The area lies about 9.5 miles (15.3 km) north-east of Charing Cross.

The name is shown in the Chapman and Andre 1777 map of Essex, and shortly after on an Ordnance Survey map of 1805;[1] the name refers to mineral water wells.

In the 18th century briefly the hamlet was a small spa but by the 1870s the wells had been long neglected and Woodford Wells had become part of a "straggle of hamlets".

[2][3] Among its notable features is the Horse & Well, a 17th-century coaching inn still in operation.

The area became a separate Anglican ecclesiastical parish in 1911 (All Saints Church, Woodford Wells ), with the completion of St Barnabas' Church taking responsibility for the area near Woodford Underground Station.