Place name
This commemorates the Tudor dynasty, and together with a cluster of nearby streets, the so-called Tudor Estate, remembers a period of political and religious upheaval that began in 1525 with Henry VIII seeking to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, and resulted in the English Reformation. The names of two of Henry’s queens, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, along with the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey who failed to negotiate the annulment all feature within the estate. It was laid out in the 1950s on the site of Fencepiece Farm, a fenced clearing in the medieval Hainault Forest, with Tudor Crescent following the course of its former north border. Hainault Forest had been used by English kings and queens as a hunting ground for centuries and was particularly popular with the Tudors. It remained the property of Crown until 1850 when an Act of Parliament Disafforested it. It was broken up and sold as farmland which was later developed for housing.
