Chingford, Essex

Historical Description

Chingford, a village and a parish in Essex. The village stands on the verge of the county adjacent to Epping Forest and the river Lea, about 10¼ miles NNE of London by rail, and is the terminal station of the Walthamstow and Ching-ford branch of the G.E.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office in the Metropolitan E Suburban District. The parish comprises 2809 acres; population, 2737. There-are two manors, one called Chingford St Paul's and the other Chingford Earl's. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £303 with residence. It has an old church, which is for the most part an ivy-clad ruin, and a modern church, which stands in the centre of the village, and was erected in 1844. A quaint Elizabethan timber-built hall here is known as Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, and there is a splendid modern hostelry called the Royal Forest Hotel. There is a large cemetery at Chingford Mount belonging to the Abney Park Cemetery Co., which was opened in 1884. As Chingford is one of the best places from which to visit Epping Forest, it is much resorted to during the summer months by excursionists, and much of the land i& now being devoted to building purposes. Chingford Hatch is a hamlet about 1 mile to the SE. There are Congregational, Plymouth Brethren, and Wesleyan chapels.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Chingford from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Chingford (All Saints))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Essex is available to browse.

The Essex pages from the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 is online.

Maps

Online maps of Chingford are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Essex online:

• Chelmsford Chronicle
• Essex Newsman
• Essex Standard