Abbey Gardens

Abbey Gardens contains the remains of a C12th Cistercian Abbey, which had a kitchen garden run by the monks. By 1825 the gatehouse of the abbey was demolished and by mid C19th housing was being built in the area, such as a terrace of small houses on Abbey Road, later renamed Bakers Row, built mainly to provide homes for local factory workers. The houses on the north side were demolished in the late 1960s although those on the south side still exist. By 2006 the site was derelict. A group of local residents formed the Friends of Abbey Gardens and transformed the site into a community garden and living art project, designed by artists Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie: 'what will the harvest be?'.

The Friends of Abbey Gardens run gardening clubs to involve people and encourage them to participate in growing and harvesting on the plots and beds, working communally; the Friends now has around 60 volunteers. A Spring Garden Café has been set up serving home cooked vegetarian food, garden grown salads and also provides local produce such as honey, herbs and sourdough. A bee enclosure was set up in 2024, and the hives are provided with a viewing window so visitors can watch the bees at work. The gardens are protected from development by Historic England due to the medieval remains.

Stratford Langthorne Abbey, or the Abbey of St Mary's, Stratford Langthorne was a Cistercian monastery founded in 1135 at Stratford Langthorne, Essex by William de Montfitchet. Also known as West Ham Abbey as it lay in that parish, it was one of the largest Cistercian abbeys in England, possessing 1,500 acres of local land, and controlling over 20 manors throughout Essex. The Abbey was self-sufficient and wealthy; some of this coming from the ecclesiastic mills that ground wheat for local bakers to supply bread to the City of London. The Abbey lay between the Channelsea River and Marsh Lane (Manor Road) and existed until Henry VIII 's Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The land was then granted to Sir Peter Meautas and Johanna his wife "for their true and faithful service" and the monks were all pensioned. Nothing visible remains on the site, as local landowners took away much of the stone for their own buildings, and by 1840 the North Woolwich railway line was constructed through the area, and factories and Stratford Market were established on the remaining land. A stone window and a carving featuring skulls  thought to have been over the door to the charnel house can be seen in All Saints West Ham Parish Church (q.v.). The Great Gate of the abbey survived in Baker's Row until 1825. Excavation by the Department of the Environment took place in 1976 prior to development of the area, and revealed part of the abbey moat, the stone precinct wall and footings of a C13th stone structure circa 7.5m by 3m internally. Archaeological investigations were later carried out between 1993-94 on land cleared for the new Stratford Market Depot, part of the Jubilee Line Extension; 647 burials were excavated from the Cistercian cemetery and reburied at Mount St. Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire.