Raphael park

Raphael Park (pronounced "Ra-fai-el”) is a public park in Gidea Park, Romford, in the London Borough of Havering, United Kingdom. It is one of a series of parks stretching northwards from the railway line between Romford and Gidea Park. The southern entrance to Raphael Park is on Main Road, formerly called Hare Street, and the northern entrance is just south of the A12 Eastern Avenue.

Romford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Andrew Rosindell, a Conservative. It was created in 1885 and was subject to significant changes in boundaries in 1918 and 1945. It initially covered a huge swathe of what is now East London, with parts of the constituency progressively removed as they experienced significant increases in population as London expanded.

Gidea Hall was a manor house in Gidea Park, the historic parish and Royal liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, whose former area today is part of the north-eastern extremity of Greater London.The first record of Gidea Hall is in 1250, and by 1410 it was in the hands on one Robert Chichele. In 1452 Sir Thomas Cooke (c.1410-1478), a Lord Mayor of London, bought the estate and in 1466 was granted a licence to crenellate, which is a licence for the manor house to be fortified.

Romford Garden Suburb (otherwise known as the Gidea Park Exhibition Estate), is a late-Edwardian housing development in Gidea Park, in the London Borough of Havering. The object of the new suburb, which was built on land belonging to Gidea Hall, then occupied by the Liberal politician Herbert Raphael, was, according to his parliamentary colleague John Burns, to "provide families with a well-built, modern home regardless of class or status" and "to bring the towns into the country and the country into the towns".