Place Name
Likely named after Richard Horn who around 1547 was leasing land in the area, the area of Newbury was known at that time as Horns Village. Horn leased the land from Barking Abbey which held tenements across Ilford and Barking. Flooding, and the reclamation of these lands, was a recurring and expensive problem for the abbey, with the level of devastation caused by floods evidenced in 1380 when Barking was described as a “broad lake or pond”. By 1409 the abbey had spent £2000 on enclosing and draining the marshland, though its methods were clearly effective as by 1456 land was being leased. The problem didn’t go away though. Abbey records reveal that shortly before its dissolution, about a hundred years later, workmen were being paid to strengthen flood defences, one of these workmen being Richard Horn. In 1539 the cellaress paid “Richard Horn and his fellows for barrowing the cellaress’s wall in Ripple Marsh at 6d. a day, 3s. 6d.; Richard Horn for making the cellaress’s wall at Ripple Marsh 20s.”, while at the same time, the Treasury paid “to Richard Horn and his fellows at Easter for repairs done on the seawall in Ripplemarsh £6.13s.2d.” The street itself was laid out before 1777, though appears unnamed on Andre and Chapman’s map of that same year. At this time, the name Horn Lane applied to today’s Hainault Road. Horns Road had been named by 1898.
