‘Boleyn’ -a myth charged with Irons emotion

By Sean Whetstone

The word Boleyn is charged with incredible emotion for us Irons …it represents what we are and what we believe in!

The problem is it is based on nothing more than an urban myth and it’s time to put some facts out there and put the record straight.

This is required as the consultation of a possible West Ham crest re-design and retirement of the castle gets underway.

I am offering a short history lesson in which it really is important that we grasp the realities rather than the myths.

Let’s get it clear: the unfortunate Ann Boleyn – whose lost her head at the Tower, and not over Mark Noble or anything West Ham (joke), – never ever visited the castle.

The land on which the Boleyn Ground Stadium is built belonged to the Stratford Longthorne Abbey from 1135, the Abbey existed until the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII in 1538.

It was  land was then given to the King’s Richard Breame who built Green Street House on the estate sometime between 1538 and his death in 1546, 

Anne Boleyn was executed in the Tower of London in 1536 so could never of visited the house during her lifetime.

The confusion is thought to come from another Richard Breame house in Greenwich which it rented to Anne Boleyn’s brother Lord Rochford during the time te King was secretly courting Anne.

The famous castle turrets in the grounds of Green Street House were no more than elaborate garden outbuildings added later to the estate to show statue and power. No-one lived in them and were mainly ornamental. The remaining turret was demolished in 1955.

So it appears the house was neither a castle or connected to Anne Boleyn.

West Ham Supporters don’t cry come on you Castlers or Boleyners they sing of Hammers and Irons.

Of course we hold the name of the stadium in great esteem but truth is there’s no real reason for it!