Royal Air Force Hornchurch, is a former Royal Air Force sector station. The airfield was known as Sutton's Farm during the First World War, when it occupied 90 acres (360,000 m²) of the farm of the same name. It was used for the protection of London, being 14 miles (22.5 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

Although the airfield closed shortly after the end of the war, the land was requisitioned in 1923 because of the expansion of the Royal Air Force and it re-opened as a much larger fighter station in 1928. The airfield was ideal to cover both London and the Thames corridor from German air attacks. It was a key air force installation between both wars and into the jet age, closing in 1962.

The RAF Hornchurch Heritage Centre was opened in June 2021 by the Hornchurch Aerodrome Historical Trust.^[17] It opened in Suttons House on Suttons Lane, on the grounds of the former Suttons Institution, later St Georges Hospital.^[18] The hospital was commandeered by the Air Ministry for use by RAF personnel during the Second World War. An official opening event was held on 23 September 2021.The RAF Hornchurch Heritage Centre was opened in June 2021 by the Hornchurch Aerodrome Historical Trust.^[17] It opened in Suttons House on Suttons Lane, on the grounds of the former Suttons Institution, later St Georges Hospital.^[18] The hospital was commandeered by the Air Ministry for use by RAF personnel during the Second World War. An official opening event was held on 23 September 2021.

A local school, The R. J. Mitchell School, was named after the man who designed the Spitfire, and a large monument to this effect, with wreaths placed on Remembrance Day, is within the school railings. Another local school (Suttons School) was renamed Sanders Draper School in 1973, after an American pilot, Flying Officer Raimund (Smudge) Sanders Draper, flying with the Royal Air Force at the time, had an engine failure on take-off and stayed at his controls to ensure his aircraft didn't crash on the building, which was full of children at the time

A designated Local Nature Reserve, the park is an integral part of the Ingrebourne Valley which is rich in wildlife and has good opportunities for bird watching. ​The marshes (containing the largest freshwater reed bed in London) is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The park has open areas of grassland for informal recreation and a lake which can be used for fishing.

The play area includes a model Spitfire which is used as climbing equipment.  For those visitors who wish to exercise then there is an outdoor gym and ‘trim-trail’ which extends throughout the park.

Hornchurch Country Park directly joins several other local green spaces - Ingrebourne Hill, Berwick Woods, Berwick Glades and the Hacton/Gaynes Parkway.

This charming ride follows the Ingrebourne Valley, mostly along London Loop
Section 23. The route passes through Hornchurch Country Park - at various times a farm, military airfeld, gravel quarry and rubbish tip - until in 1980 the local authority acquired and transformed it into a wildlife haven. 

You can continue along the London
Loop to Rainham Village and Rail Station, but this route includes busy roads.

A walk through the hidden history of local trading and commerce.
Created by artists Elaine Tribley and Amanda Westbury

Rainham is one of the most historic areas in Havering, if not the whole country. Not only does it have its roots going back to the Saxon period, there is strong evidence of a settlement before that with a Neolithic (or the new Stone Age dating back some 4,000-2,500 BC) site discovered west of LAUNDERS LANE  in 1963. There are also remains of a Neolithic forest close to the mouth of the MARDYKE RIVER in Rainham Marshes.

An Anglo/Saxon burial ground from the 6^th and 7^th Centuries was discovered during excavations at GERPINS LANE PIT in 1930. A precious collections of objects such as swords, brooches, rings, spear heads and a pair of drinking horns were unearthed, as well as indications of earlier burials.

The original drinking horns are in the British Museum, but there is an exact copy on display in the Rainham Case in the HAVERING Museum. Today the burial site is under the Gerpins Lane Tip.

A hoard of 453 late bronze-age (900 to 800 BC) artefacts was found in Rainham in 2018. Known as the Havering hoard, it comprises swords, socketed axe heads, spear heads, knives, daggers, woodwork tools, bracelets, ingots, and other items, weighing more than 45 kg in total

Rainham is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Raineham, a settlement or village of Regna. Or, perhaps, the etymology follows that of Rainham, Kent which is thought to derive 'home of the Roegingas'. This is also of uncertain meaning, but could refer to 'the ruling people'.  The link with Rainham in Kent is strengthened by the discovery of Jutish cemeteries in Rainham.

A myriad if contrasts: a village, a hub of industry, marshlands…

A place of trade, abundant with rumours of river-linked smuggling!. 

In the 16th century industry was limited to a boat-builder and tannery. There are links between Rainham farms and the City of London from the Middle Ages and after the wharf was redeveloped in the 1720s trade increased; including the bringing of muck from London for use in the fields. By 1929 most of the farmland had been given over to market gardening.^[10] The ferry to London was supplemented with new coaching links in the 18th century and a railway station opened in 1854. A second wharf was constructed in 1872 and from 1869 there was a growth in industrial development, including chemical and fertiliser factories.^[10]The Murex iron-founders moved to Rainham in 1917 and grew along the river, eventually becoming part of the British Oxygen Company. Away from the river, other industries included brickmaking and after World War II there was a growth in gravel extraction.

Rainham is 13.6 miles (21.9 km) east of Charing Cross and is surrounded by a residential area, which has grown from the historic village, to the north and a commercial area, fronting the River Thames, to the south.

The economic history of Rainham is underpinned by a shift from agriculture to industry and manufacture and is now in a period of regeneration, coming within the London Riverside section of the Thames Gateway redevelopment area.

The suggested walk is inspired in the leaflet published by the LONDON BOROUGH OF HAVERING - DISCOVERING HAVERING. It starts in BRIDGE ROAD, where buses stop.

It has retained its Victorian appearance, complete with sash windows. In the 17th city owner bequeathed the land on which it stands to the ST.GILES-IN-THE-FIELDS CHARITY, ensuring the continued support fort the ALMSHOUSES near DRURY LANE, in COVENT GARDEN. 

K2 PHONE

The route to the former wharf that served the boats and their supplies

18th house associated with the wharf and commercial area behind it. It has an exterior of 1800 and a ground floor room used as a counting-house.
The front door has steps, a circular cast-iron knocker, lion's-head blocks, a fanlight and a hood.

There are Insurance marks – 2 Sun, 1 Phoenix and 1 Royal Exchange.

A rear oriel window looks out over a yard with 19th coach house and stables. The carriage way at the side retains its stone and granite set paving.

JOHN HARLE may have had an office there.

A guest house 

Unveiled in 1921, originally to commemorate those who lost their lives during WW I, but now it includes those that were lost during WW II and civilian casualties.

The site was known as THE GREEN.

It is constructed of red Belgian brick, with Portland stone dressings. Portland stone is a limestone quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. There is cast stone ornamentation as well. The memorial is a hexagonal short tower with clock faces on three of its sides. On a sloping base, the names of the war dead are inscribed.

The Church of St. Helen & St. Giles is a Grade I listed building of high historical and architectural importance. It was built around 1170AD by Richard de Lucy, and despite some alterations, stands as it was built, with chancel, nave, aisles and tower. It is dedicated to St. Helen, or Helena (c. 247–327AD) who was reputedly British and by her marriage to a Roman Officer became the mother of Constantine the Great; and St. Giles (c.7th century), who was Greek. Such a dedication is unique in the British Isles.

Up to 1327AD it was administered by the Abbot of Lesnes Abbey; the vicars since then are listed to the right of the church door. There is much to be observed, but two features are unique and cannot be matched in any other church in the country; the beautiful arrangement of the six small windows in the east wall of the chancel, and the eye-like shaping of the six clerestory windows.

The walls are built of septaria, a rocklike substance eroded from the clay cliffs of the Essex coast, and flint-rubble, with limestone dressings. Clunch, a hard chalk, is included in the interior work, thus most of the building materials are local. All of the east windows were bricked up for 150 years before the 1897-1910 restoration. They now follow the Norman pattern. The Norman chancel arch is one of the best preserved examples of its kind

Note the doorway and the roodloft stairs which originally gave acess to a parapet of the rood loft on which images would have been displayed. The graffito in the staircase wall of a cog, or two-masted sailing vessel is interesting. This was probably pre-Reformation.

There are three 17th century bells in the tower, which are no longer able to be rung due to their supports being too decayed.

A small 18th century house brick which was built before the main Hall. It might have been John Harle's first house here but more likely his business office and counting house. It is panelled throughout in softwood.

Coach house, a large plain building of stock brick with two round headed coach arches. 

Stable yard. This is divided from the garden by ornamental ironwork. It is 18th in stock brick with round headed coach arches of red rubbed brick 

Stretching to the banks of the River Thames, Rainham Marshes remain one of the few ancient marshlands in London, and hold the key to the area's thriving industrial history.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the area enjoyed a boom in the increase of manufacturing companies along the riverside including Daldy & Co, the coal and timber merchants; Phoenix Timber, and Murex, iron-founders and ferroalloy manufacturers, whilst the marshes were used as a military firing range. Following the acquisition of the land by the RSPB in the year 2000, the area has been developed into a nature reserve and is home to an array of wildlife, from water voles to dragonflies, and birds of prey such as the peregrine falcon.

Before the site was protected as a nature reserve, it was considered as a candidate location for a Universaltheme park in the 1990s,^[1][2][3] but a site in Paris was eventually chosen.^[4][5] This project failed to materialize