Place Name
Directional, this is the road that leads to Woodford. Woodford appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wdefort, having previously been recorded before the Norman Conquest as Wudeford in 1062. As the name implies it means a river crossing point in or by the wood. The ford refers to a crossing of the River Roding. It was Wudeforde by 1225 and, with a bridge replacing the ford sometime before 1238, some of the district was renamed Ponte de Woodford by 1285 and Woodfordbrigge in 1429. This was one of two roads that led to Woodford, this being the upper road, the lower road now Chigwell Road. In 1721 the Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trust was charged with repairing the road and extending it to Whitechapel. In 1828 the Trust built the Woodford New Road from Walthamstow to Woodford Wells, and was soon after connected to the newly built Epping New Road.
