IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Oldchurch Gardens, ROMFORD, RM7 0DJ

There is a gravestone, in this cemetery, inscribed with the names of my paternal great-grandparents – Washington (1847-1923) and Mary Anne (1849-1921) Baker. I saw the gravestone, during a previous visit, but on this occasion was told by the cemetery’s ground staff that I should not photograph individual gravestones! According to the 1881 census they were living at 8, Albany Road, Leyton, while my great-grandfather’s profession was described as a dry salter. This image of the Image is located in Albany Road but the house my great-grandparents lived in no longer stands, although I do possess a watercolour of the back of the house painted by one of their sons, Arthur Edwin. Barking and Dagenham Libraries Department published a book entitled “A Miscellany of Marks Gate” in 1990 (ISBN 0 900325 11 9) which has a selection of his watercolours and his memories of the windmill at Marks Gate and the surrounding area. I have inherited two books in one of which there are watercolours of Essex buildings and its countryside and in the other, watercolours of Kent buildings and its countryside.

On Rush Green Road.

See Image] for context.

Oldchurch Park is next to the new Queen's Hospital,which was built in 2006 on part of the land. The area was the site of the original parish church of 1177. In 1410 a new church was built on the site, which itself was replaced in 1850 by the current parish church, St Edward the Confessor, located in Market Place. The remaining land eventually became gravel pits that were worked out and then used for landfill. It was purchased by the Council in 1951 and once it had settled, part of the area was made into a park in 1959. The park was mainly used for sports with pitches, tennis courts and a pavilion constructed between 1963 and 1965. Following the loss of a large part of the park to the new Queen's Hospital in 2006, the new and smaller park consists of a number of raised mounds and a wandering path; there are a few trees especially in the southern part. At the entrances are large round spaces surrounded by concrete benches. There is another concrete circle near the hospital, which is the heliport. The sports fields covered by the hospital have been replaced by equivalent facilities within the London Borough of Havering and the lost open space will be replaced in the new development on the Oldchurch Hospital site to the north of the new hospital. This sliver of park is just to the north of the hospital, close to the entrance from Oldchurch Rise.