The meaning of the name Warley is uncertain. The
-ley element means a glade or clearing in a wood. The first element may indicate a weir, or may come from
waer, a
Saxon term for a treaty. The
Domesday Book of 1086 lists three estates or
manors at a
vill called
Wareleia in the
Hundred of Chafford in Essex. The Domesday Book itself does not otherwise distinguish between the names of the three Warley manors. The manor owned by
Barking Abbey became known as Warley Abbess. The manor owned in 1086 by Swein later became known as Warley Franks, after being owned by two men called Frank in the 13th century. The manor owned by the
Bishop of London became known as Little Warley. The Warley area became the two
parishes of
Little Warley, covering that manor, and Great Warley, covering the two manors of Warley Abbess and Warley Franks. The parish of Great Warley was also sometimes called Warley Magna, Warley Wallet, or West Warley. Great Warley's original parish church, dedicated to St Mary, stood towards the southern end of the parish, south of the modern
A127 road. The church immediately adjoined Great Warley Hall, the
manor house of Warley Abbess. The first recorded rector was John le Norreis in 1247. The ancient parish of Great Warley was seven miles north to south but only one mile across at its widest part, and was separated from
Little Warley in the east by a stream that passes through Bulphan Fen on its way to the Thames. Great Warley Common at one time ran from the village and connected with the outskirts of Brentwood, as shown by Chapman and André's 1777
Map of Essex. By 1876, 1,416 people lived in the parish, of which 1,004 were in the new church parish of Christ Church. This area was a suburb of Brentwood, which became known just as
Warley to distinguish it from the villages of Great Warley and Little Warley, which two civil parishes it straddled. From 1872, poor law unions formed the basis for
rural sanitary districts which took on public health and local government functions for rural areas, administered by the existing
board of guardians of the poor law union. The
Local Government Act 1894 converted rural sanitary districts into
rural districts with elected councils and also established elected
parish councils. Great Warley was therefore given a parish council and included in the
Romford Rural District. At this time, the parish covered an area of . In 1901 it had a population of 1,900. In 1934, a
County Review Order abolished the Romford Rural District and split the civil parish of Great Warley. The northern , covering the village itself, the Warley suburb of Brentwood, and the surrounding more wooded landscape on higher ground, was transferred to the parish and
urban district of Brentwood. The remainder, covering the more low-lying area of open farmland including the area around Great Warley Hall and the site of the original parish church, was transferred to
Hornchurch Urban District. The part transferred to Hornchurch continued to form a civil parish called Great Warley despite no longer including the village itself, but after 1934 it was classed as an
urban parish and so was ineligible to have a parish council. The civil parish of Great Warley was abolished in 1965 when Hornchurch Urban District was abolished and its area became part of the new
London Borough of Havering in Greater London. In 1993, the boundary between Brentwood and Havering was locally realigned to the
M25 motorway in the west and the
London, Tilbury and Southend line in the south by the
Essex and Greater London (County and London Borough Boundaries) (No.2) Order 1993. This transferred back to Essex most of the pre-1934 Great Warley civil parish that had been in Greater London. ==Geology==