Woodford, London

Woodford appears in the 1086 Domesday Book as Wdefort, although its earliest recorded use is earlier in 1062 as Wudeford.[2] The name is Old English and means 'ford in or by the wood'. The ford refers to a crossing of the River Roding, which was replaced with a bridge by 1238; this led to the renaming of part of the district as Woodford Bridge by 1805. The old Saxon road, that followed the valley at this point. and utilised this ford, skirted the forest (which was to the north). The Saxon Road eventually reached north of the Forest and branched East and West at that point. Woodford by this chance was on the trade route to the further parts of Essex.

Part of the district, in a similar fashion, gained the contemporary name of Woodford Green by 1883.[2] An earlier name which has acted as an alternative to this was Woodford Row.

The beginnings of Woodford can be traced to a medieval settlement which developed around the ford.[3] Woodford was never a single village, rather it was a collection of hamlets, and has retained to some extent its portmanteau nature. London has been central to Woodford's development. The easy access to Epping Forest, a large forest near London where members of the royal family traditionally hunted has made it attractive to Londoners since the Fifteenth Century, when wealthy Londoners started to build mansions there. As a consequence, many of the recorded inhabitants would have been servants, and there is even evidence of Africans ('negroes') living in Woodford in the eighteenth century. In fact the domestic servants and wealthy Londoners may have quickly outnumbered the remnant of the local, original rural folk.[3]

An example of the kind of grand house typical of pre-19th century Woodford is Hurst House, also known as 'The Naked Beauty', which stands on Salway Hill, now part of Woodford High Road. Its central block was completed in the early 18th century, and its side wings were added later on in the same century. It was restored in the 1930s, only to be damaged by fire a few years later. The central block was again completely restored, with the minor wings you can still see added on.[3]

Historians have pointed out Woodford's historic roads as evidence of its 'residential nature', as these roads provided reasonably easy access to Woodford, but no further on. There were two roads to Woodford, the 'lower road' (now Chigwell Road) and the 'upper road' (now Woodford New Road). The 'lower road' was often beset by flooding from the Roding, as it still is today, and was continually considered to be in need of repair. In fact one of the illustrious persons to be inconvenienced by the road was King James I.[3] The 'upper road', being less used than the 'lower road' was probably in a worse condition, and the Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trust undertook its repair and overhaul in 1721, and extended it to Whitechapel. The Trust did such a fine job it was given responsibility for the 'lower road' as well. In 1828, the Trust built the 'Woodford New Road' from Walthamstow to Woodford Wells, and was soon after connected to the newly built Epping New Road.[3]

The ancient parish of Woodford, also known as Woodford St Mary after its parish church of St Mary's, formed part of the Becontree hundred of Essex.[4] It was suburban to London and formed part of the Metropolitan Police District from 1840. For administration of the Poor Law it was grouped into the West Ham Union in 1835. The parish adopted the Local Government Act 1858 in 1873, setting up a local board of nine members. The Local Government Act 1894 reconstituted its area as Woodford Urban District, governed by Woodford Urban District Council.[5] In 1934 the urban district was abolished under a county review order and its former area became part of the Wanstead and Woodford Urban District. Wanstead and Woodford was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1937.[6] The population of the Woodford parish was 2,774 in 1851, and had grown substantially to 37,702 in 1951.[4] In 1965 Wanstead and Woodford, together with Ilford, were grouped together to become the London Borough of Redbridge.[3]

The beginnings of the actual modern suburbanisation of Woodford, however, can be traced to the opening (in 1856) of the Eastern Counties Railway Line from Stratford to Loughton, on which Woodford became accessible by two stations, at Snakes Lane and George Lane. The new convenience of transportation encouraged the growth in number of the daily commuter that is typical of the Woodford resident today. Woodford soon became the residence of the well-to-do city worker, as attested by John Marius Wilson in his Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, written between 1870 and 1872

The increase of pop. arose from erection of houses consequent upon railway communication with London....[t]here are many fine mansions, and numerous good villas.[7]

In fact Woodford doubled its population in the middle and later decades of the 19th century due to the arrival of the railway.[3] A good barometer of Woodford's rapid growth in this period is the erection of three churches in the area, a Congregational, Methodist and Church of All Saints, all built in 1874.[3]

Woodford completed its suburbanisation in the period between the two World Wars of the 20th century. Available land was hungrily built on and the grand houses of the wealthy who had been building them for more than four hundred years were pulled down to make way for the middle class housing estates, typified by the three-to-four bedroom semi-detached house with front and back gardens. In the 1930s, 1,600 houses were being built in Woodford a year on average.[3] The Central line's extension to and past Woodford in the middle of the 20th century, utilising the existing overland train network, solidified Woodford's place in the commuter belt.[8]

In the First World War (1914-1918) London was troubled by Zeppelin Raids. A response to this was to place two Royal Flying Corps night-fighter squadrons, 39 and 37 squadrons, with headquarters at Woodham Mortimer and Woodford Green respectively, with up to eight aircraft at each airfield (generally Bleriot Experimental BE2c). They formed part of the London Air Defence Area. 39 squadron shot down the Cuffley airship SL11 in September, 1916, and was possibly the more successful in the task, but 37 squadron destroyed the airship L48 over Norfolk in June 1917.[9]

Woodford, as part of Epping Forest was one of the last places in London where medieval Commoner's rights persisted - with local farmers being allowed to graze their cattle on the common land. These rights were protected by sections 14 and 15 of the Byelaws passed by the Conservators of Epping Forest. Even late into the 20th century cattle were allowed to roam freely on the forest ground (Forest, in this instance being the term applying to the district rather than that area with trees).

The practice became increasingly less well suited to the times, as they occasionally penetrated into neighbouring gardens and roads before being driven back onto the forest land.

The BSE outbreak of 1996 caused the practice to be halted for a while. Their departure, however, meant that grass and saplings grew on the previously well-cropped meadow areas of forest land. When the cattle were reintroduced in 2001 their range was restricted so that there would be less conflict with other interests.