Living in Barking

Barking is an old town on the River Roding in east London, and one of its most important historic sites is Barking Abbey, founded in the seventh century; its ruins sit beside St Margaret's Church, where Captain James Cook was married. Today the town centre is a busy, practical shopping area with a market, supermarkets, chain stores and a modern town square.

Barking station is a significant transport interchange. The District line and Hammersmith & City line run into central London, c2c services get to Fenchurch Street in about a quarter of an hour, and the Overground runs north-west to Gospel Oak and south to Barking Riverside, a large new development by the Thames with its own station and pier. That combination makes Barking one of the best-connected places in outer east London.

Green space includes Barking Park, with a boating lake and splash park, and Mayesbrook Park and the riverside paths at Barking Riverside. The wider borough contains the Becontree estate, built between the wars as one of the largest public housing estates in the world, and the area has a long working-class history.

Housing ranges from Victorian terraced houses and interwar council houses to new-build apartment blocks near the station and at Barking Riverside, and rents are among the lowest in London. The population is highly diverse, with large African, South Asian and Eastern European communities. Evenings are generally quiet, with limited nightlife and a town centre that can feel rough in places. Barking is for renters who put very low rents, quick trains to the City and extra space first, and who are comfortable with an outer-London, functional town.