- published: 02 May 2012
- views: 12809
Coordinates: 51°33′38″N 0°00′56″W / 51.560558°N 0.015465°W / 51.560558; -0.015465
Leyton is an area of north-east London and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, located 6.2 miles (10 km) north east of Charing Cross. It borders Walthamstow and Leytonstone; Stratford in Newham; and Homerton and Lower Clapton in the London Borough of Hackney.
Leyton is in the Lower Lea Valley, the river forming its western boundary, and it straddles the Prime Meridian. The area rises from marshland along the Lea to over 90 feet at Whipps Cross on the southern edge of Epping Forest. It is a dormitory suburb of terraced houses built between 1870 and 1910, interspersed with modern housing estates. Many high-rise council blocks that dominated the skyline have been demolished over the past 15 years.
Paleolithic implements and fossil bones show that early man hunted in Leyton. A Roman cemetery and the foundations of a Roman villa have been found here. From Anglo-Saxon times, Leyton has been part of the County of Essex. The name means "settlement (tun) on the River Lea" and was also known until 1921 as "Low Leyton". In the Domesday Book, the name is rendered as Leintun. at which time the population was 43. The ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin was largely rebuilt in the 17th Century. The parish of Leyton also included Leytonstone. The old civil parish was formed into an Urban District within Essex in 1894 and it gained the status of Municipal Borough in 1926. In 1965, the Municipal Borough of Leyton was abolished and was combined with that of Walthamstow and Chingford to form the London Borough of Waltham Forest, within the new county of Greater London.