Ilford, Essex

Historical Description

Ilford, Great, a small town and a parish in Romford union, Essex. The town stands on the river Roding, and on the G.E.R., near Epping Forest, 3g- miles ENE from Stratford, is within the jurisdiction of the central criminal court and the Metropolitan police, and has a station of the name of Ilford on the railway, a post, money order and telegraph office of the same name under London E, a police station, a reading-room, a drill-hall and club-house for the use of the volunteers, a church, two chapels of ease, Baptist, United Methodist and Wesleyan chapels, a Gospel Mission hall, and an endowed hospital with a chapel. The church is a modern edifice of white brick in the Lancet style, and has pinnacles at the corners, a large cross over the E window, and a tower with light spire. The hospital was founded for lepers in the time of Stephen by an abbess of Barking, was reconstituted by Queen Elizabeth for six poor men and for a town chaplain, is an edifice of the 15th century much modified by alterations and repairs, forms three sides of a quadrangle with the chapel on the S side, and is under the Marquis of Salisbury as master and patron. The river Roding was made navigable to the town about the year 1738. The chapelry was constituted in 1836, included then Barking Side, Aldborongh Hatch, Chadwell Street, and a portion of Hainault Forest, and was reconstituted, to the exclusion of Barking Side, in 1841. In 1863 the district of Aldborough Hatch was formed, and in 1888 Great Ilford, which had formerly formed part of the parish of Barking, was formed into a separate civil parish by Act of Parliament. Acreage, 8493; population, 10, 913. Fossil remains, comprising very large bones of oxen, horns and bones of stags, a spiral horn 13 feet long, and the head, teeth, and bones of an elephant different from the elephants of Asia or Africa, were discovered in 1812 in a field near the river Roding, and other fossil remains, including teeth and tusks of the hippopotamus, were found in another field in the neighbourhood. The living is a vicarage, in th& diocese of St Albans; net yearly value, £428. Patron, All Souls' College, Oxford, Ilford, Little, a rapidly-growing parish in Essex. Th& village is bounded on the E by the river Roding, has a station called Manor Park on the G.E.R., and is 3½ miles E by N from Stratford. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, in Romford Road, Manor Park. Acreage, 768; population, 3969. The manor belongs to Charles Bartholomew, Esq., C.E. The City of London Cemetery is here, was opened in 1856, comprises an area of 253 acres, and contains two chapels. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £290. The church is a small but very ancient building, containing some interesting tombs and monuments. There are also Congregational and Methodist Free 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.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Ilford from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Ilford, Great (St. Mary))

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 Ilford 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