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. They dined on beans and bacon, and this may be the origin of the English words bean-feast and beano.
The Fairlop Fair
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the annual excursion to Fairlop had become one of London's most popular entertainments, and as many as a hundred thousand people being drawn through Ilford to the fair in the forest. As a result, the area became known as "Fair" followed by "lop" referring to the tree flourishing after part of it was used to make Daniel Day's coffin after he died in 1767. A Society of Archers - The Hainault Foresters - under the patronage of the Earl Tylney of Wanstead House met under the Fairlop Oak. A legend has it that Queen Anne visited Fairlop during the fair. One of the songs sung at the fair was called "Come, come, my boys", in which one verse states: In June 1805, the oak tree caught fire, and by 1820 it was finally blown down. Its site is marked roughly at the boat house by the lake at Fairlop Waters. In nearby Fullwell Cross is a pub called the New Fairlop Oak. In 1851, the local people complained so bitterly about the depredations caused by the local deer that the trees which had surrounded the great oak were all felled and the adjoining parts of the forest were converted into farmland. In 1903 a station at Fairlop was opened on a new loop line that formed part of the Great Eastern Railway. In 1948 the line was taken over by the London Underground as part of the eastward extension of the Central line and the station became Fairlop Underground station.
Demography
According to the 2011 census in Fairlop ward, the population was 65% white. 9% is Indian and 6% Other Asian.
Transport
Fairlop station was served by the Great Eastern Railway from its opening in 1903 until 1923, by the London and North Eastern Railway from 1923 until 1947 and has been by the London Underground's Central line since 1948. Forest Road, the area's main road, did not have a bus service until route 462 was extended from Hainault to Fairlop in June 2016.
