M is for Marks Gate

LONDON A-Z M is for Marks Gate Barking and Dagenham is an oddly-shaped borough with a narrow two-mile protuberance up north, which is where Marks Gate is. All was open countryside until the 1920s when Eastern Avenue carved through, the same A12 that also destroyed the flat calm in Gants Hill, Little Heath and Aldborough Hatch. A large council estate followed in the 1950s, this the undistinguished warren I'm about to spend several paragraphs walking round, though thankfully with occasional flashes of history within. If you've ever driven through you may know the Moby Dick Carvery and the minigolf with the open-jawed whale, although both of those are on the Chadwell Heath side of the dual carriageway and thus out of bounds for today's post. Let's start way back. In medieval times all that was here was a moated manor called Marks, named because it was built by the de Merk family in the 14th century. This sat on the edge of Hainault Forest beside one of the few official entrances to the…