Barking is a riverside town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It is east of Charing Cross. The total population of Barking was 218,534 in 2021.If defined as the Abbey, Eastbury, Gascoigne, Longbridge, and Thames electoral wards of Barking & Dagenham Council In addition to an extensive and fairly low-density residential area, the town centre forms a large retail and commercial district, currently a focus for regeneration. The former industrial lands to the south are being redeveloped as Barking Riverside.
Historically, Barking was an ancient parish that straddled the River Roding in the Becontree Hundred and historic county of Essex. It underwent a shift from fishing and farming to market gardening and industrial development on the River Thames. Barking railway station opened in 1854 and has been served by the London Underground since 1908. As part of the suburban growth of London in the 20th century, The Urban District of Barking significantly expanded and increased in population, primarily due to the development of the London County Council estate at Becontree in the 1920s, and became a municipal borough in 1931, and part of Greater London in 1965.
History Toponymy The name Barking came from Old English Berecingas, meaning either "the settlement of the followers or descendants of a man called Bereca" or "the settlement by the birch trees". In AD 735 the area was Berecingum and was known to mean "dwellers among the birch trees". By AD 1086, it had become Berchingae as evidenced by the manor's entry in the Domesday Book of that year.
Manor of Barking Barking was a huge Manor (landholding), first mentioned in a charter in 735 AD (though the Abbey is believed to have been founded in 666 AD). The Manor covered the areas now known as Barking, Dagenham and Ilford. The Manor was held by the Nunnery of Barking.
The Fanshawes were a prominent local family who were lords of the manor of Barking from 1628 to 1857. They owned and lived in a number of manor houses in the borough, including Valence House, Jenkins, Parsloes and Faulks, and gifted the Leet House to the residents of Barking.
Parishes The Parishes of England were, with a few exceptions, fixed for around 700 years from the late 12th century onwards.History of the Countryside by Oliver Rackham, 1986 p19 The huge manor of Barking was served by two ancient parishes, Barking and Dagenham. This reversed the usual situation (for smaller, and even quite large manors) where a parish would serve one or more manors. As with other manors, the area held by the manor declined over time, but the parish boundaries based on its former extent remained constant.
The parish of Barking covered the areas now known as Barking and Ilford. Barking was a large ancient parish of in the Becontree hundred of Essex. It was divided into the wards of Chadwell, Ilford, Ripple and Town. A local board was formed for Town ward in 1882 and it was extended to cover Ripple ward in 1885. In 1888 Ilford and Chadwell were split off as a new parish of Ilford, leaving a residual parish of .
Modern local government
The parish became Barking Town Urban District in 1894 and the local board became an urban district council. The urban district was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Barking in 1931. It was abolished in 1965 and split, with the majority merged with the former area of the Municipal Borough of Dagenham to form the London Borough of Barking. The part west of the River Roding, which included part of Beckton, became part of the London Borough of Newham. In 1980 the borough was renamed Barking and Dagenham.
Abbey
The manor of Barking was the site of Barking Abbey, a nunnery founded in 666 by Eorcenwald, Bishop of London, destroyed by the Danes and reconstructed in 970 by King Edgar. The celebrated writer Marie de France may have been abbess of the nunnery in the late 12th century. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, Barking Abbey was demolished; the parish church of St Margaret, some walling and foundations are all that remain. The parish church is an example of Norman architecture; Captain James Cook married Elizabeth Batts of Shadwell there in 1762, and it is the burial place of many members of the Fanshawe family of Parsloes Manor.
Market A charter issued between 1175 and 1179 confirms the ancient market right. The market declined in the 18th century but has since been revived.
Architecture: historic buildings
St Margaret's Church is a grade I listed building in the Abbey Green area of the Town Centre, dating back to the 13th century. It is built within the grounds of Barking Abbey, a former royal monastery, whose ruins are recognisable for its partially restored Grade-II* Listed Curfew Tower, which features on the coat of arms of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Eastbury Manor House in Barking is a Grade I listed 16th century Elizabethan manor house and museum run by the National Trust.
Fishing Fishing was the most important industry from the 14th until the mid-19th centuries. Salt water fishing began before 1320, when too fine nets were seized by City authorities, but expanded greatly from the 16th century. Fisher Street (now the southern part of Abbey Road) was named after the fishing community there. From about 1775 welled and dry smacks were used, mostly as cod boats, and rigged as gaff cutters. Fishermen sailed as far as Iceland in the summer. They served Billingsgate Fish Market in the City of London, and moored in Barking Pool. Scymgeour Hewett, born on 7 December 1797, founded the Short Blue Fleet (England's biggest fishing fleet) based in Barking, using smacks out of Barking and east coast ports. Around 1870 this fleet changed to gaff ketches that stayed out at sea for months; to preserve the fish they used ice produced by flooding local fields in winter. Fleeting involved fish being ferried from fishing smacks to gaff cutters by little wooden ferry-boats. The rowers had to stand, as the boats were piled high with fish boxes. Rowers refused to wear their bulky cork lifejackets because it slowed down their rowing. At first the fast 50-foot gaff cutters with great booms projecting beyond the sterns raced the fish to port to get the best prices.
Until about 1870 the trade was mostly in live fish, using welled smacks in which the central section of the hull, between two watertight bulkheads, was pierced to create a 'well' in which seawater could circulate. Cod caught live were lowered into this well, with their swim bladders pierced, and remained alive until the vessel returned to port, when they were transferred to semi-submerged 'chests', effectively cages, which kept them alive until they were ready for sale. At this point they were pulled out and killed with a blow on the head before being despatched to market, where because of their freshness they commanded a high price. People who practised this method of fishing were known as 'codbangers'.
By 1850 there some 220 smacks, employing some 1,370 men and boys. The boats were typically long carrying up to 50 tons. During the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries they were often used as fleet auxiliaries by the Royal Navy, based at nearby Chatham Dockyard. The opening of rail links between the North Sea ports and London meant it was quicker to transport fish by train straight to the capital rather than waiting for ships to take the longer route down the east coast and up the River Thames. By the 1850s the Thames was so severely polluted that fish kept in chests quickly died. Consequently, the fishery slipped into decline in the second half of the 19th century. The decline was hastened by a storm in December 1863, off the Dutch coast, which caused the deaths of 60 men and damage estimated at £6000–7000. Many of its leading figures, including Hewett & Co, moved to Great Yarmouth and Grimsby. By 1900 Barking had ceased to be a fishing port, leaving only street and pub names as a reminder. A large modern steel sculpture entitled "The Catch" is another reminder. The sculpture is on the roundabout at the end of Fanshawe Avenue. The local fishing heritage is recorded at Valence House Museum.
Women's history Barking Abbey was a female monastery founded in the mid 7th Century by St Erkenwald. His sister St Ethelburga was the first Abbess. Until its dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539, the Abbey was a major centre of female learning. It has been described as "perhaps the longest lived...institutional centre of literary culture for women in British history".
The author Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, lived in Barking, then a small rural market town for some of her childhood. Wollstonecraft was born in Spitalfields in 1759, but the family moved to Barking when her father, a weaver, moved to Barking to try to become a farmer.
Annie Huggett, who died aged 104 in 1996, was from a young age, a prominent local Suffragette activist. Huggett's long life meant she was the last living Suffragette. The Gospel Oak and Barking Overground railway line (generally nicknamed the Goblin for short) is to be renamed the "Suffragette Line" in her honour.
Economic development Boat building has a long history, being used for the repair of some royal ships of Henry VIII. In 1848, 5 shipwrights, 4 rope- and line-makers, 6 sail-makers and 4 mast-, pump-, and block-makers are listed in a local trade directory. Hewett & Co continued in boat building and repair until 1899. Other industries replaced the nautical trades, including jute spinning, paint and chemicals manufacture. By 1878 Daniel de Pass had opened the Barking Guano Works (later de Pass Fertilisers Ltd, part of Fisons) at Creekmouth. Creekmouth was also the site of the major Barking Power Station from 1925 until the 1970s, burning coal shipped in by river; the current station known as Barking is further east near Dagenham Dock. In the 20th century new industrial estates were established, and many local residents came to be employed in the car plant at Dagenham.
Thames disaster On 3 September 1878 the iron ship Bywell Castle ran into the pleasure steamer in Gallions Reach, downstream of Barking Creek. The paddle steamer was returning from the coast via Sheerness and Gravesend with nearly 800 day-trippers. She broke in two and sank immediately, with the loss of more than 600 lives, the highest single loss of civilian lives in UK territorial waters. At that time there was no official body responsible for marine safety in the Thames; but the official enquiry resolved that the Marine Police Force based at Wapping be equipped with steam launches to replace their rowing boats to help them perform rescues.Metropolitan Police official history accessed 26 January 2007
Historical pageant To mark the incorporation of Barking as a municipal borough, a historical pageant featuring over 2000 performers took place in October 1931. Made of ten acts, the Elizabethan section was performed in part by the local Women's Citizens League.
Economy Vicarage Field Shopping Centre is located on Ripple Road in Barking town centre. It was opened in November 1990.
Geography Barking is located 9.3 miles (15 km) east of Charing Cross in Central London. It is bordered by Ilford to the north, Dagenham to the east and East Ham to the west.
Town centre
Barking Town Centre is being regenerated through a number of schemes. It is one of the most deprived areas of Barking. The Abbey and Gascoigne wards in the town centre are ranked 823rd and 554th respectively - within the 10% most deprived wards in the country.