Debden takes its name from the ancient manor of Debden, which lay at its northern end. The name (Deppendana in the Domesday Book of 1086) is derived from the Old English dep, ’deep’ and den, ’valley’.
Debden originated as a manor of 40 acres in the Ongar hundred of Essex. The manor became the property of Waltham Abbey in 1086. By about 1254 the manor of Loughton had absorbed Debden. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 the manor passed to the king and later to private owners.
In 1944 John Maitland sold 644 acres of land to the London County Council for the building of a housing estate. The Debden Estate was constructed between 1947 and 1952.
Debden station on the London Underground is a renaming (1949) of the Chigwell Lane railway station, which was originally opened on the Great Eastern Railway in 1865.
The area is predominantly residential, but is also the location of Epping Forest College and the De La Rue printing works.
