Barking is a suburban town in England, and forms part of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It is 8.8 miles east of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a fishing and agrarian settlement in the county of Essex and formed an ancient parish.
Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Berecingas, meaning either "the settlement of the followers or descendants of a man called Bereca" or "the settlement by the birch trees". In AD 735 the town was Berecingum and was known to mean "dwellers among the birch trees".
Barking was a large ancient parish of 12,307 acres in the Becontree hundred of Essex. It was divided into the wards of Chadwell, Ilford, Ripple and Town. A local board was formed for Town ward in 1882 and it was extended to cover Ripple ward in 1885.