Place Name
Directional, the road leading from Canning Town to Barking. John Field in his book Place Names of Greater London says that the name Barking comes from an Anglo-Saxon leader and means Berica’s people or settlement, first mentioned in records as Bercingum around AD730 by the first millennium it had become Bercingum and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Berchinges. It became more recognisable as Berking in 1193 and took on the modern spelling in 1289. Norman Gunby however dates the name even earlier in his book A Potted History of Ilford, saying it was first on record as Berecingas in AD695. James Kemble in Essex Place-Names, says that St Bede wrote about the “monasterio Bericinensi” (Barking Monastery) sometime around AD731 and that the name also appeared as Berkynge, Byorkingan, Beorcingan and Berchingis in later historical documents. The road itself however is not an ancient one. Its development is explained in A History of the County of Essex: “Plaistow was at last provided with a main road, by-passing Stratford, about 1812, when the Commercial Road turnpike trust built New (now Barking) Road from the East India Docks, across the Plaistow marshes, to East Ham and Barking, with an iron bridge over the Lea by Bow creek, and a toll-gate in Barking Road, near the bridge. That road did not immediately influence local settlement, but it eventually became the main thoroughfare and shopping centre of south West Ham. It was controlled by the Commercial Road trust until the trust expired in 1871.”
