Dagenham is a suburban town in Greater London, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, situated 12 miles (19.3 km) east of Charing Cross. On the corner of Whalebone Lane and the Eastern Avenue, diagonally opposite the Moby Dick public house, is the site of a Saxon moot hall. The adjoining fields were used during World War II by the Royal Artillery as an anti-aircraft battery before being converted into a Prisoner of War camp for Germans. Further south down Whalebone Lane on the corner of the High Road is the Tollgate pub. This stands on the site of the milestone which marked the ten mile (16 km) limit from the City of London and the turnpike toll-gate. In 1854, a station was opened on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in the south of Dagenham, near the Thames, at Dagenham Dock. In 1885 a new direct route from Barking to Pitsea, via Upminster, was built with a new station opened just north of the village. In 1205 Dagenham was large enough to have a chaplain and the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul was probably built at around that time. Dagenham was still an undeveloped village, when building of the vast Becontree estate by the London County Council began in the early 1920s. The building of the enormous estate, which also spread into the neighbouring parishes of Ilford, Romford and Barking, caused a rapid increase in population. In 1932 the electrified District Line of the London Underground was extended to Upminster through Dagenham with stations opened as Dagenham and Heathway and today called Dagenham East and Dagenham Heathway. Dagenham East was the location of the Dagenham East rail crash in 1958. Services on the London Tilbury & Southend line at Dagenham East were withdrawn in 1962. More on Dagenham 

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