Snaresbrook Riding School and Woodlands Stables Chingford

[keeperscottage]

Thought about putting this on Friends Reunited, but decided I'd try here first (also going to post in Soapbox).

Anybody out there used to ride at Snaresbrook Riding School (now a development of flats!)? I rode there from 1963 until 1970.....is Dora Parfitt still alive? She could be, although in her nineties!

I know Woodlands Stables is still flourishing, but is there anyone out there who remembers it before is was a dressage venue, where ordinary mortals like myself used to hack ("hack" is probably now not a word used at Woodlands - or do you know better......?). Do you remember Dot, Harry Mr and Mrs Jenner, Val and Andrea, Jackie Connellan (now Shirolee McKenzie!!). Oh, what characters!! Come on, surely someone out there must have been a livery there!!!!

Next stop, Friends Reunited!!!!

 

[mathew_delius]

I had riding lessons at Snaresbrook in 1975/6 and Dora was elderly then, certainly past 70,so I suspect she probably isn't with us anymore.
She used to tear up and down the drive in an old land rover, scattering wildlife and people in the process.

Was Woodlands the place on Sewardstone Road?

 

[Suechoccy]

I learnt to ride properly and stablecraft too at Snaresbrook around 1988-90, just before it closed down and the developers moved in. Dora was still about in the big house though I never met her. The instructors of that time included Corinne, and Adrian and Dot had ADL tack on the upper (rotten wooden) floor of the old building too. We had a nice adult riding club there with showjumping and dressage comps organised.
Horses of that time... Kia, a youngish black cob with a buck. Pally, a chestnut Arab-y gelding. A beautiful old bay TB type gelding with a bad back who used to bite (I still have the scar on my forearm today and think of him fondly whenever I notice it!), a palomino mare possibly called Honey, a very old arthritic roan gelding. We had a day's picnic ride into Epping with pub lunch (I was on Pally).
After the school closed, I felt I'd never find another school with such a friendly atmosphere or an adult "Pony Club" type setup, so that was the point where I ventured into being a sharer for a horseowner in Epping, and several years later became a loaner, and now live in the East Anglian fens and have my own neddy.
Snaresbrook and the friendliness and attitude of the staff in showing us how to do things and letting us do things definitely gave me a grounding of horse knowledge which I otherwise wouldn't have.