Mucking is a hamlet and former Church of England parish and civil parish adjoining the Thames Estuary in the Thurrock unitary authority area, in southern Essex, England. It is located approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the town of Stanford-le-Hope. In 1931 the civil parish had a population of 498.

Mucking was “a particularly extensive Anglo-Saxon settlement, of at least 100+ people, commanding an important strategic position in the Lower Thames region; it may have functioned as a meeting place and mart for surrounding areas on both sides of the Thames”. Its name is of Saxon origin and indicates human settlement here for well over a millennium. The meaning is usually given as ‘the family (or followers) of Mucca’ (Mucca most likely being a local chieftain). However, Margaret Gelling has suggested alternative interpretations – ‘Mucca’s place’ or ‘Mucca’s stream’. Mucking’s geographical location on flat marshland at the very mouth of the River Thames indicates that settlement in the area by Germanic invaders from the continent probably occurred at a relatively early date; indeed, an outline of a now abandoned nearby Saxon village, West Mucking, was discovered from aerial photographs in the 20th century. Mucking was host to a small iron smelting industry because of its workable deposits of iron ore. Spongy iron blooms were produced and had their impurities worked out by a process known as ‘Mucking’. It is not known if this process is connected to the village name or a coincidence.