Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Old Ford is an area in the Borough of Tower Hamlets and traditionally considered part of Bow.
Historically, Old Ford was a cluster of houses and a flour mill around the location of the ford, it formed a part of the medieval parish of Stepney, as the name suggests it was an ancient downstream crossing point of the river Lea, which in those days was a wide fast flowing river, the ford was part of a pre Roman route that followed modern day Oxford St, Old St, through Bethnall Green to Old Ford and then across a causeway through the marshes and onto Colchester.
In about 1110,Matilda, wife of Henry 1st was reputedly almost drowned whilst attempting to cross the ford and ordered the building of a three arched stone bridge to be built spanning the river at Bow.
The Old Ford continued to be well used and the mill prospered but by the middle ages the population centre had shifted towards Bow.