Place Name
Named after a large fenced area within the former Hainault Forest located slightly to the west of modern day Fencepiece Road, roughly where the Tudor Estate is today. It is mentioned formally in records from 1804, though appears on a 1777 map as a footpath. For centuries Hainault Forest was a popular hunting ground, and in the 19thCentury Fencepiece was the location of the meeting for the famous annual Easter Hunt, which was very popular with Londoners who came to enjoy the holiday sports. Following the deforestation of Hainault Forest in 1851 the land was converted to farming, and later housing. George Tasker suggested in his 1901 book Ilford Past and Present that the forest was ‘fenced’ in and this is how the name of Fencepiece may have arisen.
