Corporation, through which West Ham Park is managed:

Ciaran O’Keefe
Stella Fox
Ricky O’Garro

Additional record details

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September 2025