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Becontree ( or Both pronunciations are given as Received Pronunciation in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, but the form is prioritised (). The dialectologist Peter Wright wrote in 1981 that is the traditional pronunciation in the cockney dialect ()) is an area of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, England, northeast of Charing Cross. It was constructed between 1921 and 1935 as the largest public housing estate in the world. The Housing Act 1919 allowed London County Council to build housing outside the County of London and Becontree was designed to cottage estate principles in Barking, Dagenham and Ilford, then in the administrative county of Essex. The official completion of the estate was celebrated in 1935, by which time the estate had a population of around 100,000 people in 26,000 homes.
The building of the estate caused a huge increase in population density, which led to demands on services and reforms of local government. An additional 1,000 houses were added in later phases. The estate had no industrial and very little commercial development until the May & Baker and Ford Dagenham sites opened nearby, and a shopping area was built at Heathway. The estate has formed part of Greater London since 1965, when the Barking section was combined with Dagenham, and has been within a single London borough since boundary changes caused the Ilford section to be transferred from Redbridge to Barking and Dagenham in 1994.
Most of the land at that time was , with occasional groups of cottages and some country lanes. It was compulsorily purchased. 4,000 houses had been completed by 1921. The early residents were able to pick rhubarb, peas and cabbages from the abandoned market gardens.
The very first houses completed, in Chittys Lane, are recognisable by a blue council plaque embedded in the wall. The construction was an enormous civil engineering project. A special railway was built especially for the building work. It connected the railway sidings at Goodmayes on the Great Eastern line and a wharf with a new 500 ft jetty, on the River Thames. Four steam cranes on the jetty could unload building material from seven barges at a time. The building of the estate took longer than anticipated. The LCC hoped to build 24,000 homes by 1924. They were only able to achieve 3,000 and the works were extended into three phases lasting until 1935.
| I | 1921–1924 | Ilford (some in Dagenham) | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| II | 1924–1930 | Dagenham (some in Ilford) | 15,000 | 18,000 |
| III | 1930–1935 | Barking | 7,736 | 25,736 |
| Additional | 1937 | 800 | 26,536 | |
| Heath Park | 1949–1951 | Dagenham | 600 | 27,136 |
On 13 July 1935 the official completion of the estate was celebrated with the ceremonial opening of Parsloes Park by MP Christopher Addison. However, the demand for housing meant that a further 800 homes were built in 1937. With a population of 115,652, it was the largest public housing development in the world. After the Second World War, between 1949 and 1951, 600 additional houses were built by the LCC in Dagenham in an area called Heath Park, adjacent to the estate.
Wythenshawe, in Manchester with an area of approximately , is larger but the population density is lower. At times Wythenshawe has also claimed to be the largest council housing estate in Europe. Private home ownership in the area has grown, and Wythenshawe has continued to expand.
Privet hedges (referred to as "evergreens" or "evers") were planted along the pavements at the end of every front garden and during the spring and summer months a squad of gardeners were employed to keep them in regulation height. Although the estate regulations stipulated that the gardens must be maintained in order, more than a few degenerated into virtual jungles. However, to encourage the application of this rule, prizes were awarded for the best kept gardens. Initial candidates were selected by the rent collectors during their weekly rounds and a committee decided on the final prizes, which ranged from ten shillings consolation prizes up to £20 (an average week's rent in 1953 was about £1 18/- (£1.90)) for the first prize in each ward, plus a notice placed in the centre of the lawn for the benefit of passers-by.
The area was within the Metropolitan Police District. It was considered to form part of the Greater London conurbation for census reporting and in 1957 formed part of the review area of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London. The 1960 report of the commission recommended that Barking and Dagenham should form as a single London borough and this became the London Borough of Barking in 1965 following the London Government Act 1963. Ilford became part of the new London Borough of Redbridge. Barking was renamed Barking and Dagenham in 1980. It was anticipated that the mergers of existing boroughs might produce unsatisfactory boundaries in some places and a Local Government Boundary Commission for England was established by the Local Government Act 1972 to review periodically the boundaries of Greater London and the London boroughs. The first review of boundaries in London commenced on 1 April 1987 and reported in 1992. The transfer of the Redbridge part of the estate to Barking and Dagenham had broad support. Following the review, in April 1994 an area of 90 hectares with a population of 200, was transferred from Redbridge to Barking and Dagenham, and a new ward of Becontree electing two councillors was created. The wards and councillor allocations were redrawn in 2002.
The General Post Office placed the entire estate in the Dagenham post town, including the Barking and Ilford sections, giving all residents postal addresses of "Dagenham, Essex". It is perhaps for this reason that Becontree and Dagenham became synonymous.Peter Willmott (1973). 071003914X, Routledge & Kegan Paul. 071003914X In 1927 the LCC was reluctant to agree that the Postmaster General should provide telephone line to the estate, as it was considered incongruous for residents of a subsidised housing scheme to be able to afford such a luxury.Andrzej Olechnowicz, Working-Class Housing in England Between the Wars: The Becontree Estate, Oxford historical monographs, Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1997, . Lines were connected from nearby exchanges until the DOMinion exchange was opened within the estate. In 1954 it had 1,337 lines, increasing to 1,620 in 1955 and by 1958 it had 2,700 lines.
The original LCC plan anticipated a civic and commercial centre around Parsloes Park. However, LCC was only a landlord in the area and had limited ability to influence commercial development and had no control over local government. The plan was not followed and Dagenham Civic Centre opened in 1937 outside the eastern boundary of the estate. The lack of a conventional town centre meant residents used the existing centres at Barking and Ilford. Small parades of shops were provided throughout the estate, such as on Gale Street and Wood Lane, but Dagenham Urban District Council tried to make up for the lack of a high street by creating a commercial centre along Heathway in 1934.
The estate was built without any provision for Parking lot as it was not anticipated that tenants would own cars. The plot sizes did not allow for garages to be added to homes. The LCC provided eleven garages for rent in 1937 and a further eighty in 1951. The LCC planned a Tramway track through the estate, filling some of the wide spaces on roads left by the special railway, but it was never built.Jackson, p. 290 and Plate 22, opposite p. 321. There were no railway stations within the boundaries of the estate, with Chadwell Heath, Dagenham, Dagenham Dock and Goodmayes a short distance away. At first, trains on the Fenchurch Street–Southend line of the LMS passed through the estate without stopping, but in 1926 the LMS provided Gale Street Halt on the line. In 1932 (when the line was doubled with the addition of two electrified tracks) Gale Street Halt became Becontree station and a new station was added at Heathway. The stations were primarily served by the District Railway, which had been extended from Barking to Upminster.
Over the 15-year period of the building of the estate, the school-aged population rose rapidly to 25,000 while there were only 4 secondary schools nearby: 3 in Chadwell Heath and 1 at Becontree Heath, which meant that many children could not attend school.Jackson, p. 299: "Before September, with virtually no places available in existing schools, the children of the Becontree tenants ran wild all day, no doubt having a marvellous time". The first secondary school to be built was "Green Lane" in 1923, but it later became a primary school. It was renamed "Henry Green" in 1953, after the first headmaster after the secondary school opened in 1925.
Another improvement was after the 1952 smog, when the estate was declared a smokeless zone. The houses had their old converted for use with smokeless fuel, which included fixed gas fireplace poker in the hearths. The elderly man and his wife who lived in Mill Lane, Chadwell Heath and toured the estate in a cart on Saturday mornings selling wood fuel (mostly tarred wood taken from the East End roads when they were replaced by Tarmacadam) saw their business collapse overnight.
The Dagenham Girl Pipers were formed in 1930 as the first female pipe band in the world and are still in existence.
The Becontree estate itself is served by routes 62, 128, 150, 364, and 368. Chadwell Heath station to the north is served by routes 62 and 368.
The area has local bus connections towards Dagenham Heathway, Dagenham Dock, Barking, Ilford, Goodmayes, and Romford.
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