Dagenham The Local History
Dagenham lies on the north bank of the Thames estuary, and is bounded to the west by the River Roding and to the east by the Beam River.
Originally this was a marshy area whose settlement and growth were based on fishing and other maritime activities. There is evidence of habitation in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, but it was the Saxon villages of ‘Daeccanham’ that formed the nuclei of future development, and there may have been a Saxon ‘hundred’ court at Becontree Heath. Chadwell Heath, part of which survives as open space in St Chad’s Park, was associated with the pagan figure of the ‘Kaadman’, a symbol of heat and life.
Dagenham, with their churchyards. A Quaker burial ground, where the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) was originally interred.
The area remained rural into the 18th century, and was dominated by large manorial estates of medieval origin. Some of the big houses, however, were demolished as land was used for market gardening to supply an expanding city.
In the 1920s the manors of Parsloes and Valence were acquired for the Becontree housing estate, which now includes as remnants Parsloes and Valence parks. Valence House, built in the 17th century, survives and is used by the Borough as a museum. From the 16th century there remains Eastbury Manor House (owned by the National Trust, but administered by the Borough as a centre for community activities), whose lands also disappeared under housing in the early 20th century.
Dagenham developed a deep-water port from 1887, and in the early 20th century this encouraged Ford to establish their massive motor works alongside it, the company becoming the major employer and land user for
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