Thames Tributary Goresbrook - Dagenham Marsh
Thames Tributary Goresbrook
The brook continues to flow south towards the Thames and is joined by the Ship and Shovel sewer.
TQ 48303 83755
This is where the old A13 turns into the viaduct over the Ford works. This is partly another suburban area and partly another chunk of the Ford factory
Post to the north Goresbrook Park
Post to the south Dagenham Riverside
Post to the east Fords
A13
East of the Goresbrook Interchange it is the new Thames Gateway Road built in 1999 and now the A13. The westernmost stretch is also called Choats Manor Way.
Viaduct over the Ford works opened late 1999. This large fully continuous, precast pre-stressed segmental concrete structure carries the road around Ford's plant. It used glued segmental cantilevers to provide a low-maintenance structure with a 54 000 m2 monolithic deck using 1030 precast segments giving a 1750 m long continuous structure. It won a Concrete Society Certificate of Excellence and was shortlisted for a British Construction Industry Award.
Baden Powell Close
Harmony House. Modern building with lecture rooms, workshop and sacred space. It is on the site of the Sacred Heart Convent Secondary School. In the 1990's, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary commissioned the architect, Firooz Alexander Sefre, to create a new centre for learning that would encompass all beliefs. This was opened in 2001.
Peter Barber Architects’ Terrace of courtyard houses running the length of the site. Flats at each the end of the terraces and Cherry blossom trees.
Burdetts Road
Brook Meadow housing. With gardens which extend almost to the stream's banks,
The Gores Brook goes under the road into the housing development reducing the green corridor. A reed bed here shows that they are not always confined to water. They were once many of them on this site.
Choat’s Manor Way
The original line of Choats Manor Way runs south from Ripple Road to the river and this has now been rebuilt and upgraded.
Choats Manor Way bridge over the CTRL. Steel composite road bridge built by Ove Arup. Steel beams with approach embankments of reinforced earth, supported on concrete columns
Coaley Row
This road which is now inside a container depot was to the west of Chequers Lane and is said to have once had cottages where coal trimmers lived. In the 1980s it enclosed a sports ground.
Cook Road
Vue Cinema. This was built in the 1990s as the Warner Village. It has 9 screens.
Bingo Hall
The Ship and Shovel relief sewer
This is a tributary of the Goresbrook and flows eastward close to the railway, and drains much of the site east of Renwick Road by means of an old ditch system. It contains species typical of fresh water.
Goresbrook Road
Cones. At the Junction with Ripple Road are two concave-sided cones covered in black tarmac, by Thomas Heatherwick Studio.
St Peter's Catholic Primary School. Opened in 1933. Now parish centre. With sculpture over the door
St Peter's Catholic Primary School. With nursery.
St.Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Founded 1926 as a mission and taken over two years later by the La Salette Brothers. The church hall was built in 1929 and was followed by the current brick church in 1937.
St.Martin’s church. Opened in 1925 and the current red brick building dates from 1931. Architect Newberry & Fowler. Traditional interior of buff brick, but it includes a painting of the Crucifixion by Hans Feibusch, 1949.
149 Old School House. 19th house.
Becontree ambulance station
Goresbrook Road Mixed School opened 1929. Closed
Sacred Heart Convent School for Girls secondary modern school opened 1929. Closed 1989
Merrielands Crescent
Merrielands. This was a mid-19th brick building known since the early part of the 20th as Merrielands. It was previously called America Farm.
Merrielands Retail Park The Gores Brook passes through the car park of the ASDA superstore.
Morrison Road
Scrattons Farm Housing Estate built in 1939 between the A13 and the railway.
Scrattons Farm Eco Park. This was Morrison Road Rough. It had been allotments and two ditches which was grazing land until the railway was built and then used as allotment following the building of the houses. Vegetation included escapes from cultivation - soapwort and horse-radish as well as currant bushes. It opened as a nature reserve in 2002.
Scrattons Sports and Social Club
Scrattons Farm Hall
Pooles Lane
Poole’s Marsh – this was once also called Copper Mill Field, implying of course, the presence of a copper mill.
Cycle circuit now gone.
Ripple Road
This was called Rippleside and then Ripple Street. Rippleside means 'beside the strip of land', - which means the narrow stretch of ground north of Dagenham marshes. It is still the A13 as far as the Goresbrook Interchange and then becomes the A1306.
Industrial estate. This was planned as part of the Ford estate and modelled on the Slough Trading Estate. Although other motor companies established works here it eventually went over to Ford's own use.
Paint, trim and assembly plant by Martin Hutchinson with Posford, Parry & Partners. Built in 1954-9
Ford Gas Works. This was a coke oven plant with 48 ovens, and the surplus gas sold to the North Thames Gas Board through an agreement of 1932
Briggs Motor Bodies established here in 1931 and bought by Ford in 1953
The Gores
A gore is a wedge shaped bit of land, or in Essex ‘a muddy obstruction in a water course’. Locally the name might come from a John Cory who held estates in Dagenham in the 14th.
Sources
Cinema Treasures, Web site
Grace's Guide. Web site
Ford. Web site
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Web site
Nature Conservation in Barking and Dagenham
SABRE Web site
Stewart. Gas Works of the North Thames Area
St.Martin;s Church. Web site
St .Peter's Church. Web site
Victoria History of Essex
The brook continues to flow south towards the Thames and is joined by the Ship and Shovel sewer.
TQ 48303 83755
This is where the old A13 turns into the viaduct over the Ford works. This is partly another suburban area and partly another chunk of the Ford factory
Post to the north Goresbrook Park
Post to the south Dagenham Riverside
Post to the east Fords
A13
East of the Goresbrook Interchange it is the new Thames Gateway Road built in 1999 and now the A13. The westernmost stretch is also called Choats Manor Way.
Viaduct over the Ford works opened late 1999. This large fully continuous, precast pre-stressed segmental concrete structure carries the road around Ford's plant. It used glued segmental cantilevers to provide a low-maintenance structure with a 54 000 m2 monolithic deck using 1030 precast segments giving a 1750 m long continuous structure. It won a Concrete Society Certificate of Excellence and was shortlisted for a British Construction Industry Award.
Baden Powell Close
Harmony House. Modern building with lecture rooms, workshop and sacred space. It is on the site of the Sacred Heart Convent Secondary School. In the 1990's, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary commissioned the architect, Firooz Alexander Sefre, to create a new centre for learning that would encompass all beliefs. This was opened in 2001.
Peter Barber Architects’ Terrace of courtyard houses running the length of the site. Flats at each the end of the terraces and Cherry blossom trees.
Burdetts Road
Brook Meadow housing. With gardens which extend almost to the stream's banks,
The Gores Brook goes under the road into the housing development reducing the green corridor. A reed bed here shows that they are not always confined to water. They were once many of them on this site.
Choat’s Manor Way
The original line of Choats Manor Way runs south from Ripple Road to the river and this has now been rebuilt and upgraded.
Choats Manor Way bridge over the CTRL. Steel composite road bridge built by Ove Arup. Steel beams with approach embankments of reinforced earth, supported on concrete columns
Coaley Row
This road which is now inside a container depot was to the west of Chequers Lane and is said to have once had cottages where coal trimmers lived. In the 1980s it enclosed a sports ground.
Cook Road
Vue Cinema. This was built in the 1990s as the Warner Village. It has 9 screens.
Bingo Hall
The Ship and Shovel relief sewer
This is a tributary of the Goresbrook and flows eastward close to the railway, and drains much of the site east of Renwick Road by means of an old ditch system. It contains species typical of fresh water.
Goresbrook Road
Cones. At the Junction with Ripple Road are two concave-sided cones covered in black tarmac, by Thomas Heatherwick Studio.
St Peter's Catholic Primary School. Opened in 1933. Now parish centre. With sculpture over the door
St Peter's Catholic Primary School. With nursery.
St.Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Founded 1926 as a mission and taken over two years later by the La Salette Brothers. The church hall was built in 1929 and was followed by the current brick church in 1937.
St.Martin’s church. Opened in 1925 and the current red brick building dates from 1931. Architect Newberry & Fowler. Traditional interior of buff brick, but it includes a painting of the Crucifixion by Hans Feibusch, 1949.
149 Old School House. 19th house.
Becontree ambulance station
Goresbrook Road Mixed School opened 1929. Closed
Sacred Heart Convent School for Girls secondary modern school opened 1929. Closed 1989
Merrielands Crescent
Merrielands. This was a mid-19th brick building known since the early part of the 20th as Merrielands. It was previously called America Farm.
Merrielands Retail Park The Gores Brook passes through the car park of the ASDA superstore.
Morrison Road
Scrattons Farm Housing Estate built in 1939 between the A13 and the railway.
Scrattons Farm Eco Park. This was Morrison Road Rough. It had been allotments and two ditches which was grazing land until the railway was built and then used as allotment following the building of the houses. Vegetation included escapes from cultivation - soapwort and horse-radish as well as currant bushes. It opened as a nature reserve in 2002.
Scrattons Sports and Social Club
Scrattons Farm Hall
Pooles Lane
Poole’s Marsh – this was once also called Copper Mill Field, implying of course, the presence of a copper mill.
Cycle circuit now gone.
Ripple Road
This was called Rippleside and then Ripple Street. Rippleside means 'beside the strip of land', - which means the narrow stretch of ground north of Dagenham marshes. It is still the A13 as far as the Goresbrook Interchange and then becomes the A1306.
Industrial estate. This was planned as part of the Ford estate and modelled on the Slough Trading Estate. Although other motor companies established works here it eventually went over to Ford's own use.
Paint, trim and assembly plant by Martin Hutchinson with Posford, Parry & Partners. Built in 1954-9
Ford Gas Works. This was a coke oven plant with 48 ovens, and the surplus gas sold to the North Thames Gas Board through an agreement of 1932
Briggs Motor Bodies established here in 1931 and bought by Ford in 1953
The Gores
A gore is a wedge shaped bit of land, or in Essex ‘a muddy obstruction in a water course’. Locally the name might come from a John Cory who held estates in Dagenham in the 14th.
Sources
Cinema Treasures, Web site
Grace's Guide. Web site
Ford. Web site
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Web site
Nature Conservation in Barking and Dagenham
SABRE Web site
Stewart. Gas Works of the North Thames Area
St.Martin;s Church. Web site
St .Peter's Church. Web site
Victoria History of Essex
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