A pricey residential district situated north-east of Hornchurch. In 1895 William Carter, of Parkstone, Dorset, bought twenty acres of Nelmes Manor and Lee Garden Manor to build ‘country villas for city gentlemen’. Carter put up a wide variety of dwellings, from bungalows to family houses with accommodation for servants, and named the estate after his eldest son, Emerson. Other developers added their own estates, such as Haynes Park and Great and Little Nelmes, but the original name has come to apply to the whole neighbourhood. It is now completely built over, with cul-de-sacs jutting into what were once the gardens of larger properties. Over 91 per cent of homes in Emerson Park are owner-occupied and a similar proportion of residents are white, although the district also has one of the borough’s larger communities of Indian heritage. At an average 6.2 rooms per household, residents have much more space than most other Londoners and almost half the households have two or more cars. The well-regarded Emerson Park school is on the eastern edge of the district, beside the Ingrebourne River.