ESSEX RIVERS AND THEIR NAMES. 287
long been known as the Bourne, which means simply "the River"
(from the O.E. burn or burna, running water). Just above Rom-
ford, it is often called the Rom—a very-modern back-formation,
unknown until the last fifty years or so, though it now appears
on the Ordnance Maps. It is obviously taken from the name
of the town of Romford, which has grown up at the Rom-ford32
by which the great Roman road crosses the river in question.
The name Beam, which is applied to the river below Romford,
is ancient, but is less easy to explain. It is taken apparently
from a wooden bridge, called formerly a "beam,"33 which
spanned the lower portion of the stream as mentioned here-
after.34
We hear of this river, as forming part of the eastern boundary
of the Forest of Essex, in a Perambulation of that Forest made on
14th February 29th Edward I. (1301).35 Therein, the boundary
is declared to run along the King's Highway from Ilford to
Hornchurch to a certain water called "Wythedenbroke "36
(clearly the tiny streamlet just east of Becontree Heath) and
then on to another stream called—
"la Borne [that is, the Bourne]; which water runs down
"from a certain spring called Haveringwelle37 as far as a
"certain place called Dakenhambeem,38 and from that place
"by a certain ditch called Maredike,39 between Havering
"[Liberty] and Dakenham, as far as the line of the water of
"the Thames."
(7)—The Ingrebourne (length about 11 miles) rises in
Havering, little more than a mile from the preceding, and
flows southward, entering the Thames at Rainham. Throughout
its entire course, except the first mile or so, it forms a boundary
between parishes, separating, first, Romford from South Weald,
and then (south of the Roman road) Hornchurch from Upminster
and Rainham.
32 Probably from O.E. rum, roomy or spacious.
33 See below and post, p. 288.
34 Prof. Boulger (op. cit., p. 81) calls this river the "Pym," but on what authority I know
not. There was a "Pynvbridge" over the river in 1641 (see Fisher's Forest of Essex, p. 402:
1887). Possibly Pym is a corruption of Beam.
35 See ante, p. 283.
36 That is the brook (broke) of the valley (dene) filled with willows (wythes)—a description
which suits it perfectly even to-day.
37 Still so called.
38 This term clearly means Dagenham Bridge and comes from O.E. beam, a tree; for a bridge
was, in those days, generally made of one or more trees. It was, no doubt, the bridge by which
the road from Dagenham to Rainham crosses the stream, at the existing Beamland Farm.
39 Not the stream, further east, now so called, but another marsh ditch or, more properly,
mere ditch (from O.E. mere, a mere or marsh and die, a ditch or drain). It is commemorated in
the existing name of Mardyke Farm, close to the left bank of the river at this point and in what
is now Hornchurch parish.