Dagenham Breach

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Dagenham 

‘Dxccanham’ in 677, ‘Deccanhaam’ c. 690 in later copies of Anglo-Saxon charters, ‘Dakeham’ 1194, ‘Dakenham’ 1261, ‘Dagenham’ 1274, ’Dagnam’ 1499, that is 'homestead or village of a man called ‘Dascca', from an Old English personal name - genitive case ’n’  and Old English ‘ham’.

Briggs Bodies Beginning in 1932, Ralph Roberts spent a good deal of time in England, helping set up Briggs Motor Bodies Ltd. in Dagenham, Ford of England’s primary body supplier. It was formed in 1930 and originally operated inside of Ford’s Trafford Park plant. When Ford opened up the Dagenham factory, Briggs built a factory next door and within a few years was turning out 250 bodies a day. Briggs also attempted to try to get other British manufacturers’ business and Roberts spent a good deal of time in Dagenham, right up until the start of WWII, commuting back and forth 3 or four times a year.

Dagenham Dock Viaduct

Carries the motorway over the whole area.

Chequers Corner

Housing by London County Council 1920s. Major regeneration area 2000s with London Development Agency.

Chequers Lane

Was Cockermouth Lane, old name, was also Marsh Way cable making, commercial spirit, rope making batteries etc. Called Chequers because of the checked pattern of fields. 

Manor of Cockermouth, manor house on the junction of Ripple Road and Chequers Lane Pound House replaced it, demolished 1922.

Pound Farm

Merrielands west of Chequers Inn. Used to be America Farm.

Dagenham Power Station.  Privately funded and supplying to the grid since 1995.

Dagenham Breach,

Until the c19 the marshy ground served little purpose other than as a destination for travellers from London to Dagenham Breach, a lake first formed by the breaching of the River Beam's bank in the c14.  It had been formed after floods and in 1408 the Abbess of Barking spent £2,000 on it. The breach was the subject of repeated repair efforts including that by Cornelius Vermuyden in 1621 and, finally, the harbour engineer Captain John Perry, brother of the Perry of Blackwall Yard, who in 1716-20 closed the gap and drained the land in a spectacular example of early civil engineering.  It is marked as Dagenham Breach on the Ordnance Survey map of 1888. The remaining 55-acre lake became a popular destination for anglers but was greatly reduced in size as the area was adopted for industrial expansion. In 2004 it was restored and re-established as a wildlife reserve, of 550 acres as part of the rehabilitation of this area after decades of industrial ravaging.  The Beam River is on the east side.

Ice House 1849

Breach House.  Russian merchants lived there.  Plans for commissioners on the river. Where the whitebait suppers took place at Political weekend parties. The Gulf.  Whitebait for MPs.

Dagenham Breach Cottage. Fry family used it as a holiday home. 1820 Elizabeth Fry died 1845.

Water in the Breach backs up when the Beam is closed off at the outfall at high tide so it acts as a flood storage area

To the west of Kent Avenue is the pond called the Vale.

To the west is a smaller pond with only a tunnel between them.

Used by Ford Angling Society

Vertical wall of railway sleepers on the north with pipes in it for kingfishers

Nature area: area of ancient Thames grazing marsh with old dyke system and breach lake still obvious. The Ford Motor Company acquired the land to build their Dagenham Industrial Estate. Because of a combination of restricted access and sympathetic management this site remains an important wildlife sanctuary. 

Dagenham Breach and the lower Beam River

Dagenham Breach, a lake formed by storm flooding from the Thames in the early eighteenth century, and the lower stretch of the Beam

 The Thames has a long history of flooding the lower lying land in Barking and Dagenham,  Dagenham Breach, initially known as Dagenham Gulf, resukred frim a disastrous flood in 1707 when an exceptionally high K  tide broke the Thames bank, and water flowed in, almost up to Dagenham Church. Attempts to fill the breach in the sea wall were at first unsuccesful, the gap wA finally being closed in 1721 by Captain  John Perry, 

he original channel formed by the Breach ran north from the Thames for a distance of a kilometre before turning Eas tto join the Beam River, In the nineteenth century the Breach became  popular FOR fishing 

The Breach is still connected, at its eastern end, to the Beam River via a small channel, and water generally flows from the lake into the river. However, the Beam's flow into the Thames is controlled by an automatic sluice at its mouth, which closes on the rising tide. At high tide the water in the Beam backs up and the Breach acts as a flood storage area, relieving the river of its excess water. Hence the water in the Breach is now fresh and its level subject to sudden fluctuations, and the Beam is no longer tidal.

The lake is now divided into three sections. A road Kent Avenue, and railway on stilts divides a pond at the

western end, known as the Vale, from the largest central section, but there is free movement of water underneath. In the east a smaller pond is separated from the main lake by a causeway with only a tunnel connection between. In the 1970s the Breach was in a polluted state and its surrounds used for holding scrap iron and pig iron from the motor works, but Ford have made great improvements and the lake is now

managed as a nature reserve.

  A breach here was recorded as early as 1376. The land then belonged to Barking Abbey, and in 1621 Cornelius Vermuyden was called in to advise on remedial works at yet another breach. But the large breach, which became a major civil engineering prob- lem, occurred on 17December 1707. 

IKent Avenue

On stilts across the Breach

Yew forest found in the marsh - dislikes salt so area probably not flooded

Diesel Engine Assembly Plant  by Austin-Smith Lord, splendidly situated on the   Breach. Sleekly silver sheds in rows with raised spine roofs and apsidal ends.

Barking Power Station  powerfully impressive by the waterside,  1992-5 by Balfour Beaty Projects and Engineering Ltd for Thames Power Services Ltd. It uses 'combined cycle gas turbines clean technology to efficiently generate electricity from natural gas or oil with a  minimum effect on the environment'. A 345 metre turbine hall and to the fore, a pair of Herculean chimneys, wrapped   serpent-like with pipes, ducts and vents.

One conspicuous feature of the lake's north bank is a vertical wall of railway sleepers with pipes embedded in it

horizontally. This was constructed in order to attract kingfisher

The whole of this site is owned and managed by the Ford Motor Company Ltd, except for the river, which is managed by the National Rivers Authority. There is public access only to the north of the Vale. which is crossed by a footpath linking Breach Lane with Kent Avenue. 

The lake that was formed by the irruptions of the Thames into the Essex marshes became a favourite rendezvous for anglers,   d by 1792 Breach House had become an exclusive club for anglers, and it was here that the famous Ministerial Whitebait Dinners had their beginnings. Sir Robert Preston, a Director of the East India Company, and Deputy Master of Trinity House, came into possession of the property, which he referred to as his fishing cottage, and where he entertained his close friends. His most frequent guest was the Rt. Hon. George Rose, Secretary of the Treasury, also an Elder Brother of Trinity House. Sir Robert Preston actually resided in the neighbourhood of Woodford, and was a great friend of Philip Perry, while John Perry was known to be a friend and strong supporter of the Prime Minister Pitt.

quotes from Barking Nature book