page_title: Dagenham
section_title: Market gardens to suburban estate
hierarchical_section_title: Dagenham / History / Market gardens to suburban estate
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of the village green at Dagenham, Essex, looking east to the Cross Keys public house (left), SS Peter and Paul parish church (centre) and war memorial (right)
context_page_description: Dagenham is a district and suburban town in East London, England. In the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, it is 11.5 miles east of Charing Cross. Historically a parish in the county of Essex, it was an agrarian village and remained mostly undeveloped until 1921, when the London County Council began construction of the large Becontree estate. The population of the area significantly increased in the 20th century, with the parish of Dagenham becoming an urban district in 1926 and a municipal borough in 1938. It has formed part of Greater London since 1965 and is a predominantly residential area, with some areas of declining industrial activity, including the Ford Dagenham plant. The southern part of Dagenham, adjacent to the River Thames and known locally for planning purposes as Dagenham Riverside, forms part of the London Riverside section of the Thames Gateway redevelopment area. The total population of Dagenham, including the Becontree estate, was 106,247 as of 2011.
context_section_description: In 1205 Dagenham was large enough to have a chaplain, and the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul was probably built at around that time. In 1854, the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway was built through the south of Dagenham, near the River Thames. In 1885 a new direct route from Barking to Pitsea, via Upminster, was built with Dagenham station opened just north of the village. Dagenham Dock station opened on the original southern route in 1908. Dagenham was still an undeveloped village, when building of the vast Becontree estate by the London County Council began in the early 1920s. The building of the enormous council estate, which also spread into the neighbouring parishes of Ilford and Barking, caused a rapid increase in population. In 1932 the electrified District line of the London Underground was extended to Upminster through Dagenham with stations opened as Dagenham and Heathway and today called Dagenham East and Dagenham Heathway. Dagenham East was the location of the Dagenham East rail crash in 1958. Services on the London Tilbury & Southend line at Dagenham East were withdrawn in 1962.
caption: The church of St Peter and St Paul formed the heart of the former village
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 300", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:04:15 09:47:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1524", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7975", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:15 09:47:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:15 09:47:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "255/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "46955/16384", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "383/500", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "768", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1024", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "768", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1328", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "512000/103", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "153600/31", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}