Place Name
Marked on Rocque’s 1746 map as the Road to Leytonstone. This is directional. The name West Ham goes back to the early medieval ages and means western area of the riverside pasture. The Hamme, first mentioned in AD958 in an Anglo-Saxon charter, referred to the large area within the bend on the north side of the River Thames. Hame was mentioned again in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was only in 1186 that WestHamma is referred to, marking some divide in the parish. And sometime around 1240 the whole area became recorded as the Hammes.
