Forest Gate takes its name from a gate across the road to the forest (now Woodgrange/Woodford roads), near the Eagle and Child public house. The gate was erected in former times to prevent cattle straying on to the high road. As the locality developed and its original necessity declined in later years, it stood open, but the gate and its attendant cottage were not demolished until 1881.
A West Ham antiquary has traced the mention of a "Forest Gate" back 300 years (360 - today!) to the time of the Commonwealth, but it did not come into use as the place-name of a locality until the first half of the nineteenth century. The aspect of the neighbourhood at the time of the hospital's first foundation is graphically described by an old West Ham resident - Major Sharp Hume. he is writing in a Notes and Queries in 1890, in answer to a resident's query regarding the gate, and says:
(parentheses are webmaster's addition)
I perfectly remember the old five bar gate leading to Wanstead Flats, from which the suburb of Forest Gate takes its name. Not more than thirty years ago (i.e. c1860) the surroundings were perfectly rural, however improbable that may seem today. Approaching the gate from the south (or from the railway station), on the left hand the lane was bordered by a row of labourers' cottages, with a pump in front of them, the houses dating back to the beginning of this century.
At the end of this row of cottages, which have now been built out and turned into shops, stood the gatehouse, projecting into the road, and the gate itself spanned the road to a post on the other side. Opposite to these cottages was the park of West Ham House, with a fine row of elms overhanging the lane. The mansion is still standing, but is quite hemmed in by small houses and shops.
On passing through the gate, on the right was a small brick cottage and a smaller wooden one , and adjoining them, the old Eagle and Child inn, which was approached by a double row of stone steps. This old inn is now transformed into a modern tavern (and now, a pharmacist, and block of flats!).
Beyond that again was a mansion, standing in its own grounds, at the corner of Chestnut Avenue, and another large house where the lane merged into the flats. On the left hand, after passing through the gate, were fields, bordered by a hedge and elms opposite the inn, and at the fork in the road, opposite Chestnut Avenue, were the fine grounds, splendidly timbered of a very large mansion, running on that side, as far as the Flats.'
- and temporally meaning 'pertaining to time.
using it.
