Forest Gate, Newham, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Forest Gate is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England. It is located 7 miles (11 km) north-east of Charing Cross.

The area's name relates to its position adjacent to Wanstead Flats, the southernmost part of Epping Forest. The town was historically part of the parish (and later borough) of West Ham in the hundred of Becontree in Essex. Since 1965, Forest Gate has been part of the London Borough of Newham, a local government district of Greater London. The town forms the majority of the London E7 postcode district.

Neighbouring areas include Leytonstone to the north, East Ham to the east, Plaistow to the south and Stratford to the west. After a station upgrade, Forest Gate will be served by Crossrail in 2022.

History The first known record of the name 'Forest Gate' comes from the West Ham parish registers of the late 17th century and describes a gate placed across the modern Woodford Road to prevent cattle straying from the open Wanstead Flats area of Epping Forest onto the main Roman road (Romford road) linking Camulodunum to Londinium. The gate was located close to the former Eagle & Child public house. It never was a toll gate and was demolished along with the keepers' cottage in 1881.

At the time of the gate's construction, the Forest and its mosaic of habitats (coppice woodland, common grazing and wood pasture) extended from Epping to the Romford Road where a coppice woodland called 'Hamfrith' (meaning the woodland belonging to the Ham area) Wood, which existed until around 1700, formed the southernmost point.

An Anglo-Saxon jewelled bead was found in Forest Gate in 1875 during sewer construction behind the former Princess Alice public house in the Sprowston Road area. The 'bead' is made of gold, garnet and blue glass dating to the late sixth or early seventh century with the workmanship suggesting that it belonged to a woman of wealth or high status such as a 'princess' and dates from the 6th–7th centuries (500 – 699 AD). At this time Essex was an independent kingdom with a territory extending over Essex, Middlesex and London and half of Hertfordshire. Having been found as a single object, it is surmised that the bead was lost casually whilst travelling along the ancient Roman road (now the Romford Road) rather than as a burial object, but this is by no means certain as there is a lack of detail about how it was recovered. Stylistically, the piece is said to relate to similar jewellery produced in Kent, which influenced designs in Essex. It is known that King Sledd of Essex married Ricula, the sister of King Æthelberht of Kent in about 580 AD. The piece was acquired by Sir John Evans and was presented to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by Sir Arthur Evans in 1909.

The area remained rural until the 19th century. From the 18th century a number of wealthy city dwellers had large country houses in the area and many of them were Quakers; the best known of these were the families of Gurney, Fry and Lester. As the population expanded, new churches were built in the area, such as Emmanuel (1852) and its mission church St Mark's (1893-1898).

In 1890 a fire at the Forest Gate Industrial School in Forest Lane, occupied by children belonging to the Whitechapel Union, killed 26 boys between the ages of 7 and 12 years old.

Forest Gate formed part of the County Borough of West Ham since its creation (initially as a municipal borough) in 1886. The county borough was abolished to form part of the present-day London Borough of Newham in 1965.

Local history blog E7 Now and Then details other Forest Gate history. An ethnographic study of the neighbourhood by researcher Dr Joy White, Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City, was published in 2020 by Repeater Books.

Newham has the second highest percentage of Muslims in Britain at 24.3% and Forest Gate reflects this with 23.4% stating their religion as Islam in the 2001 census. Many have their roots in Bangladesh and Pakistan and most follow the Sunni Deobandi or the Salafi tradition.

Transport Forest Gate railway station has services to London Liverpool Street via Stratford. It is in Travelcard Zone 3 on the Great Eastern Main Line, and was first opened in 1840, a year after the line was built, but closed in 1843, before re-opening after pressure from local residents on 31 May 1846. Other stations in the area include Wanstead Park railway station, which is on the Gospel Oak to Barking line in Zone 3. Forest Gate will be linked by the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) to Central and West London in 2022. This will significantly improve rail services in the area.