On the corner of Whalebone Lane and the Eastern Avenue, diagonally opposite the Moby-Dick public house, is the site of a Saxon moot hall. The adjoining fields were used during World War II by the Royal Artillery as an anti-aircraft battery before being converted into a Prisoner of War camp for Germans. Further south down Whalebone Lane on the corner of the High Road is the Tollgate pub. This stands on the site of the milestone which marked the ten mile (16 km) limit from the City of London and the turnpike toll-gate.
Valence House, the a home of the Fanshawe family, is in Becontree Avenue. It is the only surviving of the five manor houses of Dagenham.[3] Dating back to the 13th century it is sited in parkland and is partially surrounded by a moat. Valence House is the borough's local history museum and art gallery, displaying an impressive collection of artifacts and archives that tell the story of the lives of the people of Barking and Dagenham.
The collection also includes portraits, family papers and other mementoes of the Fanshawe family, who occupied Parsloes Manor, since demolished, from the sixteenth century.[4] The Fanshawe collection is "one of the best collections of gentry portraits in the country and is of international importance," according to Valence House.[5] Valence House will soon open a new Fanshawe Gallery featuring the 53 Fanshawe portraits in one room.[6] Among members of the Fanshawe family was the diplomat Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet, whose portrait is at Valence House. Nine successive members of the Fanshawe family served as Remembrancer to the Crown, following Henry Fanshawe's appointment to the position by Queen Elizabeth I in 1566. The appointment made possible the family's rise to prominence.
One of the longest-serving vicars of Dagenham was Rev. Abraham Blackborne, who died at age 82 in 1797, having served Dagenham for 58 years.[7] Rev. Blackborne was the grandson of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London and was married to Frances Fanshawe of Parsloes Manor in Dagenham. Rev. Blackborne and his wife are buried at Saint Anne's Church, Kew, Richmond, Surrey.[8] The Blackborne family had long lived in Dagenham and Hornchurch.[9] At the time of the Restoration, the entire manor of Cockermouth, to which the church was appended, was owned by Sir Thomas Darcy who sold it to William Blackborne Esq., whose heirs later sold to the Bonynges.[10]
In 1854, a station was opened on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in the south of Dagenham, near the Thames, at Dagenham Dock. In 1885 a new direct route from Barking to Pitsea, via Upminster, was built with a new station opened just north of the village.
In 1205 Dagenham was large enough to have a chaplain and the Paris
