Pyrgo Park

[3] The modern form was recognisable as Pergo Park in 1805,[4] but Pirgo, Purgo and Pyrgo are all variants found.

Providing a pleasing position on a gentle ridge barely twenty easy miles from London with wide views westwards, the Havering area had more than six centuries of association with royalty.

King Edward the Confessor (1003-1066) is said to have been disturbed there at his devotions by nightingales and prayed successfully for their banishment from Havering Park, this legend being first recorded by William Camden in his Remaines.

[citation needed] The King summoned his estranged daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to his new country house at Pirgo in 1542, and being pleased with them he made the decision to restore them to the succession to the Throne.

[9] Neither Edward VI or Mary visited Pyrgo after their accession to the throne[10] and on 24 April 1559, only a few months into her reign, Queen Elizabeth gave the manor with its royal residence to her second cousin Lord John Grey, uncle of Lady Jane Grey and only surviving son of the 2nd Marquess of Dorset in response to his plea of poverty.

The site, on which terracing of the gardens was still visible after World War I, was northwest of the surviving farm buildings and was partly excavated in 1972.