Barking and Dagenham

From the records: “Barking Abbey was a female monastery founded in the mid 7th Century by St Erkenwald.”

From the records: “Dagenham first appeared in a document (as Dæccanhaam) in a charter of Barking Abbey dating from 666 AD (though alternative 7th century dates have been suggested for the charter).”

From the records: “In AD 735 the area was Berecingum and was known to mean "dwellers among the birch trees".”

From the records: “The abbey was refounded as a female-only community in the early–mid 10th century, and Wulfhilda (Wlfhildis) became abbess c. 963.”

From the records: “William the Conqueror confirmed Æfgiva's control of the abbey with a royal charter issued in either November or December 1066.”

From the records: “In 1086, the abbey and its holdings were documented in the Domesday Book.”

From the records: “Queen Maud/Matilda (c.1080–1 May 1118), wife of King Henry I, financed the construction of two stone bridges and a causeway over the branches of the River Lea in Stratford-by-Bow.”

From the records: “A charter issued between 1175 and 1179 confirms the ancient market right.”

From the records: “In 1205 Dagenham was large enough to have a chaplain, and the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul was probably built at around that time.”

From the records: “In the early 13th century, the east end of the abbey was expanded into a saints' chapel, where the relics of Ethelburga, Hildelith, and Wulfhilda were translated and given greater prominence.”

From the records: “Salt water fishing began before 1320, when too fine nets were seized by City authorities, but expanded greatly from the 16th century.”

From the records: “The original tower was built in 1370, however the current tower was built around 1460.”

From the records: “The abbey had a large endowment and sizeable income but suffered severely after 1377, when the River Thames flooded around 720 acres (290 ha) of the abbey's land, which was unable to be reclaimed.”

From the records: “In 1404, Barking Abbey is recorded as having a librarian, one of just three insular abbeys to do so.”

From the records: “The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 records the abbey's gross income as £1,084 6s 2¼d (equivalent to £804,000 in 2025), which made it the third wealthiest nunnery in England; behind Sion Abbey and Shaftesbury Abbey.”

From the records: “The abbey existed for almost 900 years, until its closure in 1539, as part of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.”

From the records: “Demolition started in June 1540 and took around 18 months to complete, with only the abbey's north gate and Curfew Tower were left standing.”

From the records: “The Fanshawes were a prominent local family who were lords of the manor of Barking from 1628 to 1857.”

From the records: “South of Dagenham was a low-lying area including the Dagenham levels and Dagenham Marsh, these having been subject to periodic flooding from the Thames, and flood banks were built to protect the farmland, culminating in defences and a flood gate on the River Beam being built in the 17th century by Dutch engineers.”

From the records: “In 1707 an exceptionally high tide swept away fourteen feet of embankment and flooded over 1,000 acres of land, the description given by Daniel Defoe when he visited eight years later giving the area inundated as being 5000 acres is today considered an exaggeration.”

From the records: “From about 1775 welled and dry smacks were used, mostly as cod boats, and rigged as gaff cutters.”

From the records: “By 1850 there some 220 smacks, employing some 1,370 men and boys.”

From the records: “In 1854, the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway was built through the south of Dagenham, near the River Thames.”

From the records: “By the 1850s the Thames was so severely polluted that fish kept in chests quickly died.”

From the records: “On 3 September 1878 the iron ship Bywell Castle ran into the pleasure steamer Princess Alice in Gallions Reach, downstream of Barking Creek.”

From the records: “The pre-1965 borough of Barking had evolved from the Barking Town local government district, which had been created in 1882 covering the central part of the parish of Barking.”

From the records: “The abbey was excavated in 1910–11.”

From the records: “On 18 June 1919 the London County Council's Standing Committee on the Housing of the Working Classes resolved to build 29,000 dwellings to accommodate 145,000 people within 5 years, of which 24,000 were to be at Becontree.”

From the records: “The expansion of the Greater London conurbation into the area caused the review of local government structures, and it was suggested in 1920 that the Dagenham parish should be abolished and its area divided between Ilford Urban District and Barking Town Urban District.”

From the records: “In 1927 the LCC was reluctant to agree that the Postmaster General should provide subscriber telephone lines to the estate, as it was considered incongruous for residents of a subsidised housing scheme to be able to afford such a luxury.”

From the records: “In 1931 the Ford Motor Company relocated from Trafford Park in Manchester, to a larger new plant in Dagenham, which was already the location of supplier Briggs Motorway Bodies.”

From the records: “The Barking Town Urban District was incorporated to become a municipal borough in 1931, at which point the name was changed from Barking Town to Barking.”

From the records: “In 1932 the electrified District line of the London Underground was extended to Upminster through Dagenham with stations opened as Dagenham and Heathway and today called Dagenham East and Dagenham Heathway.”

From the records: “On 13 July 1935 the official completion of the estate was celebrated with the ceremonial opening of Parsloes Park by MP Christopher Addison.”

From the records: “The London Borough of Barking (as it was originally called) was created in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, covering the combined area of the former Municipal Borough of Barking and the Municipal Borough of Dagenham, with the exceptions of a small area at Hog Hill from Dagenham which went to Redbridge, and the Gallions Reach area, being the part of Barking west of Barking Creek, which went to Newham.”

From the records: “Dagenham was chosen as a location for industrial activity and is perhaps most famous for being the location of the Ford Dagenham motor car plant where the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 took place.”

From the records: “The Roundhouse public house on the junction of Porters Avenue and Lodge Avenue (in the pre-1965 borough of Barking) became eastern Greater London's premier rock-music venue between 1969 and 1975, incorporating the Village Blues Club.”

From the records: “Neil Young recorded two tracks for his classic album Harvest, "A Man Needs a Maid" and "There's a World" with the London Symphony Orchestra at Barking Assembly Hall (now the Broadway theatre), released in 1972.”

From the records: “Construction began in 2008, with completion due around 2025. 10,000 homes are to be built, housing around 25,000 people.”

From the records: “Barking and Dagenham was one of six London boroughs to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.”