The first mention of Buckhurst Hill is in 1135, when reference was made to La Bocherste, becoming in later yearsBucket Hill, originally meaning a hill covered with beech trees. It lay in Epping Forest and consisted of only a few scattered houses along the ancient road from Woodford to Loughton.
Before the building of the railways, Buckhurst Hill was on the stagecoach route between London and Cambridge, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Dunmow.
Originally Buckhurst Hill was a part of the parish of Chigwell. There was no road connecting the two communities and in order to get to church, parishioners had to ford the River Roding at Woodford. The Parish Church of St John was built in 1838 as a chapel of ease but Buckhurst Hill did not become a separate ecclesiastical parish until 1867.
St John’s National School was built in 1838. The lord of the manor gave a site next to the church. The building cost £209, most of which was donated by the church congregation.
Buckhurst Hill station opened on 22 August 1856 as part of the Eastern Counties Railway branch from London to Loughton. The 1856 station house survives to the south of the present platforms, but most of the present station dates from 1892, when the entrance was moved to Victoria Road.
The station was transferred to London Underground ownership as part of the New Works Programme, 1935-1940 scheme that saw the electrification of the branch to form part of the Central line. This occurred on 21 November 1948.
The 1856 opening of Buckhurst Hill station saw a rapid expansion in the population of the area; nearly six hundred new houses had been built near the station by 1871, leading to the opening of the Prince’s Road school in 1872. Some of the land for this expansion was enclosed from Epping Forest, before this practice was halted by the Epping Forest Act of 1878.
