Fairlop

The district took its name from an old oak tree, the Fairlop Oak, that stood in Hainault Forest, most of which was destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century. The oak is said to have had a trunk sixty-six feet in circumference, from which seventeen branches issued, most of them measuring not less than twelve feet in girth.[2]

In the eighteenth century, a pump and block maker from Wapping, Daniel Day, would take his employees to the annual fair in the forest, using the oak as their rendezvous. The fair took place on the first Friday of July.[3] They dined on beans and bacon, and this may be the origin of the English words bean-feast and beano.[4]

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the annual excursion to Fairlop had become one of London's most popular entertainments, and as many as a hundred thousand people being drawn through Ilford to the fair in the forest.[2] As a result, the area became known as "Fair" (after the fair) followed by "lop" referring to the tree flourishing after part of it was used to make Daniel Day's coffin after he died in 1767.[5] A Society of Archers - The Hainault Foresters - under the patronage of the Earl Tylney of Wanstead House met under the Fairlop Oak.[3]

A legend has it that Queen Anne visited Fairlop during the fair. One of the songs sung at the fair was called "Come, come, my boys", in which one verse states:[3]

To Hainault Forest Queen Anne did ride,
And saw the old oak standing by her side,
And as she looked at it from bottom to top,
She said to her Court, it should be at Fairlop.

In June 1805, the oak tree caught fire, and by 1820 it was finally blown down.[2] Its site is marked roughly at the boat house by the lake at Fairlop Waters.[3] In nearby Fullwell Cross is a pub called the New Fairlop Oak.

In 1851, there was an Act of Parliament permitting the enclosure of Hainault Forest, the large majority of which was quickly destroyed and turned into farmland.[6]