The Highams Park area was previously known as The Sale – this name appeared on maps from 1641. Another local name was Hale End, site of the later Halex factory.
The whole area lay within the manor of Hecham – meaning ‘high home’ – existing already in 1066.
In 1768 Anthony Bacon built Higham House (also known as Highams) to William Newton’s design. It was altered again in the 1780s.
In the 1790s, the grounds, including a summer house built with stones from old London Bridge, were redesigned to include a lake fed by the River Ching. The summer house was demolished in 1831.
In 1849, Highams became the property of Edward Warner. Parcels of the estate started to be sold for development but the real spur to housing was the arrival in 1873 of Highams Park railway station. This was opened to the west of the Highams estate. Immediately around the station, the land was developed.
A few years later, in 1891, Edward Warner’s son, Courtenay Warner, formed Warner Estate Ltd to manage the manor house. In a piece of ‘mission creep’, the Warner Company sprung from this in 1897 with a plan to build high-quality terraces of good workmanship. The Warner Company was jointly owned by Warner Estate Ltd and Law Land Ltd. In 1898, Law Land’s building department undertook the building development. Once built, this new area gained the name Highams Park.
Within a few years, the Corporation of London had bought land around Highams to retain as public land and open space. In 1891, they acquired a further thirty acres from the estate, including the lake – purchased for £6000. This was added to Epping Forest.
The Warner Company began to develop the grounds of Highams in 1897 – 24 houses were built in Montalt Road, and more in the “Warner style” were built in Chingford Lane, using the same architectural designs as Walthamstow’s Warner Estate.
The Halex factory was built on Larkshall Road – a major local employer from 1897 onwards (until 1971). It produced a variety of plastic goods and the company had a virtual monopoly manufacturing table tennis balls. The factory was knocked down in the early 1970s with its site replaced by new smaller industrial buildings. A blue plaque from the ’Plastics Historical Society’ can be seen on Jubilee Avenue marking the spot of Kalex.
There was a second phase of Warner development. Many more new roads were constructed in the early 1930s.
Houses on the estate were comparatively expensive for the early 1930s – the cheapest home was £1000. Subsequently there was a lack of demand and cheaper houses were then developed in the northwest corner of the estate – this phase was known as the Montalt Estate.
The curious name of The Charter Road came about because of an exchange of land between Essex County Council and Warner. Because the council refused to contribute to the road’s cost, a strip of land was retained by the Warner Company.
In 1934, Sir Edward Warner sold the remaining undeveloped parts of the estate (between Montalt Road and Henry’s Avenue) to Walthamstow, with the intention to keep it as open space.
