To celebrate the opening of Made in Dagenham, we’ve put together Ten Top Things Made in Dagenham:


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The Dagenham Idol – A doll-like wooden creature, some 2 feet long and 4,500 years old, is one of the best Neolithic artefacts in Europe, now resident in the Colchester Castle Museum. It was found on the site of the ASDA and the A13.
Daecca – He it was who gave the place its name. No one knows what he got up to but he was probably the Roman equivalent of a panel beater.
Agnes de Valence – Murdered and thrown into a moat in the 14th century: according to legend her ghost still haunts Valence House, the only olde manor house left in Dagenham.
Ever Ready – Before Duracell came along with their flashy rabbit-drummers, this Dagenham firm was the battery brand on evereadybody’s lips.
Ford Cortina – Britain’s most famous car throughout the 60s and 70s was made here. It was the Cortina’s seats – Cortina Mark II at the time – that the women in the film stitched together.
Sir Alf Ramsey – The Dagenham-born manager who won the World Cup for England. In the 1990s Terry Venables, another local lad, also managed the national side.
Pete and Dud/Derek and Clive – Peter Cook and Dudley Moore gave the world possibly the funniest double act in recorded history as two Dagenham know-it-all/know-nothings.
Sandie Shaw – One of the faces and voices of the 60s, the singer of There’s Always Something There to Remind Me of You worked at the Ford factory before finding fame.
The Daggers – Dagenham and Redbridge FC – The League One side hold the distinction of coming into being as the result of successive mergers of FOUR clubs – Ilford, Leytonstone, Walthamstow Avenue and Dagenham.
Stacey Solomon – The most likeable of all X Factor contestants and to bring it back full circle, our Stace was offered a part in Made in Dagenham.