Borough in London, England
Newham
Newham staged the 2012 Olympics, gave rise to West Ham United through a shipyard works team, and hosts a Victorian sewage station that looks like a cathedral.
Key information
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 352,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- The 2012 Olympic Park, Royal Docks, Stratford, West Ham United, Green Street
- What locals are called
- Newham residents; West Ham fans are Hammers or Irons
- Famous people
- Dame Vera Lynn, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters
- Football clubs
- West Ham United
About Newham
The sewage station that looks like a cathedral
Tucked beside the streams of Stratford is Abbey Mills Pumping Station, finished in 1868 as part of Joseph Bazalgette's great scheme to clean up Victorian London. It was built to move the capital's sewage eastwards, yet it is all ornate Byzantine-style brickwork, decorated ironwork and a lantern-topped roof. Its nickname, the Cathedral of Sewage, is entirely fair. It sums up Newham well. This corner of east London was where the city sent the things it needed but didn't want to look at: sewage, noxious factories, dockside labour. Then the people who lived and worked here made something of it.
Where the Hammers began with a shipyard team
West Ham United started life in 1895 as Thames Ironworks FC, the works team of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. That is why the club's badge carries crossed hammers, and why fans are the Hammers, or the Irons. The club's golden moment came in 1966, when three West Ham men, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, played in England's World Cup final win. Hurst scored a hat-trick, Peters got the other goal and Moore lifted the trophy. For decades the team played at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park, which closed in 2016. Since then the Hammers have called the London Stadium in Stratford home.
The docks that were once the biggest in the world
The Royal Victoria Dock opened in 1855, followed by the Royal Albert Dock in 1880 and King George V Dock in 1921. Together the Royal Docks formed one of the largest areas of enclosed dock water anywhere. Ships brought sugar, grain, meat and tea to feed London. Silvertown takes its name from the S. W. Silver rubber works, and the area later became the heartland of Tate & Lyle sugar refining. It also saw tragedy. On 19 January 1917 an explosion at a chemical works killed 73 people and was heard far across the south-east. The docks closed to shipping in 1981, but the water is still busy. ExCeL London opened here in 2000, London City Airport in 1987, and a cable car now swings passengers over the Thames.
From wasteland to Olympic Park
When London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics, much of the site in Stratford was industrial wasteland. It became the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with the stadium, the aquatics centre and the velodrome. The 114.5-metre ArcelorMittal Orbit, designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, still twists above it. The Games left more than buildings. Westfield Stratford City opened in 2011 beside a rebuilt Stratford station, and the area is now one of London's busiest transport crossroads. The Olympic stadium itself was also the place where Usain Bolt won in 2012.
Saris, sweets and a theatre with attitude
Green Street in Upton Park is a long shopping parade known for its sari shops, jewellers and South Asian sweet centres. It draws shoppers from well beyond east London, especially at festival time. West Ham match-day crowds once poured past it on their way to the Boleyn Ground, until the club moved to Stratford in 2016. Newham as a whole is among the most diverse places in the country. Stratford has a theatrical claim too. Theatre Royal Stratford East, run for years by Joan Littlewood, premiered Oh, What a Lovely War! in 1963. It remains a theatre known for local stories and new voices. And from East Ham came Dame Vera Lynn, born there in 1917, whose wartime songs earned her the title the Forces' Sweetheart.
Why it's called Newham
The name is simple arithmetic. Two old towns, East Ham and West Ham, were joined, and the new place became Newham. Ham here comes from the Old English hamm, meaning land hemmed in by water or marsh, which suits the low-lying ground beside the Thames and the River Lea. East Ham still has one of London's oldest buildings, St Mary Magdalene church, with Norman origins. West Ham grew rapidly as industry spread across the marshes in the 19th century. Between them, the old churchyards and the new stadia explain Newham neatly: ancient village roots, heavy industry, and then a rebuilt east London.