Ilford is a large town in East London, England, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Charing Cross.

The town is on the transport corridor between London and coastal Essex, with both the A12 and the central railway station linking the regions.

It split from the parish of Barking in 1888, and, in the 20th century, Ilford significantly expanded and increased in population, becoming a municipal borough in 1926.

As with other manors, the area held by the declined over time, but the parish boundaries based on its former extent remained constant.

The only complete skull of a mammoth discovered in the United Kingdom was unearthed in 1864 close to where Uphall Road is today.

This brought about brickworks, cement works and coal yards to service the new buildings, largely centred on the River Roding.

A number of major businesses have been founded in the town, including the eponymous photographic film and chemicals manufacturer Ilford Photo.

[10] This was founded in 1879 by Alfred H. Harman, a photographer from Peckham, who established the business in a house in Cranbrook Road making gelatino-bromide 'dry' plates.

[9] The radio, electronics and telecommunications company Plessey, founded in 1917 in Marylebone, moved to Cottenham Road in Ilford early in 1919 and then to Vicarage Lane where it became one of the largest manufacturers in its field.

During World War II, the factory was heavily damaged by bombing and the company carried out much of its manufacture, with 2,000 workers servicing a production line, located in the underground railway tunnel between Wanstead and Gants Hill.

[2] BAL-AMi Jukeboxes were manufactured at 290–296 High Road, Ilford, during the 1950s, which also served as the headquarters of the Balfour (Marine) Engineering company.

By 1653, Ilford was a compact village of 50 houses, mostly sited north and south of the current Broadway[2] and the area was distinctly rural.

2,500 houses of the vast Becontree Estate, built by the London County Council from 1921, were within the boundaries of Ilford; the addition caused a rise in population of 11,600 by 1926.

He worked in a workshop on the roof of the Plessey premises in Ley Street, which has long since been demolished to make way for new housing.

In 1922, Ilford became notorious for being the site of the Thompson-Bywaters case, a cause celebre in the United Kingdom that later influenced the debate around capital punishment in the UK.

During World War II an Ilford man lost his life when his Royal Air Force training aircraft crashed in the United States.

[17] As of 2020, Ilford has 145,860 square metres (1,570,000 sq ft) of total town centre floorspace, the tenth highest in Greater London and noticeably lower compared to Stratford and Romford.

[18] The town is bounded in the west by the North Circular Road, Manor Park and the River Roding, with Chadwell Heath and Romford to the east and Barking to the South.

Climate data for Ilford is taken from the nearest weather station at Greenwich, around 6 miles (9.7 km) south south west of the railway station: The entire town of Ilford is also made up of its neighbourhoods Aldborough Hatch, Barkingside, Clayhall, Cranbrook, Fairlop, Fullwell Cross, Loxford, Gants Hill, Goodmayes, Newbury Park, Redbridge, Hainault, Little Heath and Seven Kings.

It approximates to 11 electoral wards, and the total population counted 168,168 people in the 2011 census, compared to 303,858 for the borough of Redbridge as a whole.

[27] The large South Asian community in Ilford speak a variety of languages, including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

A traction maintenance depot for electric multiple units is situated in Ilford, which maintains many Greater Anglia and London Overground trains.

London Underground's Central line is to the north of Ilford, with Redbridge, Gants Hill, Newbury Park, Barkingside and Fairlop nearby.

The A123 runs north-south through the town, with direct connections to Gants Hill and Chigwell northbound, and Barking southbound.

[38] Cycleway 16 passes to the north of Ilford, providing a direct cycle connection between the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at Stratford and Barkingside.

It begins in Ilford and runs unbroken to Roding Valley tube station near Buckhurst Hill, Essex.

[40] Levertov's Russian father, born a Hassidic Jew but converted to Christianity as a student, settled in Ilford as an Anglican minister.

[42] Whilst Levertov wrote lyrically about Ilford, and in particular Valentines Park, in later life,[43] Raine described it as a "suburban Hades".

The choir meets to rehearse at the church each Tuesday evening during term-time and aims to give three concerts per year.

South Park is one of the largest open spaces in the London Borough of Redbridge and has been awarded Green Flag status.