Becontree, the site of the new L.C.C. building estate, which the King hopes shortly to visit, takes its name from a beacon which stood on the Windmill Hill at Woodford, a few miles away. Marauding Danes found the Thames a convenient means of access to the villages on the outskirts of London, and the beacon, the only one of such warnings so close to London, was a very necessary precaution.
Becontree is mentioned as a “beacon” name in The Old Straight Track, page 115.