Place Name
John and Stephen Albourgh were medieval landowners or tenants who were featured in local records during the 14th and 15th centuries. John Field speculates that the family may have originally come from one of the villages called Al(d)bury in Hertfordshire. While Norman Gunby in A Potted History of Ilford, says the name was first recorded as Albogh in 1327 and may have been taken from the family name Aldbury or Oldbury. In any case by 1456 the area had become known as Albrorhhatchcrosse, Aldborough Hacche about 1488, Aberryhatche in the 17thCentury, and Abury Hatch by 1805, the term hatch coming from the Old English meaning gate, in this case access to the Hainault Forest. A Manor House or at the very least a large farm is known to existed here after the dissolution of the monasteries. It was part of a private estate built up by Bartholomew Barnes who also bought the nearby Downshall and Newbury estates. The land returned to the Crown in 1828, and just over a century later, it formed part of a land swap with Ilford Borough Council. The area east of Aldborough Road North and north of the Eastern Avenue was part of the Aldborough Grange Estate created in the 1930s. This road was laid out slightly earlier though as it appears, as Aldborough Road, on the Ordnance Survey Map published in 1896.
