HORNCHURCH
Including Ardleigh Green, Elm Park,
Emmerson Park & Harold Wood

Hornchurch, Essex, about 2 miles east-southeast of the Romford Railway Station (Great Eastern Railway), on the road to Upminster: population 2476. Inns, White Hart; Bull.

The village, large and busy-looking, extends north towards Butt's Green, as well as along the road. It has a good-sized brewery (Woodfine's), a well-known steam engine and agricultural implement factory (Wedlake's), large tile and drainpipe works, and other establishments; but in the main the business is agricultural, and all around are extensive farms. The parish is bounded east by the little Rom brook, west by the Ingerbourn.

The Church, St. Andrew, on the right of the road at the east end of the village, is a large Perpendicular building of stone, but patched with brick. It comprises nave with clere-storey, aisles (the south aisle being of brick and modern), chancel, porches, and a battlemented tower at the west end, of 3 stages, with turrets at the angles, that at the south west being the largest and carrying a flagstaff, and a slender spire which rises to a height of 170 ft. On the apex of the east gable is fixed the carved skull of an ox, with broad-spreading curved horns. The interior is not of much interest. The chancel was restored in 1869: the fine east window of five lights is filled with painted glass. At the east bay of each aisle is a good oak parclose. The body of the church is filled with tall pews. On the south of the chancel is a monument with kneeling effigies.

The horns on the gable of the church are commonly supposed to symbolize the name. Its origin is accounted for by a coarse tradition, which is given by Weever. The received explanation is that the priory founded here by Henry II as a cell of the Hospice of St. Bernard in Savoy, was called the Monasterium Cornutum, and had the head and horns of an ox for a crest: but this, of course, does not show how the name originated. On the suppression of the alien priories, William of Wykeham purchased the property, with the advowson of the living, for his New College, Oxford, to which it still belongs. A curious custom is maintained here. New College, or the lessee of the tithes, provides once a year a boar's head, garnished with bay leaves and decorated with ribbons, which is wrestled for in a field adjoining the churchyard.

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

Church Records:

• St. Andrew, High St
  Baptisms 1567-1895, Marriages 1576-1885, Burials 1576-1898 : ERO
  Later records : Not deposited 
• Holy Cross, Park Lane
  Baptisms 1926-1987, Marriages 1928-1985 : ERO  
• St. George, Kenilworth Gdns
  Built 1935 as chapel-of-ease to St. Andrew  
• St. Nicholas, Elm Park
  Baptisms 1942-1979, Marriages 1947-1989 : ERO
• St. Peter, Gubbins Lane, Harold Wood
  Baptisms 1895- date, Marriages 1939- date : Not deposited
• St. Alban (Roman Catholic), Langdale Gardens, Elm Park
  Formed 1939  
• St. Mary Mother of God (Roman Catholic), Hornchurch Rd
  Formed 1931  

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