Becontree
Becontree is an area of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, England, 11 miles (17.7 km) northeast of Charing Cross.
It was constructed between 1921 and 1935 as the largest public housing estate in the world. The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 allowed London County Council to build housing outside the County of London and Becontree was designed to cottage estate principles in Barking, Dagenham and Ilford, then in the administrative county of Essex. The official completion of the estate was celebrated in 1935, by which time the estate had a population of around 100,000 people in 26,000 homes.
Getting around Becontree the local way
- Get inUse Woolwich Ferry then for destinations in south London.
From Wikivoyage: London/East, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Alan Shearman (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.