The manorial history of East Ham is interwoven with that of West Ham. Ham is first mentioned in 958, when King Edgar granted to Ealdorman Athelstan of East Anglia 5 mansae there. The bounds of the charter included the whole of East and West Ham. The subsequent descent of Athelstan's estate is not known. In 1086 there were three manors called Ham. One of them, comprising 2 hides held by Westminster Abbey, was undoubtedly in East Ham. Another, held jointly by Robert Gernon and Ranulph Peverel, and comprising 8 hides and 30 a., was wholly or mainly in West Ham. Before the Conquest it had been held by Alestan, a free man. Gernon alone also held a further 7 hides, which before the Conquest had belonged to Levred, a free man. Three virgates which before 1066 had been held by Edwin, a free priest, had been subsequently added to the manor. Another 30 a. belonging to the manor were held in 1086 by a sokeman. The manor was all in demesne except for 40 a. held of Gernon by Ilger. The fee of Robert Gernon thus included a considerable part of both East and West Ham. From it were derived the later manors of East Ham and East Ham Burnells and, in West Ham, the manors of West Ham, Covelee's, Woodgrange, Plaiz, West Ham Burnells, and East West Ham, part of Chobhams and possibly also of Bretts. The ancient vicarage house of West Ham was at the southern end of Vicarage Lane. From the fee of Ranulph Peverel were derived the manor of Sudbury and much of Bretts, through the Owse.
Robert Gernon was still living in 1118, but soon after that date his lands passed to William de Montfitchet. In 1135 William founded the abbey of Stratford Langthorne, in West Ham, endowing it with land there, which became the nucleus of the manor of West Ham. By 1189 his descendant, Richard de Montfitchet, had granted Woodgrange to the abbey. The Montfitchets held the remainder of the fee until 1267. Parts of it were subinfeudated in or before the 12th century. Edmund the Chamberlain, who in 1166 held ? knight's fee of Gilbert de Montfitchet, had land in West Ham, as later did his grandson Richard the Chamberlain. Walter of Windsor held 1½ knight's fee of the Montfitchets in Wormingford, Great Maplestead, and Ham. Between 1186 and 1189, when Windsor's lands were in the king's hands, the annual income from Ham was £2. By 1189 Windsor, like his overlord, had given land in South Marsh to Stratford Abbey. About 1200 Maud of Hesdin, daughter of Walter of Windsor, granted the abbey, for 10s. a year, the land in South Marsh in Ham which Christine her mother gave her in dower. Maud's descendant, Hugh of Hesdin, was still receiving this rent about 1242, when he died. In 1203 Ginda, wife of William de Biskeley, quitclaimed to Stratford Abbey, for £6 13s. 4d., 40 a. land in Ham from her dower in the free tenement of Walter of Windsor, formerly her husband. West Ham, Essex church existed on this site in the late 12th century: on each side of the nave there are three blocked clerestory windows of that period. In the mid 13th century the nave was largely rebuilt and given north and south arcades of five bays.The church of All Saints originated in the 12th century, if not earlier. William de Montfitchet, when he founded Stratford Abbey in 1135, endowed it with, inter alia, land in Ham that had belonged to Ranulph the priest. One is in a charter of Henry II, probably issued between October 1181 and January 1182, confirming to the same abbey the church of West Ham, given by Gilbert de Montfitchet. About the same time Gilbert Foliot (d. 1187), bishop of London, licensed this appropriation and ordained a vicarage.
The advowson of the vicarage of West Ham was apparently not then given to the abbey, but descended with the Montfitchet estates at least until 1254, when Richard de Montfitchet (d. 1267) was listed as the patron. The abbey did, however, acquire it by 1334, and held it until the Dissolution, since when it has been vested in the Crown. The architecture of All Saints church shows that by the 15th century it was of good size, fit for a populous parish near London. During the later Middle Ages there are occasional references to clergy assisting or deputizing for the vicars. During the Middle Ages the parish of All Saints included the whole of West Ham except the precincts of Stratford Abbey, which constituted a separate parish of about 24 a., with its own church of St. Mary and All Saints. The rectory of All Saints also remained with the abbey until the Dissolution. After the Dissolution the rectory was permanently split up.
Richard de Montfitchet, last of his family in the male line, died without issue in 1267. His heirs (subject to the life-interest in dower of his widow Joyce (d. 1274)) were the descendants of his three sisters, Margery de Bolbec, Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale, and Philippa de Plaiz. Aveline de Forz, granddaughter of the countess, and Richard (d. 1269) son of Philippa de Plaiz, each received onethird of the inheritance. The remaining third was shared between the four granddaughters of Margery de Bolbec: Philippa de Lancaster, Margery Corbet (d. 1303), Alice de Huntercombe (d. c. 1284), and Maud de la Val (d. 1281). Alice and Maud died without issue. After the deaths of their husbands, Walter de Huntercombe (1313) and Hugh de la Val (1302), their shares seem to have been divided between their sisters' heirs. Aveline de Forz, who married Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III, was also childless, and when she died in 1274 her share was assigned to Philippa de Lancaster.The churches of Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire and Lamarsh were granted to it, but the grants do not appear to have taken effect in 1291. The temporalities of the priory amounted in 1291 to £49 4s. 9d. yearly, of which £10 17s. 6d. came from White Colne, £10 12s. 7½d. from Monk's Colne, sums of over £1 from Great Bentley, Halstead, Aythorpe Roding, Sudbury, Ashingdon, Aldham, Beauchamp William, Alphamstone, Great Tey and Sible Hedingham, and the remainder from nearly twenty other places. The 3 bells in the church c. 1548 were later 'exchanged' with those of Earls Colne.
The eventual result of this sequence of events was the division of the Montfitchet fee in East and West Ham into three unequal parts. The inheritance of Richard de Plaiz became the manor of Plaiz, while that of Margery Corbet became the manors of East and West Ham Burnells. The share of Philippa de Lancaster became the manor of EAST HAM or EAST HAM HALL. This lay mainly in the south of the parish; the manor-house adjoined the church to the north-east, and the lords of the manor originally held the advowson of East Ham. The name was first applied to the main part of Philippa's holding which passed to her on the death of Aveline de Forz. Philippa's lands were held in her right by her husband Roger de Lancaster until his death in 1291. She herself died in 1294 holding East Ham manor in chief for ¼ knight's fee. It was then some 200 a. in area. Her son and heir John de Lancaster inherited further properties in East Ham and West Ham after the deaths of Hugh de la Val and Walter de Huntercombe.
In 1306 John de Lancaster granted to Stratford Langthorne Abbey, in free alms, 2 a. land in East Ham, with the advowson. This seems to have been the first step in a process, continuing until 1338, by which the abbey acquired the whole manor from Lancaster and his tenants. In May 1317 Lancaster granted the monks a further 40 a., and in 1319 he conveyed to them the reversion of the manor, after his death and that of Annora his wife. Even before those grants, however, Stratford was holding the manor, for in April 1317 it was said to be on lease from the abbey to Terry of Almain. In 1313 Thomas de Pernestede had granted the abbey a messuage and 100 a. land in East Ham, not held in chief, and it is likely that he was a sub-tenant of John de Lancaster. In or before 1317–19 the abbey also acquired lands belonging to Walter of Yarmouth, at least some of which had been held of John de Lancaster. Yarmouth's estate, comprising about 100 a. in West Ham and 50 a. in East Ham, can be traced back to 1248, when it was granted by Ralph Fitz Urse to John de Middleton and Maud his wife. In 1278–9 Middleton conveyed it to Sir William de Monterville, in return for corrodies for himself, his son Thomas, and Thomas's wife. Monterville conveyed it in 1285 to Walter of Windsor, who granted it in 1290 to Adam, son of William of Lincoln of Great Yarmouth. Adam, who later used the surname of Yarmouth, was still alive in 1308, but by 1314 had apparently been succeeded by Walter of Yarmouth. The abbey seems to have acquired only Yarmouth's East Ham lands; his West Ham lands became part of the manor of Chobhams.
John de Lancaster died in 1334 and his wife Annora in 1338. On her death the abbot assumed full control over the manor. He appears to have done so without due process in Chancery, and in 1373 one of his successors was fined £20 for that trespass. In 1342–3 East Ham Hall was valued at 40 marks. It was probably the ¼ knight's fee for which the abbot answered in 1346. In 1343–4 the abbey also acquired from Peter de Chaumbre a a tenement in East Ham worth £5.
At its dissolution in 1538 the abbey was holding East Ham manor, farmed at £20 18s. 10d., and other lands in the parish, farmed at £35 10s. 2d. In 1544 the king granted the manor with other lands to his servant Richard Breame. In 1545 Breame was licensed to alienate certain marshlands in East Ham. He died in 1546 holding East Ham manor, together with Stonehall in Ilford. East Ham descended, like Stonehall, to his infant son Edward (d. 1558) and subsequently to Edward's brother Arthur. Arthur Breame sold Stonehall, but retained East Ham, which appears to have descended at his death in 1602 to his son Giles who made a conveyance of the manor in 1607. Giles, who died in 1621, left most of his estate to be sold for the building and endowment of alms-houses in East Ham, naming as executor his kinsman Sir Giles Allington. In 1632 Allington sold the manor to Sara, Lady Kempe, widow.Lady Kempe appears to have suffered sequestration as a Papist recusant in 1643. She was succeeded by (Sir) Thomas Draper (Bt.), her son by her first marriage, who was holding East Ham by 1650, and died in 1703. Draper's daughter and heir Mary carried the manor in marriage to John Baber. In 1764 Mary's son Thomas Draper Baber sold East Ham to John Henniker (d. 1803), who in 1781 succeeded to a baronetcy, and in 1800 became Baron Henniker in the Irish peerage. The manor descended with the peerage until the middle of the 19th century. The East Ham Hall estate, as mapped in 1764, c. 1775, and 1829, comprised about 400 a. in the centre and east of the parish. In 1839, however, the Hennikers held only some 250 a. in East Ham, and during the next 40 or 50 years this also seems to have been sold.
All Saints was subject to an annual pension of £3 to Hatfield Peverel priory in lieu of tithes; this, although not mentioned before the 16th century, may have dated from c. 1100, since the founders of the priory, the Peverels, were the lords of Sudbury in West Ham. The rich benefice of St. Andrew Nether Ham was at least three times the object of papal nomination and was until the later 16th century often held by absentees, among whom were John Sudbury, rector 1417-44, for some of that time beneficed in London and in the service of the bishop there. Bishop's Hatfield.
The first Anglian king of whom we have any record is Ida, who is said to have obtained the throne about 547. Following the disastrous Battle of Hatfield Chase on October 12, 633, in which Edwin was defeated and killed by Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia, Northumbria again was divided into Bernicia and Deira [Westriding]. Bernicia was then briefly ruled by Eanfrith, son of Aethelfrith, but after about a yeare he went to Cadwallon to sue for peace and was killed. Eanfrith's brother Oswald then raised an army and finally defeated Cadwallon at the Battle of Heavenfield in 634; after this victory, he reunited York.
At the battle of Northampton Sir John Ashton in 1471, was knight of the shire in 1472; Pink and Beaven, In the following yeare he was returned as holding the manors of Ashton, Alt, and Moston (or, the other Moston) of the lord of Manchester. Sir Thomas de Hatfield was made a knight at Ripon in August 1487 or relating to his marriage with Agnes, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir James Harrington- of the Duchy of Lancs. At about 1510, relating to the manor of Manchester, of which Sir John Ashton appears to have been a trustee in 1413. In 1422 it was held by Richard Byron and the heirs of Thomas de Hatfield. The name is often spelt Cinderland. Stephen de Bredbury gave to Robert de Byron all his land in Sunderland, a pair of white gloves to be rendered at St. Martin, and 2s. to the chief lords. William Heaton paid 12s. to the lord of Manchester for the manor of Sunderland.
East Ham Hall stood on what was probably an ancient site, but nothing is known of its early history. There is no evidence that it was ever more than a farm-house. It was rebuilt, probably in the earlier 19th century, as a small plain building of two storeys with a frontage of three bays. It was demolished in 1931 or 1932.