Small Faces London: Ilford Park- Room for Ravers

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Small Faces London - Ilford Park

There has been speculation about the actual location of Itchycoo Park.

"Itchycoo Park is a name East End kids used to give to any local park (Manor Park) where vagrants congregated (when I was a kid in the East End in the '60s)." (Paul Williams)

The name comes about because the park was notorious for the stinging nettles that tended to attract kids playing and courting couples and make them itch.

"I was born and bred in Manor Park E12 and lived there between 1953 and1967. I met Steve Marriott on a number of occasions as a youngster. Manor Park itself was not known as Itchycoo Park rather it was what us local kids including Steve nicknamed little Ilford Park due to the horrendous amount of stinging nettles there. It is still there at the bottom of Church Road E12 now minus the nettles. Hope this authentic info puts you right." (Anthony Wragg)

Tony Quinlan claims that it was NOT Ilford Park but Little Ilford Park in Manor Park E12:

Not `Ilford ` Park. I was born in 1949 in Manor Park and the place was a magnet to us kids. It was where I first met Steve in about 1959. He was about 11 or 12, I was 10. The reason it was known as Itchycoo Park was because of the amount of stinging nettles everywhere! It wasn`t our generation that named it, it had always been called that according to my father.

The "dreaming spires" were not from East London though. There are two schools of thought about this with claims that Ronnie saw the spires of Bristol or Oxford while staying in a hotel there.

[ Add your own recollections ]

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