Borough in London, England
Redbridge
Redbridge is named after a bridge over the River Roding, yet it's home to a Moscow-style Tube station and a fair once held under a giant oak.
Key information
- County
- Greater London
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 310,000 (2021 Census)
- Area
- about 56 square kilometres
- Known for
- Ilford, Gants Hill's Moscow-style Tube station, Wanstead Flats, Barnardo's, Fairlop Waters
- Famous people
- Winston Churchill (as local MP), Dr Barnardo, Nasser Hussain
- Football clubs
- Ilford FC, Redbridge FC
About Redbridge
The borough named after a bridge nobody sets out to see
Redbridge sounds like a town with a grand old centre, but it was created in 1965 by joining Ilford with Wanstead and Woodford and some neighbouring areas. The new name came from a crossing over the River Roding, a red-brick bridge that also gave its name to a Central line station. It was a neat piece of diplomacy: choosing the name of a small spot on the Roding meant none of the bigger towns got to claim the borough as their own. The result is a borough of very different neighbourhoods: Ilford's busy shopping streets, the leafy edges of Epping Forest, and long tracts of suburban semis built when the railway arrived.
The Tube station that looks like Moscow
Gants Hill is home to one of the most theatrical stations on the London Underground. Its concourse is a long, vaulted hall with rows of columns and a barrel ceiling, and is often compared to the stations of the Moscow Metro. It was designed in the Charles Holden tradition and opened in 1947 as part of the Central line's eastward extension, after wartime delays. Above ground, it sits beneath a big roundabout, so you can walk underneath a traffic island and emerge into something that feels like a cathedral for commuters. It has become a favourite of Tube enthusiasts and film location scouts alike.
Ilford: film, fields and a very old chapel
Ilford gave its name to one of Britain's best-known photographic brands. Ilford Ltd made plates and film here from the 1890s, and generations of photographers shot on its stock. The town is older than its Victorian look suggests. The Chapel of St Mary and St Thomas on Ilford High Road goes back to around 1140, when it served a hospital for lepers founded by the Abbess of Barking. Valentines Park, with its late-17th-century mansion, once hosted Essex County Cricket Club for first-class matches, and the Ilford cricket festival was a summer fixture for decades. Today Ilford is one of London's most diverse towns, with a strong South Asian presence that shapes its shops, restaurants and festivals.
A fair under an oak and a vanished mansion
Fairlop is named for the Fairlop Oak, a giant tree in what was then Hainault Forest. For well over a century a fair was held beneath it on the first Friday in July, famously arriving with a procession including a boat on wheels. The oak was damaged by fire in 1805 and finally fell in 1820. The fair itself lingered on for a while before fading away. Wanstead, meanwhile, once had one of England's grandest country houses. Wanstead House was a vast Palladian mansion, but its owners were ruined by debt and the whole building was demolished in 1824. What's left is Wanstead Park, with lakes and woodland, while Wanstead Flats next door hosts Sunday-morning football pitches by the dozen, and one of London's biggest fairs at times. Today Fairlop Waters offers sailing, cycling and open water, on land that was once an airfield.
Barnardo's, Churchill and a cricketing captain
Barkingside is the home of the Barnardo's children's charity, which grew out of Dr Thomas Barnardo's work in the East End. His Girls' Village Home opened here in 1876, a cluster of cottages where girls lived in family-sized groups rather than in large institutions. The charity's headquarters remain in Barkingside. In Woodford, a statue of Winston Churchill stands on the green, a reminder that he represented Woodford in Parliament from 1945 until 1964. Ilford also shaped a more modern sporting hero. Nasser Hussain, who captained England's Test cricket team, grew up in the borough and played his early cricket in Essex. For football, Ilford FC and Redbridge FC carry on the non-league tradition, drawing locals who prefer a pie and a drizzly touchline to Premier League prices.