is a place in the
London Borough Of Barking And Dagenham . It is a suburban development situated 12 miles (19.3 km) east north-east of
Charing Cross .
Dagenham was still a village in the mid-
1920s when building of the vast
Becontree Estate began. The very first house completed in Chittys Lane is recognisable by a blue council plate embedded in the wall. Parallel to Chittys lane runs Valence Avenue which has a width out of proportion with the rest of the streets in the district. This is because a temporary railway ran down the centre of the avenue during the construction of the estate. The estate was built by
London County Council to rehouse people from London's
East End , due to
Slum clearance. At its completion in the mid
1930s it was the largest
Council House scheme in Europe. At the time everyone marvelled at having indoor toilets and a private garden although the sash windows were extremely draughty, there was no insulation in the attics, and during the winter months very few people could afford enough coal to heat the bedrooms.
One of the main social improvements in the construction of the new estate was to have large public houses few and far between compared with smaller ones almost every hundred yards in the poorer quarters of London. Curiously, there is no "town centre" as is generally understood in a community.
All Saints School Dagenham is located in Dagenham.
On the corner of Whalebone Lane and the Eastern Avenue, diagonally opposite the Moby Dick pub, is the site of a
Saxon Moot Hall . The adjoining fields were used during
World War 2 by the
Royal Artillery as an "Ak-Ak" (
Army Slang for
Anti-aircraft , as opposed to "Ack" -
Royal Signals jargon for the letter "A") battery before being converted into a
Prisoner Of War camp for Germans.
Further South down Whalebone Lane on the corner of the High Road is the Tollgate pub. This stands on the site of the
Milestone which marked the ten mile limit from the
City Of London and the
Turnpike Toll-gate .
Dagenham is the home of an assembly plant owned by the
Ford Motor Company . Originally an automobile body constructor named "Briggs Bodies" the plant was reorganised in
1931 for the purpose of producing Ford
Car s. On
February 20 ,
2002 , full production was discontinued due to the expense of manual labour in the
United Kingdom , and the factory was downsized to produce engines and gearboxes.
Dagenham Dock was once a large coaling port and the Chequers pub (now closed but Chequers Lane still exists) gained world wide fame due to the many merchant seamen of all nationalities who stopped off there for a last drink before regaining ship.
Other industrial names once known world wide were
Ever Ready whose batteries could be found in shops throughout the
Commonwealth ,
Bergers Paint and the chemical firm of
May And Baker who in 1935 revolutionised the production of antibiotics with their synthetic sulfa-drug known as
M&B693 .
In 1926 Dagenham was created an
Urban District and in further recognition of its development in 1938 it became a
Municipal Borough . In 1965 the
Municipal Borough Of Dagenham was abolished and its former area became part of the present-day London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
In
1885 a station was opened at Dagenham on the
London Tilbury & Southend Railway . In
1932 the electrified
District Line of the
London Underground was extended to
Upminster through Dagenham with stations opened as ''Dagenham'' and ''Heathway'' and today called
Dageham East and
Dagenham Heathway . Services on the London Tilbury & Southend line were withdrawn in
1962 .
Famous Dagenham natives include Dr
George Carey 103rd
Archbishop Of Canterbury , England's World Cup winning football coach
Sir Alf Ramsey , England footballers
Jimmy Greaves and
Terry Venables , singer
Sandie Shaw , actor/musician/comedian
Dudley Moore , 1952
Olympic Games Marathon hero and martyr Jim Peters, and
''Titanic'' survivor
Eva Hart .
