Welcome to the Hounslow & District History Society website.
‘…& DISTRICT…’ shows that The Hounslow & District History Society is interested in more than just the history of the town of Hounslow and its great and ancient heath, which was once the haunt of highwaymen, the campsite of armies and the site of gunpowder mills. Six villages with origins in Anglo-Saxon times grew up on the borders of Hounslow Heath. And the hamlet of Osterley is known for its beautiful park and its great house, rebuilt by Robert Adam, from 1762. These now fall within the London Borough of Hounslow and together make up a district with a thousand stories to research, to tell and re-tell. The Hounslow & District History Society has been doing this since 1960.
BEDFONT, where St. Mary’s Church on the village green, with its peacock topiary, is the prettiest in the district. Its 12th century chancel arch is the oldest standing masonry work in the borough.
CRANFORD retains its little ‘village cage’, once used to lock-up beggars, drunkards and thieves until their appearance before a magistrate.
FELTHAM stood at the heart of A W Smith’s market gardening ’empire’ (c.1890-1925). The sale of his produce at Covent Garden market provided untold thousands of Londoners with fresh fruit and vegetables. St. Dunstan’s churchyard includes the grave of William Ryland, an engraver to King George III, who was executed for forgery at Tyburn, in 1793.
HANWORTH was the site of a Tudor palace where the young Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth lived with her step-mother, Katherine Parr, in 1547. Hanworth Park House dates from around 1820. Its surrounding parkland was converted into an airfield in 1916-17 by Whitehead Aircraft, who built fighting scouts and light bombers. Hanworth Air Park hosted two visits by the Graf Zeppelin airship, in 1931 and 1932 and, under the ownership of General Aircraft, gave valuable service to the country during World War II.
HESTON. The botanist and naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, lived at Spring Grove, in the parish of Heston. On his death, in 1820, this modest man was buried in Heston churchyard, in an unmarked grave. A plaque was later placed in the church in his memory.
ISLEWORTH. A riverside village whose wharves – the furthest up the tidal Thames – remained in use until the early 1970s. Access, by river, to London and Westminster attracted noblemen and the wealthy to build large houses there. Some endowed almshouses for poor residents. Ingram’s almshouses date from 1664 and still stand, in Mill Platt. The Duke of Northumberland’s Syon House and Park stand at the ‘Brentford End’ of the parish of Isleworth. Heston and Isleworth churches have distinctive 14th century ragstone towers.
OSTERLEY’s great house was once the home of Sir Thomas Gresham, Chancellor to Elizabeth I. The Queen was so impressed by the quality of the bread, when she visited him, that she ordered the local flour, from Heston Mill, to be supplied to the court at Westminster.
And HOUNSLOW: the town dates from around the year 1200; from Tudor times the Bath Road and the Exeter Road, two of England’s most important highways, came together at Hounslow to form the Great Western Road into London. In the golden age of stage coaching, the small town of Hounslow was the busiest posting and stabling centre in the country. But, in the 1840s, the building of railways proved to be the ruin of Hounslow, and the making of Feltham. The twentieth century saw the, long overdue, building of Brentford’s by-pass road – The A4 Great West Road, opened by King George V in 1925. In 1965 the M4 South Wales Motorway was completed, through Brentford, on an elevated concrete deck. The district became built-up, industrialized and urbanized.
Why not join the Hounslow & District History Society and discover more about this diverse and historic borough, and the people that have lived here? The society offers a wide-ranging programme of illustrated talks on the last Tuesday of each month, between September and April (excluding December). Members also receive the society’s twice-yearly journal: The Honeslaw Chronicle. Articles based upon original research, or a fresh telling of an old tale, are welcomed by the editor. Single membership costs £15.00 per year; household membership is £22.00 per year. A concessionary rate of £10.00 per year is available for members unable to attend meetings of the society who wish to receive its journals.
Please contact: The Membership Secretary, Mr. James Marshall; ajmarshall54@gmail.com