Valence House Museum facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Valence House Museum |
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Valence House Museum
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| General information | |
| Town or city | Becontree, London |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°33′30″N 0°08′03″E / 51.5583°N 0.1342°E |
Valence House Museum is a special place in Dagenham, London. It is the only old manor house left from five that used to be in the area. This amazing building is made of wood and has a moat (a water-filled ditch) around part of it. You can find it in Valence Park in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Over many years, Valence House has been a grand family home, a town hall, a library, and now it is a museum.
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Discovering Valence House Museum
The museum has cool displays about the history of Barking and Dagenham. You can learn about what life was like, including how people lived in the Becontree Estate after 1945. The museum often has fun events for families and school groups.
Valence House Museum, along with its old records and local history library, closed for a big update in 2007. It got help from the Heritage Lottery Fund to make it even better. The museum reopened in June 2010. The updates included a new, special place to keep old documents and books about the area.
In 2018, the museum hosted an exciting exhibition. It showed restored items from the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation. Ray Harryhausen was famous for making amazing stop-motion creatures for movies. A local man named Alan Friswell helped restore these creatures. This exhibition was a big hit!
Exploring Valence Park
The museum is surrounded by a large park called Valence Park. This park used to be part of the Valence House estate. It covers about 27.82 acres (11.26 km2). The Dagenham Urban District Council bought the land in 1926.
Valence Park is home to one of the Great Trees of London. It is a very old and important Holm oak tree.
A Look Back in Time: History of Valence House
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People first built a house on this spot way back in the 1200s. Robert Dynes owned it in 1280. You can find the names of later owners on the roads around the park today. The name "Valence" comes from a family who lived there in the 1300s. They were Agnes de Valence and her brother Aylmer, Earl of Pembroke. They came from a rich family in France. Their uncle became king of England, which is why they moved here.
In 1475, the estate became owned by the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. They owned it until 1867. Then, it was passed to the Church Commissioners. Later in the 1500s, Timothy Lucye lived at Valence House. He married Susanna, whose father was Henry Fanshawe from a nearby manor called Jenkyns.
Valence House and Local Government
In 1921, the London County Council (LCC) bought Valence House and its land. They wanted to build the large Becontree estate. The house was used as the LCC's main office during this building project.
Later, the Dagenham Urban District Council took over the property. In 1928 and 1929, they made the building bigger. They used it for their offices and as a council meeting place.
Valence House was the town hall until 1937. That's when the new Dagenham Civic Centre was finished. After that, the house became the main library for the area. Today, Valence House is a museum. It also has a new building that holds the Borough Archives and Local Studies Library.
The building was officially recognized as a very important historical building in 1954. It is now a Grade II* listed site.
