St Edward the Confessor Church Gardens

St Edward the Confessor was the first king to be associated with Havering, establishing a palace at Havering-atte-Bower in what is now Havering Country Park (q.v.). He is reputedly connected with the naming of Havering, which may have derived from a story of two pilgrims who returned King Edward's ring to him from St John the Evangelist in the Holy Land, and foretold his death within 6 months. Romford was one of the three parishes within the Royal Manor and Liberty of Havering, along with Havering Atte Bower and Hornchurch. The parish church of Romford, St Edward's stands on the site of a smaller chapel built in c.1410, which housed a congregation of up to 750 people. On the site of a small wood, this church was possibly the first permanent building when Romford moved from its medieval location at Oldchurch onto higher ground in order to avoid the frequent flooding of the River Rom. The new and larger church was erected in 1849/50, one of the reasons cited for its need being that ‘the neighbourhood of the vast metropolis necessarily exposes it to a contaminating influence highly prejudicial to its religious condition while the opening of the Railroad has caused a far greater, and more frequent intercourse with the Town than before'. The church in Romford was said at that time to be in a state of stagnation and it was largely due to Archdeacon Anthony Grant, a famous preacher and vicar of Romford, that this situation was reversed. The new church was designed by architect John Johnson, a building in curvilinear Decorated style of Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings. Some of the stone from the old church was used for building, together with stone purportedly from John Nash's Quadrant in Regent Street.

Until 1860 the church and its churchyard were separated from the market place by the butchers' Shambles where livestock was butchered and sold, and at that time the churchyard is recorded to have ‘fairly bristled with tombstones and monuments'. The area of the churchyard in front of the church now immediately abuts the hugely busy Romford Market. Romford was first granted permission for a market in 1247 by Henry III albeit on a different site, since Romford was then located at Oldchurch. Enclosed by C19th railings with ragstone footings and piers, and an arched entrance, the front portion of the churchyard contains a number of chest tombs and two fine horse chestnut trees. However in c.1950 the larger area of churchyard behind the church was laid out as a public garden and was grassed over, the headstones cleared to the edges and a path made up of headstones laid end to end flanking the body of the church. In the church there are some notable C16th and early C17th monuments moved from the old church, including that of Sir Anthony Cooke (d.1576) who lived at Gidea Hall and was tutor to Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey. He kneels facing his wife, with his 2 sons behind him and 4 daughters behind her. The church porch contains a monument to Sir George Hervey, Lieutenant of the Tower in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Opposite him Anne Carew leans on her elbow. Next to the church and churchyard is a C15th building originally built for the chantry priest's house, and is now in church use although in the intervening period it has been a public house.