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This volume is the first of two containing the history of all the
places in Waltham hundred and some of those in Becontree hundred.
This region, most of which is now in Greater London, extends
eastwards from the River Lea and northwards from the Thames. Until
the mid-19th century it was rich farm land, and was also
fashionable with the gentry as a place of residence. Its northern
fringe is still rural, but the remainder has since 1850 been the
scene of a most remarkable example of sustained inflow and
settlement of population. This transformation, starting in West
Ham, is described for the region as a whole in a special
introductory article. The parish histories include Barking and
Dagenham, which now contain the Becontree housing estate; the
residential suburbs of Chingford and Ilford; and the market towns
of Epping and Waltham Abbey.
This volume is a supplement to the Bibliography published in 1959.
It lists printed books, pamphlets, and sale cata-logues located in
public libraries, local newspapers and periodicals, and articles
published in a range of journals; it is mostly concerned with
material published since the compilation of the original
biblio-graphy in the mid fifties, but it also includes earlier
material which has since come to light; the section on newspapers
is a complete revision and updating. Like the Bibliography of 1959
the Bibliography Supplement is divided into three parts: works on
the county generally, on bio-graphy and family history, and on
individual places and regions.
This volume completes Chafford hundred and covers Harlow hundred.
The part of Chafford hundred, now in Brentwood District and
Thur-rock borough, includes Aveley, Stifford, Grays Thurrock and
West Thurrock beside the Thames and, further north, Childerditch,
Brentwood, and South Weald. Grays Thurrock, formerly a small port
with a brickworks and a brewery, is now the main centre of the
borough. The coastal marshes west of Grays were used mainly as
sheep pastures until the 18th century, when large-scale chalk
quarrying and lime burning began. The West Thurrock cement
industry, which grew up in the 19th century, became one of the
largest in Europe. It has since declined and the area is now used
mainly for the storage of oil and petroleum and the manufacture of
soap, detergents, and marga-rine. Brentwood, now a large dormitory
suburb of London, owed its early growth to its position on the main
London-Colchester road, and per-haps also to the cult of St. Thomas
the Martyr. The mansions of Belhus, at Aveley, and Weald Hall,
South Weald, both dating from the 16th century, were demolished
after the Second World War. South Weald park remains as a country
park, and so does Thorndon park, including part of Childerditch,
but some land in Belhus park was used after 1950 for a housing
estate of the London county council. At Purfleet, in West Thurrock,
a smaller housing estate occupies the site of powder magazines
built by the government in the 1760s. Harlow hundred contained 11
parishes in west Essex, including the ancient market towns of
Hatfield Broad Oak and Harlow. Hatfield, with its Benedictine
priory, was one of the principal places in Essex in the Middle
Ages, but it de-clined after the 16th century, and the hundred
remained largely rural until after the Second World War, when five
of its parishes became the new town of Harlow, built to rehouse
80,000 Londoners. Hatfield forest, belonging to the National Trust,
comprises over 400 ha. There have been extensive maltings at
Sheering and Harlow, breweries at Harlow and Hatfield Heath, and a
silk mill at Little Hallingbury. Among great houses the
16th-century Hallingbury Place has disappeared, but Barrington Hall
and Down Hall, both rebuilt in the mid 19th century, survive. At
Netherhall, Roydon, are the remains of a 15th-century gatehouse.
This volume completes Becontree hundred by providing histories of
East Ham, West Ham, Little Ilford, Leyton, Walthamstow, Wanstead,
and Woodford. The region, rural until the 19th century, is now part
of Greater London. Though mainly residen-tial it includes, at
Silvertown, Canning Town, and Stratford, one of the largest
manufacturing centres in southern England, as well as the Royal
Docks. Until 1965 the region remained outside London for
admin-istrative purposes. This strongly influenced urban
development, especially in East Ham and West Ham, which, as county
boroughs, had sole responsibility for local government services and
planning in a period of remark-able growth. West Ham, in 1898, was
one of the first English towns to come under socialist control.
Throughout the region the expanding population demanded the
pro-vision of many new schools and churches, each of which is
briefly treated in the vol-ume. In dealing with churches an attempt
is made to assess the relative strength of the various
denominations. Urbanization has swept away most of the visible
remains of earlier history. Until the 19th century the region was
fashionable with the gentry, and this is reflected in the size of
some of the older parish churches, notably at Walthamstow and West
Ham. At Little Ilford, by contrast, is one of the smallest churches
in Essex. Wanstead House, the palladian mansion designed by Colen
Campbell, was demolished in 1823, though much of its park has
survived. The northern part of the region, bordering on Epping
Forest, retains some attractive wood-land, especially at
Walthamstow, Wanstead, and Woodford, where several 18th-century
houses also survive. Notable modern build-ings include Wanstead
hospital, built as an orphanage (1861), Sir Joseph Bazalgette's
metropolitan sewage pumping station at Stratford (1868), and the
town halls at East Ham (1903) and Walthamstow (1941). During the
Second World War the south part of the region was heavily bombed,
and since 1945 there has been large-scale redevelopment, especially
at Canning Town, where the sky-line is increasingly dominated by
tower blocks of council flats.
Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1
December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County
History, which has an international reputation as a work of
reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication
of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an
encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times
to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of
volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory
and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters
giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town
and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been
completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.
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