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London

Redbridge

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London | Redbridge

The County of London was formed in 1889 from parts of the ancient counties of Middlesex, Kent and Surrey, with the City of London remaining an independent body. In 1965 Greater London was formed, taking in the rest of Middlesex (which no longer existed as a county) together with parts of Essex and Hertfordshire and further areas of Kent and Surrey.

Greater London is made up of 13 Inner and 19 Outer London boroughs together with the City of London.

Redbridge once lay in Essex and is today one of the 19 boroughs making up Outer London. It lies on the northeast edge of the capital.

London Boroughs

Actors and Directors

The stage and screen actor Maggie Smith was born in Ilford in 1934. Two Academy Awards for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978) plus recurring roles in the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey meant she remained at the top of her profession in theatre and film for seven decades. She died in London in 2024.

Maggie Smith

Anglo-Saxons and Danes

Anglo-Saxon Kings

Danish Kings

The borough once lay in Essex which once formed the kingdom of the East Saxons, later becoming part of the kingdom of Wessex. The East Saxon kingdom reached from the river Thames in the south (on the other side of which lay the kingdom of Kent) to the river Stour in the north (which separated the kingdom from that of the East Angles).

Writers and Poets

The writer Ruth Rendell was born in South Woodford in 1930 and became best known for her Inspector Wexford crime novels of which she wrote 24 including her (and his) 1964 debut in From Doon with Death.

She also wrote standalone thrillers which were also internationally highly regarded: A Judgement in Stone made into a film by Claude Chabrol in 1995 and Live Flesh filmed by Pedro Almodóvar in 1997.

From 1986 she also wrote psychological suspense novels and due to this change in style published them under the name of Barbara Vine. Ruth Rendell died in London in 2015.

Ruth Rendell