please empty your brain below
The "bower" of Havering-atte-Bower was a country retreat used by Edward the Confessor. The story goes that during one visit he was asked for alms, and having no money on him said the supplicant could "have a ring" instead. Apocryphal it may be, but that is why the borough's coat of arms displays a gold ring.

Is the spelling of Haringey a portmanteau of HARRINGay and HornsEY?

dg writes: No.

timbo | 03.10.19 - 7:39 a.m. | #

During a recent sleepless night I tried naming the London boroughs as an alternative to counting sheep. I got to about 28. On checking the next day, it seems that the City of London is not a London Borough.

dg writes: Technically not, but this blog always pretends it is, for reasons of simplicity and under-pedantry.

H SE18 | 03.10.19 - 7:50 a.m. | #

"Havering" looks like another of those "-ingas" placenames. It is recorded in the Domesday Book as "Hauringas".

But there is quite a long list of alternative derivations here, from a spurious legend involving John the Baptist giving a ring to Edward the Confessor ("have-ring") to the followers of a person called Haver or Haefer. Or a meadow for goats, from the Saxon "haefer". Or oats, from the Danish "haure".

Andrew | 03.10.19 - 7:56 a.m. | #

At the time there was a lot of rivalry between Richmond and Twickenham boroughs as to the name of the new borough. Richmond won despite being smaller, as compensation the new civic centre was housed in Twickenham.

John | 03.10.19 - 8:00 a.m. | #

I lived in Woodford around 2000 and I shopped in Walthamstow more often than Ilford.

Sprout Eater | 03.10.19 - 8:35 a.m. | #

under-pedantry!

mikeH | 03.10.19 - 8:48 a.m. | #

I lived in what became Haringey when it was was formed. Choice of the name was discussed - general feeling was that a random choice of a neighbourhood had been made, and the use of a variant spelling was to avoid confusion between the new borough and the old neighbourhood.

Malcolm | 03.10.19 - 9:36 a.m. | #

I must admit to being so stupid - I'd never made the connection between East, West and New Hams. So we should be pronouncing it New Ham instead of New'um.

Caz | 03.10.19 - 9:57 a.m. | #

of course not all the LBs started off life with the names they currently have ... H&F was born in 1965 as H, but changed it's name by deed poll to H&F in 1979

ADS | Homepage | 03.10.19 - 10:40 a.m. | #

The powers did want the 'h' in Newham pronounced, and made a fuss about it at the time. But it was obvious that the 'h' would be dropped by east-enders and then by everyone.

SteveR | 03.10.19 - 11:05 a.m. | #

London Borough of Walthamstow would've been much better name IMO. Looking on the maps, Wanstead and Woodford would've much better fitted into this borough over Ilford. Waltham Forest as a borough is quite small aswell.

PVR | 03.10.19 - 11:08 a.m. | #

It's interesting the desire to create "neutral" names when merging 2 boroughs so as not to seem to be favouring one of them. I hadn't realised that there had been a genuine proposal to call the merged Greenwich and Woolwich borough Charlton for example.

I guess the alternative is to have the borough named one thing, but have the head office elsewhere, hence Barnet is the name of the borough, but the main council premises are in Hendon.

Mikey C | 03.10.19 - 11:52 a.m. | #

Ham itself is on the border between Richmond and Kingston, and was a separate Urban District Council until 1933.

timbo | 03.10.19 - 12:51 p.m. | #

I was unaware until today that my home borough of Harrow was the only one to have been formed from a single previous metropolitan borough. It seems a comparatively large area for an old met borough to have controlled.

Also intriguing to discover that the Tory government of 1963 were happy to let their pals in Kensington and Chelsea share their new borough's title, having insisted that all others had a one word name.

Arlo | 03.10.19 - 1:00 p.m. | #

Living in Newham I have heard the pronunciation "New Ham" from time to time but it's rare.

The battles over where got the names have left some confusion to this day, especially when the main council offices aren't in the settlement itself - e.g. I've known people get lost in Lewisham looking for the town hall, which is in Catford. There's also uncertainty when the borough is named after a rather small place in it - as well as Redbridge, Hillingdon and Merton are both compromise names.

Tim Roll-Pickering | Homepage | 03.10.19 - 1:39 p.m. | #

Lewisham's Town Hall has been in Catford since the Lewisham Board of Works established their offices there in 1875. The original buildings were replaced by the present soulless structure in the 1960s. The original gothic building was one John Betjeman tried and failed to save.

Alan S | 03.10.19 - 3:38 p.m. | #

Snobbery plays a part in the choice of names. In my borough Enfield was chosen when Edmonton would have been a more historically accurate name given the existence of the Hundred of the same name which covered the entire area of the new borough. Enfield was considered more “up market” though and got the nod (as well as the new HQ) to the consternation of Edmontonians.

Phil | 03.10.19 - 4:49 p.m. | #

Tower Hamlets also existed as a parliamentary constituency from 1832 until 1885, known as “the borough of (the) Tower Hamlets” though it was not a local authority. In 1868 it was split to form the parliamentary boroughs of Tower Hamlets and of Hackney

Rich G | Homepage | 03.10.19 - 5:42 p.m. | #

Hillingdon seems to have been named after one of the smaller places in the borough and vaguely in the middle, to avoid upsetting residents of the bigger towns and former boroughs if another one was chosen.

Andrew S | 03.10.19 - 5:43 p.m. | #

Ah, my bad. I assumed Catford had been a separate entity that merged with Lewisham, but actually it was Deptford that did that.

Tim Roll-Pickering | Homepage | 04.10.19 - 12:02 a.m. | #

The two 'Ham churches are a wonderful reminder of when this area was rural Essex - they are in the Diocese of Chelmsford and very much evoke the more picturesque parts of the county. They are worth a good look inside too, though if not during worship hours, it's difficult to know when the doors will be open. They are, sometimes.

NickW | Homepage | 04.10.19 - 1:58 p.m. | #

The Newham council phone switchboard automated message used to say (very slowly) "welcome to New Ham".

langdon | 05.10.19 - 3:08 p.m. | #











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