Bayeux Tapestry opening - the Havering places named after King Harold

In the week that the 1,000-year-old embroidered cloth opens to the public at the British Museum (September 10) it's timely to recall King Harold's connection to Havering.

The Anglo-Saxon monarch who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 is remembered in two neighbourhoods, a train station, a park, a school and a library.

The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum in London. The tapestry - the woven record of the Norman conquest - has returned to the UK for the first time in almost 1,000 years, on loan from France. (Image: PA)

That's because Harold Godwinson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England, held lands here and a hunting lodge before he was defeated by the French invader William the Conqueror.

The manor of Havering-atte-Bower was reputedly gifted to Harold by his brother-in-law King Edward the Confessor but after Harold was killed it was seized and absorbed into the new Norman royal estates.

Harold Wood station is in an area named after Harold Godwinson who once owned the land the area is built upon. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

It covered woodland and land in the area now occupied by Harold Wood and Harold Hill.

Harold Wood was recorded around 1237 as 'Horalds Wood' which referred to the woodland and hunting land that once belonged to Harold.

It later became part of the ancient parish of Hornchurch, which was located within the equally ancient land of Essex - derived from the Old English Eastseaxe meaning East Saxons.

From 1465 Harold Wood was within the Royal Liberty of Havering, an area granted special privileges for more than four centuries that included freedom from certain taxes and the right to run their own magistrates, gaol and market.

Later Harold Wood came largely under the Hornchurch parish then in 1926, most of the present area became part of Hornchurch Urban District.

Some roads from this era are named after Saxon kings - including Æthelstan and Alfred the Great.

Harold Hill was a post war estate built to ease the pressure on housing in inner London and named after the Anglo-Saxon king who once owned the land. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

The suburb of Harold Hill also took its name from the former monarch and was a housing estate built during the 1940s and 1950s to help reduce shortages in inner London.

Construction was completed in 1958. At that time, the area was in the municipal borough of Romford and the county of Essex but became part of Greater London in 1965.

The first Greater London Council tenant to buy a council house did so in Harold Hill in 1967.

Harold himself was crowned King Harold II on January 6, 1066 after King Edward The Confessor died without an heir.

His claim was immediately challenged by William King of Normandy who said Harold had broken a sacred oath to support his own bid for the throne.

During his brief reign, Harold had to fight off a challenge by the Norwegian army at Stamford Bridge before rushing back to Hastings to take on William.

The tapestry depicts him in several scenes; swearing a solemn oath on holy relics to Duke William of Normandy; being crowned King of England; and near the end of the embroidery he's a figure struck in the eye by an arrow, accompanied by the Latin text "Harold Rex interfectus est" - King Harold is killed.

His death may have changed the course of English history but Harold's name lives on in a corner of east London.