Place Name
There are at least two possible origins behind the name of Chingford. The first put forward by John Field, in Place-Names of Greater London is that it is a “shingle ford” based on the very earliest existing spellings. It was written as Cingefort in the Domesday Book of 1086 from the Old English words cingel and ford. But it has also been suggested that a spelling from 1219, namely Chagingeford, could have been from a chronicler using a pre-Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxon spelling. In which case the name may mean “ford by the stumps,” which could refer to pile dwellings, the remains of which have been discovered in the area. The River Ching only got its name much later – it was originally the River Bourne. This street was laid out as part of the Warner Estate development in the late 1870s.
