The London Daily Newsletter Wednesday 1 February

On 1 February 2003, the US space shuttle Columbia broke up as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere killing all seven astronauts on board. It was the first time there had been an accident on landing in the 42 years of space flight. President George Bush told a nation in shock: “The Columbia is lost. There are no survivors.” Six of the seven astronauts were US citizens. They were Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, and female astronauts Laurel Clark and Indian-born Kalpana Chawla. The seventh – fighter pilot Colonel Ilan Ramon – was Israel’s first astronaut and was carrying with him a miniature Torah scroll of a Holocaust survivor. Columbia disintegrated just 16 minutes before it was due to land at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Hacton
Hacton is a small dispersed settlement located within the London Borough of Havering.

Hacton is located in the countryside between two London suburban towns, Upminster and Rainham. The name means ’farmstead on a hook-shaped piece of land’ and refers to an area next to the River Ingrebourne. It was historically a hamlet in the ancient parish of Upminster with a long history – a Romano-British farmstead was discovered west of Corbets Tey during gravel-digging in 1962. In medieval Upminster there seem to have been three clusters of settlement – Upminster village and the hamlets of Hacton and Corbets Tey.In addition to the three settlements medieval dwellings were scattered through the parish. Hacton and its bridge already existed in 1299. The hamlet expanded slowly. High House and Hoppy Hall on the Corbets Tey road, were probably built in the early 17th century – both were demolished in 1935–6. Hacton Bridge was originally manorial. In the 1630s it was a horse-bridge, but in the 1660s local inhabitants persuaded the carpenter in charge of its repair to make it a cart-bridge, since the road was much used by those taking corn to Romford market. In 1674 quarter sessions ordered the retention of the cart-bridge with the county paying two-thirds of the cost of its upkeep. A brick bridge was built in 1728. A late-18th-century map shows a road pattern which remained almost unaltered until the 20th century. Hacton Lane entered Upminster parish at Hacton bridge and ran south to Hacton Corner. It continued as Aveley Road, forming the parish boundary with Rainham and Aveley. South of Upminster, Gaynes Lane turned west from Corbets Tey Road at Gaynes Cross to join Hacton Lane north of Hacton Corner. The late-16th-century Park Corner Farm at Hacton was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. From the mid 17th century onwards, successful Londoners were buying estates in Upminster. Between 1762 and 1765 William Braund built Hactons at the junction of Little Gaynes and Hacton Lanes. After military occupation during the Second World War, Hactons stood empty until 1954 when it was converted into flats. The Cock at Hacton was the earliest known inn in the parish, existing from 1685 but had closed by 1769. The White Hart, created out of two cottages, opened as a beer house in 1854. It was converted to a house in 2012. At the corner of Hacton Lane and Little Gaynes Lane, the Optimist – the only new Upminster inn of the 20th century – was opened in 1956. 19th-century rural depopulation led to the loss of the cottages that were once along Hacton Lane.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Hampstead Garden Suburb from Willifield Way (1914) Golders Green crematorium can be seen in the background

William Whitehead Ratcliffe/Tate

Video: You Can’t Always Get What You Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line