P is for Plashet

LONDON A-Z P is for Plashet For my next unsung suburb I've been to a swallowed hamlet in Newham. Plashet used to be home to someone important enough to have appeared on a banknote and is now a mesh of Victorian terraces with a nice park and a dead library. If there were a stop on the District line between Upton Park and East Ham they could call it Plashet, but there isn't and the name's almost been lost. It's also not quite where modern maps put it because the original crossroads we seek is here. This is the junction of Plashet Grove and Katharine Road, one named after the hamlet and the other after the banknote icon's daughter. There used to be a large comfortable manor house on the far side, now there's a minimart and a currency exchange. There used to be a farm on the right-hand side, now there's a halal butcher and a pharmacy. There used to be a pub called The Green Man in the foreground, now there's a modern block of flats (quite unusual for the neighbourhood). And there used to…