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In 1928 St Michael's Mission Church was built here close to the new Romford Garden Suburb, which was developed between 1910 and 1930s on land once part of the former Gidea Park Estate. In 1931 it was decided to create a new parish of Gidea Park, prior to which the area had been within that of All Saints Squirrels Heath. The parish was established in 1933 and St Michael and All Angels was consecrated in 1938. The red brick building is set within grounds, and fronted by gardens. The Mission Church became the Bishop Chadwick Hall, one of a number of halls within the grounds.
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Until 1978 Noak Hill was part of the Romford parish of St Edward, and still remains a rural area set in farmland. The church was built in 1841 as St Thomas's Chapel of Ease at the behest of Lady Frances Neave of Dagnam Park, as a closer place of worship for herself and household. Her husband was Sir Thomas Neave, Governor of the Bank of England, whose family had owned land in the area since 1788. The churchyard has a curving path bordered by flowers leading from a small iron gate to the church door. An extension to the churchyard is behind the main churchyard.
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Stubbers Adventure Centre is on a site whose history is documented from 1334, and is named after C15th owner William Stubbers. It is famous as the home of botanist William Coys from 1580-1627, where he cultivated many species in his walled gardens and established one of the earliest plant collections recorded in England. In 1689 the estate was acquired by Sir William Russell, whose family held it until 1947. He enlarged the C16th house and developed the estate; the grounds later re-landscaped by Humphry Repton. In 1947 Essex Education Committee bought the estate initially for a youth campsite; it later transferred to the GLC then LB Havering. A C16th lime walk was felled in c.1954, the house demolished in 1960, and the Fish Pond enlarged in 1970 as a canoeing lake. Excavation in the 1970s revealed foundation walls of Repton's garden and pavilion. One of the walled gardens survives, with remnants of C18th walls, entrance gates and brick piers, together with adjoining crinkle crankle south wall.
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The Round House, a late C18th oval stuccoed country villa, was built for William Sheldon, and is said to owe its unusual shape resembling a tea-caddie to his profession as a successful tea merchant. From the C18th gentlemen's mansions and parks began to be built around the old village of Havering-atte-Bower, which had fine views southwards across the Thames. In the early C20th the house was occupied by the Revd Joseph Hardwick Pemberton, a famous rose-grower and President of the National Rose Society. Here he grew and hybridised roses, including the Alexandra Rose as well as various Musk and Shrub roses. The adjacent grounds of Roundhouse Farm have the site of a large kitchen garden, now grassed, enclosed with high brick walls.
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The Royal Liberty School, formerly Hare Hall, is on part of an old estate previously known as Goodwins. Hare Hall was built in 1768/69 for John Arnold Wallenger, who then began landscaping the grounds, possibly with advice from Richard Wood, its bridged lakes and winding shrubbery walks much favoured by him. It would seem that Humphry Repton later improved the gardens. In the C19th the estate was used for farming, then purchased for the railway, but later part was back in private hands. After WWI it was mostly developed for housing with a small part of the land and the Hall itself purchased by the Romford UDC in 1921 to house the new Royal Liberty School for Boys. Hare Hall with C19th additions survives surrounded by ancillary buildings and playing fields to the north, but the extent of the estate grounds is greatly diminished. The form of the serpentine lake remains, now almost dry and overgrown, together with vestiges of a raised terrace and fragment of the stone bridge, with fine trees between the house and lake, and around its banks.
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Tylers Common is the last substantial area of commonland remaining in Havering consisting of grassland, scrub and has two ponds; there are additional areas to the south along Tomkyns Land and Shepherd's Hill that are commonland, including an area of oak trees. Its name is derived from the brick and tile industry. which flourished here from Saxon times. The common was successfully defended from enclosure by local people in the 1950s. Common rights remain for sheep, cattle, horses, donkeys, goats and pigs.
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Upminster Cemetery dates from 1902 to provide for the growing population of Upminster parish. Built on a rectangular piece of land to the east of Corbets Tey hamlet, the cemetery was simply laid out with a central roadway leading to a small mortuary chapel towards the back of the plot. At that time the cemetery was surrounded by open land, and this is not much changed even today. The South Essex Crematorium was built on adjacent land in 1956/7, and the original cemetery land was itself extended to the north, with further expansion by 1989 to the east.
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* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens
Upminster Court was built in 1904, prior to which the land was within the Upminster Hall Estate. It was let by the Estate Trustees to Arthur Williams, who commissioned Charles Reilly to design his new house. The gardens continue the Anglo-French theme of the house with organised English-style garden 'rooms' overlaid with a more formal French discipline of paths and vistas. Other features in the grounds included a walled Italian garden, bowling and croquet lawns, and kitchen garden. The Williams family lived here until the late 1920s after which the house was used for offices, later a refugee centre, and in 1946 was purchased with 22 acres by Essex County Council. In 1965 ownership transferred to LB Havering and it opened in 1972 as a respite centre with a borough nursery in the gardens. From 1993-2005 the house was used as the council's Staff Training and Development Centre. In 2007 it was purchased by Uniserve Group.
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Upminster Golf Course and Upminster Hall Playing Field are on land formerly part of the Upminster Hall estate, former hunting seat of the Abbots of Waltham Abbey. The timber-framed Hall is now the clubhouse of Upminster Golf Club, founded in 1928, which acquired the freehold of the Hall and 6.5 acres in 1935. Former gardens in front of the house are now laid out as the 1st and 18th holes of the golf course. A bowling green was laid out behind the clubhouse in 1949.
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Upminster Hall Playing Field and the adjacent Upminster Golf Course are on land formerly part of the Upminster Hall estate, former hunting seat of the Abbots of Waltham Abbey, the timber-framed Hall now the clubhouse of Upminster Golf Club. The land that is now the Playing Field was in agricultural use before it was converted for recreation in 1957, extended with further land in 1958/9. An avenue of mature horse chestnut and walnut trees divides the two pieces of land and new trees have been planted. Separated from the Playing Field by woodland, the late C14th/C15th Tithe Barn was probably used by monks from Waltham Abbey.
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Upminster Park is on former Glebe land associated with St Laurence's Church and owned by the Church Commissioners. Initial proposals to purchase land for a public recreation ground took place in 1920, but it was not until 1929 that Upminster Parish Council succeeded in purchasing the site. It was levelled and a variety of trees planted. During WWII it was one of the few parks kept open for recreation purposes although underground shelters were built on the north-east side. New amenities continued to be added through the 1950s, including playground equipment, tennis courts, footpaths, and tree-planting. The front field was once used by Upminster Football Club, and Upminster Hockey Club had a pitch on part of the park once described as 'comparable with any in Essex'.
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Although the hamlet of Wennington existed from at least 969AD, its Village Green dates from the 1920s. The manor of 'Winintune' belonged to Edward the Confessor and then to Westminster Abbey before being subdivided into separate manors. The medieval parish church is to the west of the Green, with Wennington Hall, the former manor house, to the east. The Green was created when the houses that surround it on three sides were built adjacent to Wennington Road, an ancient route that has existed for centuries. A square of undulating land planted with grass and a few small trees, the Green has an ornamental sign inscribed 'Wennington Village' and has been the site of village celebrations and events. In July 2024 Havering Council formally agreed to adopt Wennington as a Village Green.