The term 'Upton Park' first applied to a housing estate developed to the east of West Ham Park in the 1880s.[1] The estate took its name from the adjacent village of Upton with the suffix 'Park' added for marketing reasons. The estate's developers paid for a new station to be built which was named after the estate. Consequently, the area surrounding the station became known as Upton Park rather than the term being limited to the original housing estate.
The southern end of Green Street runs alongside the western edge of the former Boleyn Ground, the original home ground of West Ham United FC. The club initially rented the land from Green Street House, known locally as Boleyn Castle because of its imposing nature and an association with Anne Boleyn. The football stadium was commonly known as Upton Park. After the 2015–16 season, West Ham relocated to the former Olympic Stadium in Stratford and the Boleyn Ground has now been demolished.
Upton Park F.C was founded in 1866, and is believed to have folded for the second and last time around 1911, while West Ham United were founded as Thames Ironworks F.C. in 1895, before reforming as West Ham in 1900, playing their first games at Upton Park, the Boleyn Ground, from 1904.
On the road network, Green Street itself runs on a north–south axis, linking the A118 Romford Road in the north and the A124 Barking Road in the south, both major arterial routes linking central London to the eastern counties.
Retail
Many shops in the area cater for east London's large Asian community. Queens Road Market is a covered food and clothing market on Queens Road, off Green Street near the tube station. It was formerly a large open-air street market until the current structure was built in the 1980s.
Green Street is a former tramway which divided the former Essex County Boroughs of East Ham and West Ham.
The Upton Park area is in the London Borough of Newham, but it is not the name of any of its electoral wards. It is roughly encompassed by the wards Green Street East/West in the north, and Plaistow North/South and Boleyn in the south.[3]
Notable people
Elliott Seabrooke (1886–1950), British landscape and still-life painter, born in Upton Park.[4]