page_title: Gidea Park
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Gidea Park / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Street scene, Parkway, Gidea Park, Romford, UK
context_page_description: Gidea Park is a neighbourhood in the east of Romford in the London Borough of Havering, south-east England. Predominantly affluent and residential, it was originally known as Romford Garden Suburb.
context_section_description: Thomas Cooke, a Yorkshireman who became London Mayor in 1462, was granted a Royal Charter for Royal Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, which enabled him to build a country house, which he named "Geddy Hall". The word "geddy" was so named after the lake and its livestock; ged (meaning pike) and ea (water). The house remained unfinished for at least a century, because of his numerous incarcerations in the Tower of London for high treason. Upon his death in 1478, the estate was passed down through the Cooke family and eventually to his great-grandson, Anthony Cooke, who was a tutor for Edward VI. After a brief period abroad, Anthony returned to Havering-atte-Bower and completed the building of Geddy Hall, which later became Gidea Hall.
  In 1657, the hall and its grounds were sold to Richard Emes, a local businessman, for £9,000. Upon the Restoration, the estate was bought back by the Crown and passed through the ownerships of various nobilities, before eventually being sold through public auction, shortly before the Coronation of Queen Victoria.
caption: Exhibition houses on Parkway, overlooking Raphael park
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "102", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "286", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10652", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}