Early signs of human occupation in Romford include a possible British camp in the Marshalls
area and bronzesmith's hoard. Later the area was the site of a Roman staging post called
Durolitum. Romford's economy relied on the intersection of major transport routes from an early date.
The Middle Ages saw the growth of this small hamlet into a market town. The leather industry
which originated in Hornchurch found a ready market in the number of travellers using the
old Roman road to Colchester. In 1247, the fledgling market received a royal grant from Henry
III, and continues to this day. The existence of the market created a cluster of buildings over
the centuries, many of them inns catering for the travellers along the Great Essex Road, and the
many visitors to the market.
A further boost was given to Romford when improved toll roads were introduced, heralding the
rise of the coaching age, where stops were made along the way. Romford now had a very large
number of inns and other facilities to cater for the coaches; it even had fashionable shops
catering to the gentry and the new professional classes who were setting up in Romford. It
was also on the route of itinerants who travelled around the country making a scant living by
selling various wares or performing - the type of character seen in Victorian journalist
Henry Mayhew's books about the poor.
A bombshell hit Romford in the 1830s, with the arrival of the railway. From being a
parochial Essex town, slightly cut off, except on market days, Romford now became firmly joined to the
rest of Britain and London via the Eastern Counties Railway. One of the main businesses to
benefit from the railway was Romford Brewery, which had been founded in 1799. The Brewery
closed in 1997, and all that remains is The Brewery Gate, the ground floor being converted into
Havering Museum which opened in 2010.
Today the Museum can reveal how much more there is in the stories of Romford, Hornchurch,
Upminster, Rainham, Havering-atte-Bower and the surrounding areas.
The Market began as a sheep market in 1247, with King Henry III granting Romford permission
for a weekly market, on a Wednesday, with the addition of a yearly fair from 1250.
The Golden Lion Pub that stands at the edge of the Market Place existed in 1440, and still
functions today. A largely timber-framed building, it is made up of at least three sections
of varying dates, with additions and changes made from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The
infamous highwayman Dick Turpin was said to have been a visitor.
Church House in the Market Place began as a much larger 15th century building and was used
as a chantry priest's house. It was later used as the Cock and Bell Inn, and is rumoured to have
a ghost.
Sir Francis Bacon, the Elizabethan statesman, philosopher, essayist and author, became
landlord of the Golden Lion pub when he inherited it from his father in 1601. The Cavalier poet, was born in Romford in 1582. In 1639 he was made city
chronologer, a post previously held by Ben Johnson and Thomas Middleton. At the outbreak of
the Civil War in 1642, he took the Royalist side and published pamphlets in support of the King.
Colonel Thomas Blood (c1618-1680)as born in County Meath, Ireland. A rebel and a
republican, his audacious adventures involved him dressing in a variety of disguises. A turncoat and a
spy, he is most notorious for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671, disguised as a
parson. Blood and his cohorts were imprisoned briefly in the Tower of London, but curiously he was
never actually punished for the crime. Instead, he was rewarded by Charles II with lands in
Ireland and a £500 annual pension!
The infamous Colonel Blood took up residence in Romford the year before his attempt to steal the Crown Jewels. He assumed the name Ayloffe, and practised as either an apothecary or a doctor!