STRATFORD CITY

Stratford has a rich and fascinating history, having evolved from a small Roman settlement to an Essex village, to its culturally-diverse current reincarnation as a vibrant area of East London. With a medieval name meaning ‘the ford where the Roman Road crosses the river’, Stratford is separated from Middlesex by the River Lea, a navigable waterway made possible to cross by road traffic after the building of the Bow Bridge in 1110 and the stone bridge in the 1830s.

Stratford in medieval times was farming land, and crops such as beans, wheat, oats and barley were grown in the area creating a need for the milling of the seed, resulting in several mills built in the area. Temple Mills belonged to the Knights Templar who used the mills to grind the seed produced in the area including the River Lee in the lower Lee Valley.

Modern Stratford was initially named “Hudson Town” after George Hudson, the railway entrepreneur, and it was the location of the Eastern Counties Railway’s rolling stock and locomotive works from 1847. Located at Temple Mills, the first locomotives were built in 1850 with passenger tank locomotives. The company was closed in 1963 however a small depot still exists along with 73 hectares of brownfield railways lands which is now part of the Stratford City site.