HAVERING ATTE BOWER

Havering-Atte-Bower, Essex, a little rural village, and the site of a royal palace, 3 miles north of Romford: population 369. Inn, the Orange Tree. Havering gives its name to the liberty and peculiar of Havering-atte-Bower, which comprises 16,000 acres, and includes the parishes of Havering. Romford, and Hornchurch. To reach the village, turn to the left (north) on leaving the Romford Railway Station (Great Eastern Railway), cross the High Street, Romford, to North Street, directly before you, by the Golden Lion Inn. This soon becomes a pleasant country road, and you follow it to Havering.

Havering Church, St. John, stands on the west side of the village green. It is a commonplace modern brick building, with Perpendicular windows, an ivy-covered chancel, wooden belfry, and short spire. The interior is plain, with high pews, and no monuments of interest. The font is the only vestige of the royal chapel. At the opposite corner of the green, facing the lane to Noakes Hill, is an immense elm, hollow, the top dead, and several of the upper branches gone: a magnificent ruin. Beneath it, that venerable symbol of civilization, the stocks and whipping-post.

[Handbook to The Environs of London :
James Thorne 1876]
 

Church Records:

• St. John the Evangelist,
  The Green
  Baptisms 1657-1965,
  Marriages 1691-1993,
  Burials 1671-1891 : ERO

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