Place Name
Directional, leading to Barking Abbey, which had been in ruins for around 400 years by the time this street was laid out in the early 20thCentury. From its establishment in AD666 by Erkenwald, Bishop of London, up until its demolition at the hands of Henry VIII in 1540, Barking was one of England’s wealthiest and most important nunneries. Ethelburga, Erkenwald’s sister, became the first of a long line of notable abbesses (the most senior nun) that included St Wulfhilda, who spurned the advances of King Edgar the Peaceful to pursue a religious life at Barking; Adeliza, who founded the hospital of St Mary the Virgin and St Thomas of Canterbury on Ilford Hill in 1145; and, Mary Becket, the sister of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. The abbey’s income derived largely from the lease of land it owned across Essex, though flooding was a constant and expensive problem. Despite the severe loss of lands devastated by flooding, the abbey was still one of the wealthiest in the country at the time of it was closed down in 1539. It was demolished a year later and its estates sold off. The site itself was also sold and later used as quarry and a farmhouse. Today only the Curfew Tower, one of three original entrances and the abbey’s ruins survive as part of a public space called Abbey Green. While the area was only developed in the early 20thCentury, the southern section of what would become Abbey Road is much earlier and was once known as Fisher Street, after the fishing industry which thrived here between the 14th and mid-19thCentury.
