Whalebone Lane, bit of an odd name for a main road in a town not exactly famed for its whaling fleets, isn’t it? Well, the name derives from Whalebone House, that stood close to the junction of the modern-day High Road and Whalebone Lane. The house taking its name from the large whalebone arch that …
Category Archives: Dagenham
Local history
Lost Dagenham
Another image from the archives this week: Clay Cottages of Marston Avenue. You won’t find them there now though, these last two were demolished in 1962, razed to make room for garages. These particular cottages were around 500 years old – some of the oldest dwelling places in Essex. They originally had no first floor, …
The Oldest Road
High Road follows the path of an old Roman road from Colchester in Essex to London and is one of the oldest in the UK. It has been in use for at least two thousand years. The junction is where Whalebone Lane South and North meet the High Road. The areas of fields and allotments …
The difference a decade makes…
Continuing from last week’s theme of the construction of Dagenham, we move to the area around Dagenham parish church and see how it changes over a period of ten years. This first image shows the Leys Field and Church Elm Lane as they were c.1950. Leys in an old name for this area, dated to …
Dagenham – 11th July 1921 & June 1931
By mid 1921, the construction of the Becontree Estate and the enlargement of Dagenham was gathering pace. The photograph below shows an aerial view of the west of the estate looking north to Chadwell Heath. The two prominent roads running parallel to the bottom of the photograph and diagonally to the right are Longbridge Road …