Fairlop

Coordinates: 51°36′00″N 0°05′00″E / 51.5999°N 0.0833°E / 51.5999; 0.0833

Fairlop is a district of Ilford in the London Borough of Redbridge, just north of Barkingside. It mainly consists of fields, forestry and open land providing space for sport/ activity centres (Redbridge Sport Centre), a few houses, farmland and watersport/ fishing lakes (Fairlop Waters). It also has a tube station. A children's play center, Al's Adventure House, was part of the Fairlop Waters complex until its closure in the late 2000s.

History and origins of the name

The Fairlop Oak

The district took its name from an old oak tree, the Fairlop Oak, that stood in Hainault Forest when much of the area was covered in trees. The oak is said to have had a trunk sixty-six feet in circumference, from which seventeen branches issued, most of them measuring not less than twelve feet in girth. In the eighteenth century, a pump and block maker from Wapping, Daniel Day, would take his employees on an annual fair in the forest, using the oak as their rendezvous. The fair took place on the first Friday of July.