Barking and Dagenham, London: Barking Abbey, Eastbury Manor House, Valence House and Dagenham Village

Abbey Green opens off The Broadway in Barking, and the low walls laid out across it mark the plan of a nunnery founded in 666. The council states that the location is that of the original buildings of Barking Abbey, founded in 666 AD, until it was demolished shortly after 1541 AD, and that the walls that are currently visible are under a century old and were built to indicate the original layout. The site is a scheduled monument, NHLE 1003581, first scheduled on 6 February 1954, and the Historic England record gives the scheduled area as 5.03 hectares; a scheduled monument carries no grade. The standing fabric is a separate Grade II listing, NHLE 1064406, first listed 28 May 1954 under the statutory address Remains of Barking Abbey and Old Churchyard Walls, Broadway. The abbey ran for roughly 900 years to its dissolution in 1539, and the abbess of Barking held precedence over all other abbesses in England. The council names the ruins as the venue for an annual classical concert and fireworks each May. Abbey Green stands inside the Abbey and Barking Town Centre conservation area, one of four conservation areas the council names in the borough.

The Curfew Tower, also called the Fire Bell Gate, is at The Broadway, IG11 8AS, listed at Grade II* as NHLE 1064407, first listed 28 May 1954 with the statutory address Fire Bell Gate, Barking Abbey, Broadway. The council describes it as the surviving building of the abbey period, originally a gatehouse and now the gateway to the adjacent churchyard, and it appears on the coat of arms of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It stands about 65 m north-north-east of the parish church, inside the same scheduled area as the abbey ruins, NHLE 1003581. The Church of St Margaret shares that churchyard at The Broadway, IG11 8AS, listed at Grade I as NHLE 1064408, first listed 28 May 1954 under the statutory address Parish Church of St Margaret, Broadway. It is a Church of England parish church dedicated to Margaret of Antioch, on a site dating back to the thirteenth century, and it was built inside the grounds of the abbey. A chest tomb in the churchyard, the Tomb of Captain John Bennett, carries its own Grade II listing, NHLE 1418618, of 13 March 2014. No source states the church's opening hours, so none are given here.

The Women's Museum occupies a new-build unit at 4-5 Barking Wharf Square, IG11 7DQ, beside the River Roding, about 700 m south-west of Barking station. The operator states that it opens Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 12pm to 5pm. The council lists it among the Culture and Heritage Service's key sites alongside Eastbury Manor House, Valence House Museum, the Archives and Local Studies Centre and the Galleon Arts Centre. Barking Market trades on East Street, IG11 8EU, from 9am to 5pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and on bank holidays; the council adds that the market will be closed on bank holiday Mondays but open on all other public holidays. The council states that there has been a street market in Barking Town Centre for hundreds of years, in various locations and organised in different ways, and that it currently operates with approximately 80 stalls offering a variety of quality goods complemented by a food court area selling street food from many different cultures. The former town hall on the same street, latterly Barking Magistrates Court, is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1359304 and is recorded in OpenStreetMap as converted to apartments.

Barking Park runs along Longbridge Road, IG11 8TA, over 30 hectares, and opened as the Recreation Ground in 1898 under Barking Town Urban District Council. Its northern boundary along Loxford Water is also the borough boundary with Redbridge. The war memorial in the park is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1424142, first listed 12 February 2015. The park itself is not a registered park and garden: the National Heritage List for England carries no registered park or garden anywhere in the borough, and Valentines Park, NHLE 1000843, on the far side of the northern boundary, is Redbridge's. The park holds the Barking Park Light Railway, a miniature railway, and a splash park. Barking station is about 750 m away.

South-east Barking below the A13 is interwar housing, and an Elizabethan gentry house stands in the middle of it at Eastbury Square, IG11 9SN. Eastbury Manor House is listed at Grade I as NHLE 1359303, first listed 28 May 1954 under the statutory address Eastbury Manor House, Eastbury Square; the garden walls carry their own Grade I entry, NHLE 1064414, of the same date, so one visitor site holds two entries on the National Heritage List for England. The National Trust states that it was built between 1560 and 1573 by Clement Sisley, and names an original spiral oak staircase in a turret, exposed attic timbers, an original walled garden with kitchen and herb garden, and a Painted Chamber holding a rare surviving example of early 17th century wall paintings at the heart of the house. The National Trust acquired the house in 1918, after the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings intervened against demolition, and leased it to the council in 1934; the council has managed it since. House, cafe, grounds and shop open 10:00 to 16:00 on Fridays and Sundays. The council calls it one of the few remaining 16th-century houses in Greater London and states that admission is free for borough residents, National Trust and SPAB members. Upney station on the District line is about 470 m away, Barking about 1.4 km, and buses 62, 173, 287, 368, EL1, EL2 and EL3 stop within 600 m.

The Galleon Arts Centre is at Boundary Road, IG11 7JR. The council lists it with Eastbury Manor House, Valence House Museum, the Archives and Local Studies Centre and the Women's Museum among the Culture and Heritage Service's key sites, gives the contact address in that form and points visitors to the centre's own website and Instagram account. No source states its opening hours, so none are given here. It is one of roughly twelve named visitor institutions in the borough, against 48 entries on the National Heritage List for England.

South of the A13 the ground falls to Ripple, Creekmouth and the reclaimed Barking Riverside development on the Thames. Ripple Nature Reserve is entered at the corner of Renwick Road and Thames Road, IG11 0PB, and covers 8.3 hectares, or 21 acres, as a Local Nature Reserve and a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation owned by the borough council. Most London soils are acidic; this ground is strongly alkaline because of dumped fuel ash, which supports pyramidal and southern marsh orchids, grey club-rush and wild basil. Barking Riverside station on the Overground's Suffragette line is about 300 m from the reserve and Upney about 2 km. Barking Riverside station itself opened on 18 July 2022, stands about 550 m from the centre of the development, and interchanges with the Uber Boat by Thames Clippers service at Barking Riverside Pier.

Becontree was built between 1921 and 1935 by London County Council under the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919, outside the County of London, as the largest public housing estate in the world. Its official completion was celebrated in 1935, by which point it held around 100,000 people in 26,000 homes, and a further 1,000 houses were added later. The estate spanned Barking, Dagenham and Ilford, and the Ilford section transferred from Redbridge to Barking and Dagenham in 1994. A commemorative plaque at Chittys Lane, RM8 1UP, marks the block of houses that was the first erected on the estate; it is a plaque and carries no list entry number, and no part of the estate appears on the National Heritage List for England or among the borough's four conservation areas. The council runs a Becontree Forever arts and archive programme from Valence Library on Becontree Avenue, RM8 3HT.

Valence House Museum stands on Becontree Avenue, RM8 3HT, in a manor house still partially surrounded by a moat, listed at Grade II* as NHLE 1064404, first listed 28 June 1954 under the statutory address Valence House, Becontree Avenue. The council states that admission is free and that the collection runs to nearly 30,000 items; named highlights are the Dagenham Idol, on loan from Colchester and Ipswich Museum, whalebones believed to be from the lower jaw of a Common Greenland Whale, and the Fanshawe family portraits. The site houses the Barking and Dagenham Archives and Local Studies Centre, whose council records run back to 1558. The grounds carry a herb garden and a Second World War Dig for Victory garden with a replica Anderson shelter. The operator publishes Tuesday to Thursday and Saturday, 10am to 4pm, and notes that the museum building closes 12 to 1pm daily while the grounds and tearoom stay open; the Tulip Tree Tearoom opens Tuesday to Thursday, and Saturday, 10am to 4.30pm. Chadwell Heath on the Elizabeth line is about 1.1 km away and Becontree on the District line about 2 km, with buses 62, 128, 150, 364 and 368 within 600 m.

Dagenham Civic Centre stands at Becontree Heath on Rainham Road North, RM10 7BN, designed in the modern style by Ernest Berry Webber in 1936 and opened the following year. It is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1064422, first listed 24 August 1981, under the list entry name Former Main building and Council Chamber of Dagenham Civic Centre, and the statutory address is now CU London (Dagenham), Rainham Road North. Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council occupied the building until 2016; it was vacated and leased to CU London the following year, so it is a university campus rather than a civic building. It sits roughly 2 km from a station in any direction, with Dagenham East about 2.0 km, Chadwell Heath about 2.0 km and Dagenham Heathway about 2.2 km, and buses 5, 103, 128, 150, 173, 175, 499, EL2 and N15 within 600 m of a stop named Cu London University / Rainham Rd North, about 80 m from the building.

The Chadwell Heath anti-aircraft gun site is on Whalebone Lane North, listed at Grade II as NHLE 1079855, first listed 2 January 1991, under the list entry name Anti Aircraft Site at TQ 48738975. It is a heavy anti-aircraft battery rather than a building, and it is a military installation rather than a civil one. It is also the Chadwell Heath Anti-aircraft Gun Site conservation area, one of the four the council names alongside Abbey and Barking Town Centre, Abbey Road Riverside and Dagenham Village, and the council has published a separate appraisal document for it. Chadwell Heath Cemetery Chapel with its entrance gates, piers and railings is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1393920, of 18 August 2010, about 285 m west-south-west. Chadwell Heath station is about 2.4 km away and buses 62, 296 and 362 call at Furze Farm Close, about 510 m off.

Wellgate Community Farm is at Collier Row Road, RM5 2BH, in the Marks Gate salient at the borough's northern tip. The council publishes that the farm is open to the public from 9am to 3:30pm, 9am to 12pm on public holidays, that entry is free, and that events and pre-booked activities are priced as advertised. It keeps chickens, goats, sheep and rabbits and runs Farmer for a Day, a Spinners and Knitters group and Herbies gardening for children. It is a charity, number 1091729, and company 04370324, and its own site describes it as nestled in between the London Boroughs of Barking and Dagenham and Havering. No rail, Underground, Overground, Elizabeth line or DLR station lies within 3 km; buses 62, 247 and 362 serve it and the nearest stop, Sungate Cottages, is about 150 m away. Its postal address is a Romford RM5 postcode although the farm falls inside Barking and Dagenham.

Dagenham Village is the surviving village nucleus around Crown Street, and it is one of the borough's four conservation areas, with an appraisal published by the council. The Church of St Peter and St Paul stands on Crown Street, listed at Grade II* as NHLE 1359302, first listed 28 June 1954 under the statutory address Church of St Peter and St Paul, Crown Street. It is the Church of England parish church of Dagenham, of medieval origin and largely rebuilt at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Dagenham Village Churchyard around it is a 0.88-hectare Local Nature Reserve owned by the council, closed to burials in the 1990s and managed for wildlife since, with access from Church Lane. It holds the Commonwealth war graves of seventeen service personnel, nine from the First World War and eight from the Second. Its importance for wildlife lies chiefly in invertebrates, with woodpeckers feeding on an avenue of lime trees. Dagenham East on the District line is about 550 m away and Dagenham Heathway about 1 km.

The vicarage, listed at Grade II as NHLE 1064411, and the Cross Keys Inn, listed at Grade II as NHLE 1064410, both stand within 100 m of the church on the same street. The Cross Keys is at Crown Street, RM10 9XA, and its entry dates from 28 June 1954, under the name Cross Keys Inn Public House. It is often credited to Barking; the Historic England statutory address and the OpenStreetMap record both put it on Crown Street in Dagenham Village, RM10 9XA, beside the parish church. OpenStreetMap records it as a working pub, and no operator publishes its hours, so none are given here. It stands about 550 m from Dagenham East.

The Eastbrook is on Dagenham Road, RM10 7UP, a 1930s roadhouse built to serve the new Becontree estate. It is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1393600, first listed 11 December 2009 under the list entry name Eastbrook Public House, which makes it the most recent Grade II designation in the borough; the register carries four Grade II* entries in all, this one with Valence House, the Fire Bell Gate and the Church of St Peter and St Paul. OpenStreetMap records it as an operating pub, and no operator publishes its hours, so none are given here. Dagenham East is about 880 m away and Dagenham Heathway about 1.5 km.

Eastbrookend Country Park runs east from Dagenham Road, RM7 0SS, over 84 hectares of derelict gravel workings remodelled by large-scale earth-moving into undulating ground with wild-flower grassland and over 50,000 small trees; it opened in 1995. It is a Local Nature Reserve, and with the neighbouring Chase Nature Reserve it forms a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. Facilities are a millennium centre, a fishing lake and a tea room, and the council gives rangers@lbbd.gov.uk and 020 8227 2332 as the contact. The Chase records 190 bird species including skylarks, little ringed plovers and lapwings, along with water voles, great crested newts, slow worms and badgers, and it holds six female black poplars, a native tree of which about six hundred female specimens are known. The River Rom runs through the site and forms the borough boundary, with Barking and Dagenham on the west bank and Havering on the east. Dagenham East is about 1.3 km away and the 174 is the sole bus route within 600 m.

Seven stations lie inside the borough. Five of the seven are on a single Underground line, the District: Barking, Upney, Becontree, Dagenham Heathway and Dagenham East. The other two are not Underground at all. Barking Riverside is on the Overground's Suffragette line and Dagenham Dock is a c2c National Rail station. There is no DLR station, no tram and no Elizabeth line station inside the borough; the nearest Elizabeth line station, Chadwell Heath, sits just outside the boundary and serves Valence House and the Chadwell Heath end of the borough.

Barking is the multi-mode interchange and the eastern terminus of the Hammersmith & City line, with the District line, the Overground's Suffragette line and c2c services alongside, in fare zone 4. It opened on 13 April 1854 on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway's line from Forest Gate Junction, 7 miles 42 chains, or 12.1 km, from Fenchurch Street. The building was rebuilt in 1961, and the booking hall at Station Parade, IG11 8TU, is listed at Grade II as NHLE 1242678, first listed 24 November 1995. Barking Riverside opened on 18 July 2022 as the eastern terminus of the Suffragette line and interchanges with the Uber Boat by Thames Clippers service at Barking Riverside Pier.

Abbey Green is about 570 m from Barking station, the Curfew Tower about 490 m, Barking Park about 750 m and the Women's Museum about 700 m, so the whole town-centre group is walkable from the one interchange. Eastbury Manor House is about 470 m from Upney on the District line, with buses 62, 173, 287, 368, EL1, EL2 and EL3 nearby; Ripple Nature Reserve is about 300 m from Barking Riverside. Valence House is about 1.1 km from Chadwell Heath. Dagenham Village and Eastbrookend are worked from Dagenham East, about 550 m from the parish church, about 880 m from The Eastbrook and about 1.3 km from the country park. Dagenham Civic Centre sits about 2 km from any station and is better reached by bus. Wellgate Community Farm at Marks Gate has no station of any mode within 3 km and is reached by bus 62, 247 or 362, with the nearest stop about 150 m from the gate.