Barking and District Historical Society

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Workhouse

Pictures > Barking > Barking S-Z

The Barking Workhouse Act was passed in 1786 and the building constructed in 1788 in North Street at a cost of £4,000.  On the pediment was the following inscription:

"This House of Industry at the Sole Expence of the Inhabitants of Barking is to provide and protect the Industrious and to Punish the Idle and Wicked"

This latin inscription was salvaged when the workhouse was demolished and is now displayed in the kitchen  garden in Eastbury House.

Alfred Bennett Bamford painting a watercolour of the workhouse in 1905.

 
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