Emilia Bassano, later Lanier, one of the second generation of the family to live in England, brought up in Court circles, was a musician and a poet in her own right – and is believed by some people – most notably the historian A L Rowse – to have been the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence.

This exquisite miniature by Nicholas Hilliard is almost certainly of Emilia – among the evidence is the fact that the sitter’s bodice is embroidered with silk moths, the emblem of the Bassano family.

Emilia was brought up at the Bassanos’ house near All Hallows by the Tower in the City of London. It seems likely, though, that she visited her uncles in Walthamstow – one of their houses was in Marsh Street (now the High Street), near where Mission Grove would one day be built.

Five centuries ago Walthamstow was a desirable country village, with some excellent houses and good farmland. It was an ideal location, too, for people who had made money at Court or in London and who wanted an easily accessible refuge.

As part of our Walthamstow Notes project, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we have rediscovered the story of a family of musicians who came to England from Venice, recruited to play for Henry VIII as part of his determined bid to bring London into the premier league of European cities. The six Bassano brothers came here and prospered. Two of them bought property in what is now Waltham Forest.

We still have some of the music, and the musical instruments, that they made. And young composers, supported by Waltham Forest Music Service and members of early music group Passamezzo have created their own responses to some of the music of the Bassanos and their contemporaries. These were performed in St Mary’s Church, where the Bassanos and their descendants were part of the congregation for over a hundred years

Over the past three years Clio’s Company has worked with local children, adults, choirs, the Vestry House Museum, the Waltham Forest Music Service and many friends and supporters on the Walthamstow Notes project. We were honoured to be awarded a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to make this work possible.

The Walthamstow area has been renowned for its music making for centuries. For this project we focused on three different historical periods and looked both at famed musicians within them and at the lives, the places and the music associated with the many whose names may be less familiar.

In the first phase, we traced the stories of the Bassanos, already eminent in Venice, who were persuaded to England by the agents of Henry VIII and whose descendants remained musicians by royal appointment for over a hundred years. Some of the family settled in Walthamstow, where they became prosperous land owners, commuting between their town and country homes and their commitments at Court. Musical instrument makers as well as composers and performers, some of their recorders are still playable – one turned up in a street market only a few years ago.

Next we looked at the time when Walthamstow was doubling in size every decade in the wake of the coming of the railways, and when music for all was becoming an aspiration. This was the time when J F H Read and his large family lived in one of the grand houses that lined Hoe Street. After a modest start in life as a City clerk, Read went on two make three separate fortunes on the stock exchange – but his greatest loves in life were music and philanthropy. Having built a concert hall, promoting countless concerts and guiding many of the charities which stood between at least some of the poor and the workhouse, Read died “A comparatively poor man” – in a house with only eight bedrooms.

Moving to the more recent past, we focused on the music of the area in the 1960s and 70s, when Walthamstow was in the forefront of the rapid, and often controversial, changes of the day. Teenagers and their music and fashion were the centre of attention, the Beatles played the Granada, Tottenham Sound vied for supremacy with Mersey Sound, record players and TVs became affordable – and people from all over the world came to town, bringing with them much that was new, including musical tastes and talent to enrich the area.

The project has included research, workshops, performances, oral history recordings, installations, performances and several exhibitions. Some of the work is on this site – themes and articles listed here

The gallant-looking World War I cavalry officer in this photograph, taken in Thessalonika in 1918 is Harry Brown, whose grand daughter has lived in Chelmsford Road since the 1970s.

Harry was the son of an Islington milkman who met the 4am milk train every day; his son was fostered with neighbours after his early death from asthma. Once grown up, Harry worked in the rag trade, married a girl he met in the church choir and had a son. But he volunteered for the army on the outbreak of the First World War – he was soon made an officer, survived four years’ service, and returned home to continue in the business he had started. Harry and Maud’s son, Leslie, was a promising pupil, but the family did not have the money to send him to university. So Leslie went to work in the accounts department at W H Smith, where he saved enough to put himself through theological college.

Leslie Brown became Archbishop of Uganda, where his daughter Alison spent much of her childhood. Alison remembers games, jokes and the excellent “sea lion” faces her grandfather made on her occasional visits to England. Evidently he never lost the family trait of ultra early rising.

The two chapels within the Queens Road Cemetery date from the opening of the Cemetery in 1872. The Anglican chapel (orientated East-West,) is joined to the Non-Conformist Chapel (orientated North-South) by an open arch with a bell tower. Neither chapel has been used for services for several decades. The Non-conformist chapel still has it’s original beamed ceiling, and Victorian tiled floor; the Anglican Chapel had
We have been given permission by the Cemeteries Operations Manager to use the chapels for project events, and have set about giving the Anglican chapel a face-lift.( the Non-Conformist chapel needs some work to the ceiling before we can use it for public events)
Over the spring and summer we have had several clean up and painting days. The chapel walls had been painted a pale pink, but cracks in the plaster had been mended over this, so we needed to give the interior a coat of fresh paint.
Cleaning the chapel in preparation for painting took a while – the dust of years had settled on the window tracery, and there were cobwebs everywhere. With volunteer help we set about washing down walls and woodwork, and sweeping out huge accumulations of leaves from the outer porch before putting a coat of white paint on the walls. It has made a huge difference.
We are planning more works; we aim to apply another coat of white paint to the walls in the near future, and are hoping to get advice and funding to undertake more substantial restoration in both the Anglican and Non- conformist Chapels

Children from Edinburgh Primary school are working with Clio’s Company to create and maintain new flower beds in Queen’s Road Cemetery. For most, this is a first experience of gardening – there was a lot to learn about preparing and feeding the ground, planting the shrubs and bulbs with care, watering them in and continuing to look after them when needed.

There are now five new beds – one near the main gates of the cemetery, and four round the war memorial behind the chapels. The beds are getting well established, with wonderful displays of roses and lavender in the summer.

Sadly, human and squirrel predators have stolen some plants and bulbs, but plans are underway to replace the losses and expand the planted area.

When the cemetery was new in 1872 there were eleven full-time gardeners to tend it – now there are only occasional visits by contractors. So the local community is stepping up to care for this very special place.

Future plans include raised beds outside the chapels – and many more bulbs.