Wending Through History

80 Years since the Opening of Heathrow airport

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:26:54 GMT

80 years ago: The Opening of Heathrow airport

On a bright, dry, frosty morning, on a windswept expanse of concrete, a man in homburg hat, made a speech in front of a Lancastrian Starlight airliner. He was Lord Winster, the Minister for Civil Aviation, and he was there, on 1 January 1946, to mark the inaugural flight from the £20million new airport that was being built in West London. Lord Winster told the dignitaries that Heath Row would be the future civil airport of London and it already had the finest runway in the world, “This flight is the first step towards the establishment of swift and regular British air services to South America. Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett and all those flying with him today are truly ambassadors representing the spirit and determination of Britain to play the same leading part in the air as it always has at sea.” [1] The aeroplane, piloted by the Air Vice-Marshal had a crew of six, including Mary Sylvia Guthrie, 24-year-old ex-pilot of the British Air Transport Auxiliary, as the first air hostess. [2] It was flying via Lisbon, Bathurst, Natal (Brazil), Rio de Janerio and Monte Video. The aircraft took off on the 3000 yard runway, but only needed 1000 yards before it was airborne. It was also the day that the airport, built on land requisition by the Air Ministry for wartime use, was officially handed over to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. It had never been used by the R.A.F. although the runways had been built in the triangular pattern favoured by the R.A.F. It was soon pointed out by Airline officials that 100-ton airliners would not be able to use the airport with this runway configuration if the wind was north or south. The current arrangement would only be suitable for small aircraft which can land in a cross-wind. [3]

[1] Halifax Evening Courier - Tuesday 01 January 1946

[2] Illustrated London News - Saturday 12 January 1946

[3] Daily Express - Wednesday 02 January 1946

On 25 March 1946, Lord Winster took a party of M.P.s, Peers, the Press, and Foreign attaches, to Heath Row to show them the facilities. At luncheon he announced that the airport would, from now on, be called the “London Airport”, as it was considered that the name “Heathrow” would be “a difficult word for many foreigners”. [1] This decision was reversed in 1966. He said that when the airport is in full service it would be able to deal with 160 aircraft an hour in good weather. The first three runways would be completed by summer and when finished the airport would be one of the largest and best equipped in the world. He went on to say that London Airport is the greatest engineering enterprise ever undertaken, and although the buildings do not afford the entry into the United Kingdom that we should like, they will improve as time goes on. [2] Work had already started on acquiring land for extending the airport to the north of the Bath Road which would involve the destruction of Sipson and Harlington villages, although, he said, work on building these three new runways would not begin until after 1950 and no demolition will take place before then. [3] This expansion plan was dropped because of cost, but the spectre of airport expansion has hung over the residents ever since.

The airport was far from finished. After eighteen months of construction there was only one completed 3000 yard runway. At this time two million tons of earth had been excavated; 36,000 feet of ducting containing 60 miles of wire laid; 200 lorries, 40 excavators, 50 bulldozers used, as well as elaborate concreting equipment. More than 1000 men were housed and fed on the site. [4] However apart from the runways little else was ready.

One of the first casualties of this “modern” airport was the “Fido” installation at Heath Row. This was an experimental system for dispersing fog on the airfield. [5] It had cost £400,000 in total and was expensive to run and not very successful, so the Minister cancelled the project. [6] Fog became a big problem in the winter at that time of chronic air pollution and the low lying Heathrow land that was a fog pocket. Not only that, but with the land almost at sea-level the water-table was close to the surface, and was frequently water-logged.

The official opening of the airport to international aircraft took place on 31 May, when a BOAC Lancastrian arrived from Australia. It was two hours ahead of schedule, having completed the 12000 mile journey from Sydney in 63.25 hours. [7] Then a Pan-American Airways Constellation landed from New York. The flight took 14 hours with stops in Newfoundland and Shannon. The planes had landed in heavy rain and strong winds and the passengers had a dreary welcome. They had to walk on duck boards to reach the tented reception hall and customs house which were deep in mud from the recent rains. [8]

[1] Yorkshire Evening Post - Monday 25 March 1946

[2] Belfast News-Letter - Tuesday 06 April 1948

[3] Daily News (London) - Tuesday 26 March 1946

[4] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 04 January 1946

[5] Daily Express - Thursday 31 January 1946

[6] Dundee Evening Telegraph - Friday 20 December 1946

[7] Illustrated London News - Saturday 08 June 1946

[8] The Sphere - Saturday 29 June 1946

Only the Americans airlines were able to make the transatlantic flights because at that time Britain did not have planes capable of making the crossing with a payload of passengers. Lord Winster silenced the critics with assurances that the prospects were rosy and that although the Americans have their Constellations, Britain is developing its own long-range air transport. [1] He was referring to the development of jet aircraft.

While Lord Winster was defending Britain’s aircraft development he also had to deal with ground-level protests about the airport expansion plans. Local councils, from around the airport, sent a deputation to see Lord Winster on 11 April 1946, but they received no satisfactory outcome. [2] They had submitted a number of amendments to the new Civil Aviation Bill in the interests of the inhabitants of their areas, to mitigate the disturbance any new construction would cause. The Bill allowed for diversion of highways, construction of drainage and utilities, and demolition of houses for which the occupiers would only get the value at 1939 prices plus 30 per cent – not enough to find similar accommodation at the current house prices. The local residents, even without the airport’s expansion plans, were finding their voice. They also started to protest about aircraft noise. [3]

By September, with the increase in air traffic, there were worries about the inadequacy of radar at both Heathrow and Northolt airports, and the risk of accidents. The landing and take-off circuits at both airports, overlapped, and, as winter approached, concerns are being raised about the danger of poor visibility. The week before representatives from 37 countries, with 300 delegates, had met in London for a conference to discuss adopting international standards and common practice for radar technology. Britain’s radar pioneer, Sir Robert Watson Watt, estimated it will be two years before an international decision can be reached on standards for equipment, and a start made to install radar equipment on the ground at all international airports. At the conference the Government were keen to show the range of defensive radar equipment Britain had developed during the war, but delegates were astonished to learn that no civil airport in Britain had radar equipment. It was admitted that the Ministry of Supply and the R.A.F. could make this equipment available at the two London airports, but there had been no official explanation as to why this had not happened. It seems that although radar was developed as a means of defence, they were slow to recognise it had a new role in air safety. [4]

More complaints about the conditions at the London Airport were aired by The Sphere journalist in October. The Board of Trade were keen to promote tourism, but as the Sphere magazine pointed out any high-grade visitors will be put off by the conditions at London Airport. The great American composer and songwriter, Irving Berlin had just flown to Britain. His plane was due to land at 11pm, but didn’t arrive until 5am. A group of film executives, producers and music publishers were there to greet him. They had to wait six hours without even being able to get a cup of tea. Simple refreshments like hot drinks and a bun could only be obtained during normal hours. The airport had no drinks licence, and even some of the technical systems were primitive. The runway lights had to be switched on by a man and a bicycle going out to the runway to switch them on. If the wind changed and another runway was to be used then he had to repeat the time-consuming trip to change the lighting. Hangers had started to be erected, but they were not large enough for the transatlantic aircraft, and there was no hard standing to park aircraft, they had to be put on unused runways, and if there was a change in wind direction and that runway was needed suddenly, then there was a frantic scramble to tow the aircraft elsewhere. At this time nine major airlines and a few minor ones were using the airport. They did so knowing the airport facilities were primitive. By this time a few of the tents were being replaced by prefabricated single-storey buildings. Brick-built buildings were not expected to be erected for another two years. Critics believed the airport had opened before it was ready, especially as there was only provision for temporary maintenance of the aircraft. The aircraft had to be flown elsewhere for major repairs. [5]

The arrival of a B.O.A.C. Lancastrian plane from Sydney on 23 October 1946 marked the two-hundreth each-way trip on the longest and fasted air route in the world. [6] This achievement was over-shadowed by the fact that development at the airport had been halted by a week-long strike by the construction staff. [7] It was not a good start for the new Minister for Civil Aviation, Lord Nathan, but his troubles continued into the winter when fog was responsible for the cancellation of many flights.

January 1 1946 was a day of many firsts: the transfer of Heath Row airport from the Air Ministry to the Civil Aviation Ministry; the inaugural flight from the new civil airport for London; the resumption of civil flights in the UK post-war; and the day that B.O.A.C European Division took over commercial flights from 110 Wing of Transport Command. [8] It was a day of optimism. Air travel was seen as the future for Britain. It would make use of British engineering skills, boost jobs, and encourage tourism. The future looked bright.

[1] Daily News (London) - Thursday 10 January 1946

[2] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 21 June 1946

[3] Evening News (London) - Saturday 22 June 1946

[4] Daily News (London) - Monday 30 September 1946

[5] The Sphere - Saturday 19 October 1946

[6] Dundee Evening Telegraph - Wednesday 23 October 1946

[7] Gloucestershire Echo - Friday 25 October 1946

[8] Watson, Captain Dacre, BRITISH OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION 1940 – 1950 AND ITS LEGACY, Journal of Aeronautical History, Paper 2013/03. https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4844/british-overseas-airways-corporation-1940-1950-and-its-legacy.pdf

For more historical stories of the area read:

“The Vanishing Village: A Legacy Lost to Heathrow’s Third Runway”

by Wendy Tibbitts

ISBN 978-1-7390822-2-22

The Forge at Longford, Middlesex, is one of 700 buildings threatened by demolition if the third runway is built at Heathrow. This blog tells the stories behind the buildings of Longford.

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:41:06 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Forge

There has been a forge in the village of Longford in Middlesex, for centuries. The Forge building we can see today is not a listed building, but has been preserved because it is part of the street scene in the Longford Conservation Area. This is all that remains of a once larger complex of workshops, barn, house and three cottages

Before industrialisation, the agricultural village community was heavily reliant on the services of the wheelwright and blacksmith. He made the carts and ploughshares, and general repairs to equipment and gate hinges. He also shoed the horses who were the main power source on the farms. However one enterprising blacksmith went further.

In the eighteenth century Thomas Swain was making bells at the Longford forge. Thomas Swain was born in West Bedfont (on Heathrow airport’s southern border) and learned to make bells from Robert Catlin in St Andrew’s Holborn. He inherited the business of his master and moved the foundry to Longford in 1752. The type of bells Swain was making in Longford was called a crotal bell. A small spherical bell made by joining two semi-hemispherical pieces of metal, with an attachment at the top for hanging and a free-moving ball or “pea” enclosed. They were hung in clusters on horses’ harness and usually decorated with a pattern and the maker’s name. Occasionally metal detectorists still find bells with the initials TS which are attributed to him. [1] Later Swain was making large hanging bells for churches in London, Surrey and Sussex. These were made in situ in a large pit dug near the intended church in order to make transportation easier. [2] However Thomas Swain’s home and base was in Longford. The records show that Swain was paying window tax in Longford in 1766 and land tax in 1767. He died in 1782 and was buried in Harmondsworth churchyard on 26 April in an unmarked grave.

While Swain was away making church bells, by 1765 John Heath was the blacksmith and the wheelwright in the forge. He lived, with his wife and three children, in the house attached to the forge and workshop. On the night of 7 March someone broke into the wheelwright’s home, by making a hole in the plaster at the back of the building with a bill-hook, which was left at the scene. The next day John Heath noticed certain items missing from the shop, namely about ten shillings in halfpence and farthings, some worsted stockings, two canisters containing about a quarter of a pound of tea each, and a 30 pound lump of sugar all with a total value of thirty shillings. A 150 yards along the Bath Road from the Forge lived John Sharborn who had a questionable reputation, but John Heath was prepared to think well of people and did not get suspicious until he saw Sharborn in his Sunday best wearing a pair of stockings similar to the stolen ones. Heath obtained a search warrant from the local magistrate and went to Sharborn’s house with the Parish Constable, Matthew East. Mrs Sharborn was at home and stood by while the search took place. They found the stockings and the canisters of tea. John Sharborn was arrested and at his trial at the Old Bailey maintained his defence story of buying goods from a Scotch [sic] pedlar at his door, and produced a bill on which he said the pedlar had written. The Jury did not believe him and found him guilty of felony. He was sentenced to transportation and in September 1765 he was placed on the prison ship Justitia on a journey to Virginia in Colonial America. [3] It is not known what happened to Mrs Sharborn and her two small sons, but if she had no extended family to support her she was probably taken into the workhouse.

John Heath died in August 1782, soon after Thomas Swain. A local landowner, William Godfrey bought the Forge and rented out the whole complex, including three adjacent cottages, several brick-built stables, two orchards, and a meadow, to George Emmett. [4] After William Godfrey’s death in 1827 the business was bought by William Passingham, a wheelwright and Blacksmith in Harmondsworth village, who gave it to his son John to manage. John employed three men and one boy in addition to the family members. He married Ann Piecey and they had five daughters and two sons, John and William. As was the custom at that time the sons were expected to follow their father’s trade. These sons were apprenticed into the business, working with their father, but as the boys got older there was not enough work for all three of them. The eldest son, John, married and moved to Slough, where he and his wife, Harriet, had a total of 14 children only seven of whom survived their childhood. John died in 1917.

His brother William stayed in Longford and in 1890 William was working, and living with his elderly widowed father who was becoming increasingly frail. When his father died in 1892 he was consoled by the close-knit Baptist community around him. Four years later, when William turned 40, he considered that as a successful businessman, and a respected member of the community, it was time to take a wife and maybe raise a family to inherit the business. He was attracted to a young widow who had fallen on hard times and they married in July 1896. Unfortunately for William she had lied about her age and was considerably older than he knew. Also, she was not used to country living and she found it hard to adapt to her new rural life. She began to drink heavily, neglected her household duties and declined in health. Eventually she had a fit and lapsed into a coma. Her husband sent for her father and they agreed that he and her mother should take her home to nurse her. This was the end of the marriage, but it didn’t end without a public scandal as each took the other to court and their marriage was publicly dissected. William couldn’t face the shame and soon after the final court case he said goodbye to the rest of his family and made for Southampton where he boarded a ship for Cape Town. It was a radical step to take, but his chagrin and humiliation left him little choice. Mrs Florence Passingham died in Bethnal House Asylum in 1902. William Passingham died in Cape Town in 1927.

By then Ambrose Cure had bought the wheelwright and blacksmith’s premises and the goodwill of the business, still known as Passingham’s. Ambrose Cure was now in a position to marry, Maude, his sweetheart from London and they settled into the Longford community. However 31-year-old Ambrose Augustus Cure found his skills as a coach-builder were no longer required. The transport industry was in transition and horse-drawn vehicles were being superseded by bicycles and the internal combustion engine. By 1902, Ambrose Cure was selling up the plant and effects of the business to move abroad. ^[5] The couple emigrated to South Africa where he continued his trade as a blacksmith. They returned from Cape Town with their two small children in September 1904, but by the end of 1905 they set sail for Australia and arrived in Sydney after a voyage of 56 days.

It was only after his arrival in Australia that Ambrose Cure decided to sell the freehold of the Longford premises. In June 1906, the property was up for sale. The freehold property consisted of a brick and slated 6-roomed dwelling-house with lean-to greenhouse, timber and tiled tool shed, large barn used as wheelwright’s shop, and farrier’s shop with furnace and large yard; together with 3 cottages adjoining. ^[6] With the proceeds of the sale Ambrose Cure brought a dairy farm in Byron Bay, New South Wales, where he died in November 1955.

In 1908 Mrs M.A. Bateman of Manor Farm, Harmondsworth, bought the Forge workshop complex for £675 which included the three thatched cottages that had been owned by her son-in-law Tom Adams. Tom Adams remained as tenant at the Forge and workshop and in 1913 was paying £15 a year rent on a 21 year lease, and living in Pine House behind the workshop. He lived there for the rest of his life. In January 1938 the three thatched cottages were condemned by the council as unfit for habitation and a clearance order was submitted to the Department of Health. The only form of sanitation for the three cottages were two pail closets. There was a public inquiry and protests from the long-time residents, but the demolitions still went ahead after the residents were given six weeks to vacate. The displaced residents were rehoused on the new council housing estate at Bell Farm in West Drayton.

Tom Adams, as well as being a blacksmith doing repair and bespoke work, was the son of a builder and carpenter, and he could turn his hand to any handyman task required by villagers. When Christopher Challis bought the neglected Weekly house in 1948 as a home for his young family, it was Tom Adams who helped him renovate and conserve the, now, Listed building for us to see today. Thomas William Adams died in 1962.

In 2006 the whole complex of forge buildings were redeveloped. The plan was to demolish all the main buildings, leaving just the small kerbside forge workshop. In the area behind this building were built two residential blocks. One with six studio flats, and one with six one-bedroom flats, and this is what we see today as Blacksmiths Court and Kings Court.

Like the whole village of Longford, (and most of Harmondsworth) this twenty-year-old development is under threat of demolition if the third runway is built at Heathrow airport. However, while the ancient blacksmith’s forge building exists we have a reminder of its contribution to village life over the centuries.

A fuller version of these, and other stories, about Longford appear in my book

“The Vanishing Village: A Legacy Lost to Heathrow’s Third Runway”.

[1] UK Detector Finds Database. http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/crotal-bells.html

[2] https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol2/pp165-168#fnn12

[3] Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 09 January 2021), May 1765, trial of John Sharborn (t17650522-3).

[4] Morning Advertiser – Wednesday 16 May 1827.

[5] Uxbridge and W Drayton Gazette – Saturday 8 Marchg 1902.

[6] Uxbridge and West Drayton Gazette – Saturday 5 May 1906; ibid: Saturday 2 June 1906.

The Legacy Lost to Heathrow's Third Runway

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 17:28:26 GMT

The content of the paperback book and the ebook are the same, only the title and cover design are different.

How Hillingdon Borough celebrated VE day in 1945

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 16:34:04 GMT

How Hillingdon Borough celebrated VE day in 1945

Monday 7th May 1945 was a day of tension and expectation for everyone in the UK. After Hitler’s suicide on 30th April the German surrender was expected at any time, but it was not until the announcement of the signing of the surrender document that anyone could believe that the Second World War was really over. It had been nearly six years of suffering for the British people and everyone held their breath waiting for the news.

All day the people of Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Hayes, the surrounding area, and the world, were waiting. With the announcement of the official end of the war in Europe, there was also a declaration that the following two days would be a Victory in Europe national holiday. Special editions of newspapers were printed and the news spread rapidly by word of mouth. Plans were hastily put in place for spontaneous celebrations, although some had been celebrating from the moment of the announcement. The pubs were allowed to stay open late; restaurants had ‘victory’ menus; bonfires were built; and churches were open for thanksgiving services.

When Monday's rain and thunderstorms had subsided people started putting up red white and blue flags late into the night, and by Tuesday morning nature itself was rejoicing with warm May sunshine to greet revellers in the bunting-decked streets. Queues began to grow early outside bakers, greengrocers and butchers, as both men and women waited to buy supplies for the hastily arranged street parties. Churchill made a radio broadcast at 3pm (British Double Summer Time). The Royal family made eight balcony appearances during the day and at 9pm King George VI broadcast to the Empire.

In Uxbridge there was a thanksgiving service in St Margaret’s, the Parish church, on Tuesday evening. The church was full long before the start of the service and many more people in the Market House and High Street listened to the service over a loud-speaker. Central Hall Methodist Church, and St John’s Parish Church, Hillingdon, also held services. [1] Later in the evening bonfires were lit in streets and around them people danced and sang until the early hours. Anyone with an instrument played and a piano was dragged out of a public house. Street parties were everywhere and later fireworks were let off. A garden in the Crossways was lit by floodlights and in the eastern sky searchlights were seen over the London celebrations.

The Cowley ex-servicemen’s club had a Social with dancing to the club's accordion band. During the interval a short service was conducted by the Rev. R. Boylette Steward and everyone sang the hymn “Abide With Me”. Waitresses in the Express Dairy in Uxbridge had a singalong in the lunch hour and were joined in a dance with lads from the RAF who wore coloured paper hats and rosettes. Someone played popular tunes on a piano and everyone joined in cheers for Mr. Churchill. The Odeon cinema showed a special thanksgiving film made by Rank, and when the lights went up the National Anthem was played followed by cheers.

In Hayes, all the town seemed to be out in the bunting-decorated streets, and in a party mood. In the afternoon the bell-ringers of Harlington Parish church listened to Winston Churchill’s speech in the church and then immediately rung a two-hour victory peal.

At St Mary’s Parish Church in Hayes, Holy Communion was celebrated at 7, 8 and 9 followed by a Sung Eucharist at 11. A Thanksgiving service was held in the evening, by Rev. A.E. Hill and Rev. J.H. Curtis. By the evening small processions, and street bonfires took place on the streets of Hayes. On a piece of bare green opposite the central fire station a small bonfire attracted a large crowd, music was played and there was a party atmosphere. An organised celebration was held on Wednesday in Town (Barra) Hall Park for the children who watched Punch and Judy and an entertainer. There were pony and donkey rides and side-shows, sports and games. In the afternoon the Hayes and Harlington Silver Prize Band and the Botwell Brotherhood Orchestra provided a concert party with plenty of music. At the end of the evening the Silver Band headed a torch-light procession from the park to Botwell Green. There was a similar function at the Pinkwell Recreation Ground.

In West Drayton people were out on the High Street on Monday afternoon buying flags and bunting. As a special concession bunting could be bought without clothing coupons. When the news came that the surrender had been signed, not everyone heard the announcement about a two-day public holiday and some went to work as usual on Tuesday only to return home when they found out. The shops were busy, though, and at the same time shops and pubs were busy decorating their premises. Some pubs were caught out and had to put “No beer” signs out even before opening time. A notice was displayed outside the Town Hall (now the Yiewsley and West Drayton Community Centre) inviting children to a free afternoon at the fair in Yiewsley recreation ground. In Drayton Gardens a spontaneous procession was formed, led by a cornet player, who marched around the estate. The procession started with two people and as more people joined there were 400 people dancing down to the West Drayton Green. Mr Thorne the milliner put on display in his shop windows photos of the district’s serving men and women, which attracted hundreds of people. It was a sober reminder of those that fought to bring this day of rejoicing.

Harmondsworth Parish Church was decorated by Mr Bateman and a loudspeaker erected in the belfry so that the service that was held in the evening could be broadcast to the whole village. The evening street parties and bonfires drew large crowds of young and old and the singing and dancing continued far into the night.

All the churches and chapels in the district held thanksgiving services on VE day and on the following Sunday. [2] That Sunday also saw a parade of Civil Defence personnel, Red Cross, St John’s Ambulance, and other Service units started from the Regal Cinema (now a snooker hall) car park at 2pm and headed by the Uxbridge and Hillingdon Band marched to Fassnidges Recreation ground where a United Services Thanksgiving was held at 3pm. The hymn-singing was accompanied by the Uxbridge Salvation Army Band.

After the spontaneous celebrations on VE Day, more organised celebrations continued for the rest of the month. Richmond Avenue had a street party on 18th with games, races and later music and dancing to a radiogram. Each child was presented with a Victory cup. In the same week the old people of Nelson Close were given a VE party by the residents of Nelson Road who all contributed money or goods for the party. They were entertained by local residents and there was dancing to piano music. [3] In Westcott Way, Cowley, the whole street gave a welcome home to three repatriated prisoners of war who all lived in the street. Pte Peter Fisher and Pte Ted Barnett had both been prisoners for five years. Pte William Green had been a prisoner for fifteen months. The celebrations started with a speech by Jim Green and then the singing and dancing began. The music was provided by a radiogram and an impromptu orchestra. Some residents dressed up to provide the entertainment. Two hundred people watched the street illuminations being switched on, and the party continued until 1.30am.

The 8th May 1945 was also the start of weather forecasts being published to the public. Weather forecasts had been kept secret during the war so as not to give the enemy an advantage. Britain was now free from air raids, and could return to a degree of normality, but our troops were still fighting Japan in the Far East. At home rationing continued and there were still shortages and deprivations, but brighter times were to come. On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered and another victory could be celebrated – VJ Day – Victory over Japan. Once more street parties and bonfires were organised, although the council urged people to build bonfires on waste ground in Uxbridge after the damage that had been caused to road surfaces from the bonfires on VE night.

It is hard for us to imagine now, what the sense of relief and euphoria felt like to the people of the Hillingdon after the terrible suffering during World War II. At the same time as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE day we must also remember the thousands of lives that were lost to bring us the peace that we now enjoy.

[ 1] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 11 May 1945

[2] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 04 May 1945

[3] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 25 May 1945

For more historical stories about Longford, and Harmondsworth read

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

This is Stratford Avenue, Hillingdon, on 8 May 1945. My Uncle, George Butcher, lived at No. 3 and later his sister, Ada Smith, lived at No. 10.

Heathrow Expansion: Eighty years of Bad Decisions

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 19:02:57 GMT

Heathrow Expansion:

Eighty years of Bad Decisions

In 1939, at the beginning of WWII there were 351 people living in the hamlet of Heathrow. Some went off to serve in the Armed Forces, but the majority stayed to do their “bit” for the war effort by producing fruit and vegetables to sell at London’s Covent Garden market. For the patriotic farmers of Heathrow it came as a shock when on the 2 May 1944 a letter dropped through their letter boxes to say their land was being requisitioned and they had two months to pack up their homes, outbuildings, livestock, and, leaving their growing crops in the fields, find somewhere else to live. [1] The letter was from the Air Ministry and was in response to a decision made at the wartime coalition’s Cabinet meeting on 10 April 1944 when the Ministers had approved the “sterilisation” of the whole of Harmondsworth for the development of an airport. [2] However, just before D-day, with manpower and money in short supply, the Government could not afford to build more than three runways. The airport was to be built in stages. Stage one would be to requisition land south of the Bath Road (A4) which would completely remove Heathrow.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 1

The decision to fix Britain’s first international civil airport at Heathrow had first been muted by Lord Abercrombie who was commissioned to produce a Greater London Plan for post-war London. With the growth of air transport he knew that a civil airport would be needed after the war and he suggested ten possible sites around London. All of these existing airports were surrounded by housing estates and not expandable. The only leading contender was the Fairey Airfield at Heathrow, but there were many objections. Sir Richard Fairey did not want to give up his airfield. The Ministry of Agriculture did not want to bury the land, which, in Abercrombie’s plan, was described as “… a soil fit to be ranked with the world’s very best – a high-class market gardening and orchard soil, also growing fine grass and ordinary farm crops.” [3] It was not until just before D-day in 1944 that the Air Ministry began to construct the first stage by building three runways which would be completed by May 1946 at a cost of £3.8m. This stage would concrete over the grass Fairey airfield and all the Heathrow farms.

Two years later on 10 January 1946, even before the airport was complete, Atlee’s post-war Cabinet meeting discussed a memorandum put forward by the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Viscount Addison. [4] It proposed the establishment of Britain’s main international airport at Heathrow. He said the site of the airport was chosen after prolonged survey of the London area and it was considered to be the only suitable location. It will be necessary to acquire a large tract of land to the north of the Bath Road as well as a number of areas adjacent to the present site. The total cost of acquisition of 4,219 acres will be £7m. About 170 houses would have to be demolished in the area south of the Bath Road as well as a substantial proportion of the 1026 houses in the area north of this road. Also there would need to be “sterilisation” of further land on which building would be “controlled”. The airport was to be called “London Airport” and the name Heathrow discarded. Estimated total cost of the airport, including rail and road construction, was £30 million, but he was unable to estimate how much revenue the airport would generate. Bizarrely the Minister was also considering leasing some of the “sterilised” area of land, and even the land between the runways, to market gardeners. Obviously not considering what aircraft engine emissions would do to the crops or the environment. Estimated use of the airport when two runways were available would be 500 flights a day in normal weather. Total passengers per day would be 8500 of whom 1020 would travel in peak hour. The number of passenger movements per day for the extended airport was “guessed” at 12,000 to 15,000.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 2

During the Cabinet meeting the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton, accepted the need for an international airport at Heathrow but was concerned about the expenditure involved, and was not convinced that it was necessary at this stage to acquire land north of the Bath Road. [5] He strongly urged that the new enlarged scheme be postponed until 1950. Even though 2650 acres had already been destroyed and concreted, he proposed there should be a discussion about finding a new site for the airport where houses and valuable agricultural land would not be lost. The Minster of Town and Country Planning, Mr. F. Marshall, countered this by saying that all previous experience had shown the advisability of acquiring ample land in order to allow for unforeseen developments, and that unless the land was acquired now it was impossible to plan the development of the main roads in the neighbourhood. The Cabinet gave their approval for the development of the civil London Airport at Heathrow, which would be spread over the next eight years. [6]

The civil airport opened in 1946. The original Fairey Hanger was used as a fire station, and ex-army tents were erected alongside the A4 as terminal buildings. The next phase of the development, which was to extend the existing runways, started in 1948 when more land to the south of the Bath Road was requisitioned. The Three Magpies public house on the Bath Road(A4) lost the remains of its six acres of land. The farms of the hamlet of Longford were requisition leaving so little agricultural land that farming was not viable. Only Perry Oaks sewage works remained. A further round of land requisition to the north of the Bath Road in 1960 for the building of a spur road from the M4 to the central airport buildings involved the demolition of the Old Magpies on the A4 and the removal of the farmland in Sipson. However as planes got bigger and passenger numbers increased there was still a need for a larger airport.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 3

The Roskill Commission was set up by the Government in 1968 to look into finding a site for a third London airport. London already had Heathrow and Gatwick and now there was a requirement for a four-runway airport. The Commission published its report in January 1971 and after initially considering 78 sites they recommended Cublington in Buckinghamshire as a suitable site. The Government rejected this suggestion and chose another site from the Commission’s short list which was Maplin Sands, Foulness Island, on the Thames Estuary. An Act of Parliament in 1973 paved the way for this development, but this was shelved after Labour came to power in July 1974. Instead a small-scale redevelopment of Stansted airport in Essex was agreed even though this was not a site short-listed by the Roskill Commission. [7]

BAD DECISION NUMBER 4

In 1991 the Transport Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, promised a wide public consultation on the building of a third runway at Heathrow. [8] It started a wave of protest from local councils in Middlesex and Buckinghamshire, and local residents. [9] At the same time there were also suggestions that a fifth terminal could be built on the land then occupied by the Perry Oaks sewage works. The Middlesex Council were not happy about the loss of the sewage facility, and concerns were expressed by the Buckinghamshire County Council (on whose border it stood) about the increased noise and pollution of planes flying over the county. [10] All protesters were relieved when in October 1993 Heathrow Airport Ltd community relations manager, Jon Philipps, said Heathrow had no plans for a third runway as building a fifth terminal did not require another runway. [11]

BAD DECISION NUMBER 5

However in March 1994 the Department of Transport was holding exhibitions and public meetings about the possibility of building a third runway for completion by 2010. They leafletted all the homes in Harmondsworth and held exhibitions and public meetings in Harlington, West Drayton, Sipson, Uxbridge, Stanwell and Harmondsworth. [12] The preliminary design for the expansion would have removed the hamlet of Sipson, on the north side of the A4, and most of Harmondsworth. However in April 1994 at a meeting of the Hillingdon Council, whilst the public enquiry was still in progress, a copy of a letter from Heathrow Airport Limited was circulated. It read, “I can state categorically that at no stage has either Heathrow Airport Limited, or its parent company BAA plc given evidence to the RUCATSE (Runway Capacity To serve the South East) inquiry indicating support for another runway at Heathrow. The airport needs extra terminal capacity rather than runway capacity.” This letter was signed by Jenny Bradley, director of public affairs at Heathrow Airport Limited. [13] It was not until November 2003 that the government announced that there would be no third runway in the “short term” because to do so would break European pollution laws. [14] However, despite all the public enquiries and the protests from local councils and other public bodies, the fifth terminal was built and opened in 2008 which resulted in a subsequent increase in the number of flights from Heathrow airport.

BAD DECISION NUMBER 6

In 2012 the UK Government established an independent Airports Commission to look again at the future of London’s airports. The 2015 final report of this Commission concluded that Heathrow Airport required a new northwest runway. [15] On 25 June 2018 the House of Commons voted to adopt this recommendation. This time the plan was to demolish the hamlet of Longford on the western edge of the airport, and to extend the runway over the M25 with the motorway disappearing into a tunnel. The Colne River would also be placed in an underground culvert. The hamlet of Sipson would survive but would be so close to the third runway that life in any of the houses would be unbearable. The timetable for the construction was to begin in 2021, when planning consent would be sought from the various local councils, and then construction would begin in 2023. Fate intervened with the schedule in the shape of the pandemic of 2020, when air travel was severely reduced and extra airport facilities were not needed. All talk of building a third runway was quietly dropped, but the residents of the parish of Harmondsworth and its hamlets of Sipson and Longford were left, once more, in limbo with the threat of demolition postponed but not removed. After a change of Government, in January 2025 the new Administration revived the prospect of a third runway and once more the protests began.

Successive governments with their short-term thinking and procrastination have blighted Harmondsworth parish for eighty years. The constant threat of further airport expansion, the insecurity of tenure, and uncertainty for the future, has caused a slow decline in the number of long-standing families staying in the parish. Speculators have moved in to buy up property, letting them out on short-term leases, or turning them into houses of multiple occupancy. Some of the many ancient Grade II listed buildings have been left unoccupied and decaying. If the voice of the 1946 Minister of Town and Country Planning had been heard, and sufficient land purchased at the outset for future development of the airport, it might have avoided the prolonged indecision and decades of controversy. Meanwhile the residents of Longford, Sipson and Harmondsworth are in limbo. They have fought hard over decades to preserve their pretty villages that have survived since the Saxons built settlements there. These once peaceful rural agricultural villages with over twenty listed buildings are once again facing an uncertain future.

For the story of what will be lost under the Third Runway read:

‘Longford: A village in Limbo’ by Wendy Tibbitts.

[ 1] Sherwood, Philip. Heathrow: 2000 years of history, (Stroud, 1999)

[2] The National Archives CAB 66/48/39

[3] Stamp, L.Dudley, ‘Land Classification and Agriculture’, in Abercrombie (ed.), Greater London Plan 1944. (London, 1945),p.87

[4] The National Archives. CAB 129/6/4 5 January 1946

[5] National Archives CAB 128/5/4

[6] The National Archives' reference CAB 66/48/39 April 1944

[7] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskill_Commission#

[8] Middlesex Chronicle - Thursday 10 January 1991

[9] Harefield Gazette - Wednesday 25 March 1992

[10] Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News - Friday 15 June 2001

[11] Hayes & Harlington Gazette - Wednesday 20 October 1993

[12] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Wednesday 16 March 1994

[13] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Wednesday 27 April 1994

[14] Wolverhampton Express and Star - Saturday 29 November 2003

[15] Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airports_Commission

First stage airport design 1944 National Archives CAB 66/48/39 Full size airport plan 1946 The National Archives CAB 129/6/4

THE HIGHWAYMAN’S HIDEAWAY

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 21:00:06 GMT

THE HIGHWAYMAN’S HIDEAWAY

Highwaymen were a public menace in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially on the vast open area of Hounslow Heath, on the western side of London. Hounslow Heath had to be crossed, with trepidation, by anyone travelling west from London on the Great Bath Road (now the A4) and thieves would lurk, inconspicuously, ready to stop the carriages of wealthy travellers and rob them of their valuables. Travellers breathed a sigh of relief when the carriages and stagecoaches reached the relative safety of the Kings Head in Longford village unscathed. At the Kings Head inn the passengers would enter the warm bar and enjoy refreshments whilst waiting for carriage or stagecoach horses to be changed for the onward journey. As they chatted to their fellow travellers they would not have noticed shadowy figures in dark corners listening to travellers’ tales and deciding who would be the next victim of the highwayman. There are many stories of highwaymen and their activities around the village, but Longford had one of its own. One night, just before Christmas 1769 a farmer left the Kings Head after an evening of heavy drinking. He walked to his nearby farmhouse, saddled his horse, put a kerchief round his face and ventured out on the Heath. With the bravado of a heavy dose of alcohol he held up a private carriage and with no more than a knobbly stick as a weapon he demanded money. The occupant of the carriage, who was prepared for a hold-up, shot and wounded the farmer who rode off. The man was found lying on the Bath Road a little further along from the incident and was taken back to the Kings Head. There his friends nursed him, but he died a few days later and is buried in the parish churchyard. The wealthy farmer was John Tillier, normally a respectable citizen, but his young wife had just died and with Christmas approaching he had let his melancholy make him reckless.

The Kings Head is now a Grade II listed Elizabethan building, on the western edge of London Airport and only 450 meters from the northern runway. It is a shadow of the former coaching inn that was well-known throughout the country. The walls of the building can just be glimpsed through the tall trees and overgrown garden on the opposite side of the Old Bath Road from the Littlebrook Nursery. The gates are now closed with concrete blocks and its ancient windows are boarded up. It is a forlorn sight for an inn once visited by Monarchs and nobility, but also the haunt of highwaymen and scoundrels. The Kings Head has many tales to tell, but it did not always look like it does today. When Queen Anne visited Bath to take the medicinal waters she made Bath a fashionable place for high society to visit. The Bath Road became busy and The Kings Head needed more room. At the end of the eighteenth century the inn was extended out to the road side. It added a 60-horse stable, spacious bar, more accommodation for travellers, and a large ornate reception room known as the Queen Anne Room. This room had a large fireplace with china cabinets in each recess and comfortable furniture fit for Royalty. Unfortunately Queen Anne never saw the inside of the room built for her comfort because by the time she was travelling to Bath to take the waters she was overweight and suffering from gout which made walking difficult. She would stay in the carriage whilst the horses were changed. However many other Kings and Queens did make use of the inn’s hospitality, especially Queen Victoria who in January 1842, famously handed the baby Edward VII to the landlady to hold whilst she drank her tea.

The landlord of the Kings Head in the late eighteenth century was John Bedford. He was a widower when he married local girl Mary Dean in 1778. When he died in 1794, aged 54, his widow, Mary, took over the running of the business with the help of her two eldest children, Joseph and Peggy aged 14 and 13. There were also three younger children. Joseph and Peggy inherited the pub when their mother died in 1807 and then Joseph also died leaving Peggy Bedford to continue as landlady for a total of fifty years. She made the pub famous nationally and it was always referred to as Peggy Bedford’s. She never married, but there were rumours of her being the mistress of a highwayman. Her death in 1859 was reported in newspapers all over the country. Over the centuries many fascinating events occured at the inn, from deaths and scandals, to public meetings, annual dinners, and inquests all of which have been told in the book, “Longford: A Village in Limbo”. In the early twentieth century the pub was a destination for cycling clubs and beanfeast outings. The four-acre kitchen garden was turned into an ornamental garden with a pond, a bowling green and a summer house. An enterprising landlord converted the stables (which are also listed and ‘at risk’) into a training gym for boxers and some of the leading British boxing champions of the day trained there before a major fight.

In 1928 the Colnbrook bypass was built through the Peggy Bedford’s gardens and the bypass cut the pub off from passing trade. The pub surrendered its licence and a new Peggy Bedford was built on the apex of the old and new roads. The original pub became residential, but in 1934 there was a serious fire that caused the roof to fall in and destroyed the eighteenth century part of the house. However the older part was saved as were two great elm trees which stood in front of the pub. They were said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth I (although this is unlikely). One was hollow with age and people threw coins in it for luck. The fire was reported in newspapers all around the country. The older house continued as a dwelling. In 1944 large parts of the farmland around Longford were requisitioned by the Air Ministry to build a airfield with a concrete runway which obliterated the hamlet of Heathrow and Perry Oaks farm. The first Commandant of the Civil Airport, which opened in 1946, was Air Marshall Sir John D’Albiac. [1] He and his family moved into a house they called The Stables which was in fact the now Grade II listed remains of the original Peggy Bedford. They lived there from 1947 until at least 1955. It was under his command that the airport developed the two east/west parallel runways rather than the triangular runway system originally built. [2]

Since 2018 the expansion plans for the airport included the demolition of the whole of the village of Longford. While the future of Longford is unknown the village is blighted and no one will want to live in this wonderful old building. The Old Peggy Bedford will remain on Historic England’s At Risk register. It is a sad fate for such a distinguished building.

[1] For a Ministry of Information Film about the building of the airport see https://archive.org/details/london_airport_TNA/london_airport_TNA.mpg

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/the_day_britain_stopped/timelines/heathrow/html/1940s.stm

For more historical stories about Longford, Heathrow and Harmondsworth in West Middlesex read:

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

Mercury House - The aviation history of Hayes, Middlesex

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 15:29:28 GMT

Mercury House: The aviation history of Hayes, Middlesex

The Fairey Aviation Factory was a landmark on the North Hyde Road, Hayes, for half a century. Mercury House was built in 1926 as the main office block for the business, and contained Sir Richard Fairey’s office in which he entertained his most important guests, including Royalty.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Hayes, Middlesex, was an agricultural area that developed into an industrial town with the building of the Hayes & Harlington railway station in 1868. Businesses bought up the land around the railway line and constructed new factories, knowing there would be a ready workforce in the new housing estates being built around the town. Two of the early enterprises, who “turned a village into a town”, were EMI at the Gramophone Factory in Blythe Road, and Fairey Aviation at North Hyde Road Hayes named after its founder. [1]

Charles Richard Fairey, (later Sir Richard Fairey), a gifted engineer, won a £200 first prize offered by Hamley’s toyshop for a flying model aeroplane in 1910. [2] He transferred his skills to designing full-size planes and five years later starting the aircraft manufacturing company that bears his name. After the formation of Fairey Aviation Limited in 1915, aircraft manufacturing began on the site at Hayes in five wooden sheds which cost £807.6s.8d to build. The first brick built office building cost £1013.18s.5d. [3] By 1928 the Hayes factory covered 19 acres of land, and had a workforce of 1500.

The Fairey Factory built both float planes and biplanes for the WW1 war effort. After the war more military planes were developed and made at Hayes. By 1934 the torpedo bomber biplane called the Fairey Swordfish, affectionately known as the ‘stringbag’, by the Fleet Air Arm, was in service. The Swordfish played a part in the sinking of the Bismark in WWII.

In 1940 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the factory, and no doubt were entertained in Mercury House. In 1954 Prince Philip toured the factory with Sir Richard Fairey. His visit to Hayes was greeted by a crowd of 300 people outside the factory. Afterwards the Duke was given lunch in Mercury House by Sir Richard and the Board of Directors. [4]

The first planes manufactured at Hayes were taken to Northolt Airport for flight testing. However in 1929 the Government declined to renew Fairey’s lease on Northolt and the search was on for a new testing ground as close as possible to Hayes. The company brought 178 acres of farmland in the hamlet of Heathrow from four different sellers in the early part of 1929 and increased this area by another 29 acres a year later. As well as a grass runway the company had a large hanger. It was known as the Great West Aerodrome. Fairey hoped to make the airfield a manufacturing base and bought more land in 1939, 1942 and 1943 making a total of 240 acres. [5] This airfield continued to be used for flight testing until it was requisitioned by the Air Ministry in 1944 under the Defence of the Realm Act, for which there could be no appeal and no right of compensation. Concrete runways were built on all this and the surrounding requisitioned farmland and in 1946 it become London Airport. The seizure of the Fairey airfield was a major financial blow to the company and devastating for Sir Richard. It was not until 20 years later that compensation was paid by the Government. In 1960 The Westland Aircraft Company acquired Fairey Aviation Limited with aircraft manufacturing continuing at the Hayes Factory until the premises were sold in 1972. Only, Mercury House, the art deco Fairey Aviation Head Office, remained.

Safeway Stores (formerly Argyll Foods) took over several office buildings on what had become known as the Westland Trading estate in 1986. [6] These included Mercury House. It was the last remnant of the original Fairey Aviation factory, and contained Sir Richard Fairey’s office and many art deco features including a magnificent staircase. Safeway used it as offices, but it was not an efficient building with high ceilings and no lift. However the planning authorities felt the Art Deco building should be preserved and refused permission for Safeway to replace it. Safeway Stores Head Office relocated to Bradford after being taken over by Morrisons in 2004, and Mercury House was vacated. By 2007 the Hillingdon Council planning committee were persuaded that after standing on the site for nearly eighty years, Mercury House could be demolished and with it disappeared another piece of Hayes industrial heritage. A Premier Inn has now been built on the site today.

[1] Hayes & Harlington Gazette - Wednesday 27 June 1990

[2] The Bossington Estate. https://www.bossingtonestate.com/history
[3] Birmingham Daily Post - Friday 25 November 1955

[4] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 22 October 1954

[5] Sherwood, Philip, Heathrow: 2000 years of History, (Stroud, 1999)

[6] Companies House, London company-information.service.gov.uk

For more historical stories about West Middlesex:

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

For a Look Inside option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

The Three Magpies pub and the pre-Olympic movement.

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 10:14:31 GMT

The Three Magpies pub and the pre-Olympic movement.

Long before the people of Wenlock in Shropshire opened the town’s race-course to all-comers to compete in the first Wenlock Olympian Society games in 1850, The Three Magpies in Harmondsworth, Middlesex, had been hosting various sporting events for nearly half a century. The Wenlock games is now recognised as the start of the modern Olympic Games movement and it could be argued that public interest in sporting events at the Three Magpies contributed to the pre-Olympic movement.

The Three Magpies, still a thriving pub today, is on the wide, flat, Bath Road (which now forms the northern perimeter of Heathrow Airport). The road and the pub were ideal for sports such as foot races, bare-knuckle fighting, steeplechases, shooting and hunting, and at only 14 miles from Hyde Park Corner, was a convenient distance for spectators to travel from a wide area.

A boxing match was arranged on 28th February 1822 between Acton and Kendrick. Vehicles of every description gathered on the Bath Road outside the Three Magpies. In a nearby field, the spectators stood around to form a ring. Boxing in the first half of the nineteenth century was not the organised sport it is today. It was bare-knuckle fighting in the open-air with an unlimited number of rounds. The fighters fought until one was unconscious or too exhausted to continue. In this match the betting was 2-1 on Kendrick. By 17th round, both men were at a standstill, but Acton was declared the winner over the exhausted Kendrick.

The sport of fast walking was thought to derive from the late 17th and early 18th century in England when footmen were compelled to walk or run alongside their Master’s carriage as they travelled. Noblemen would take pride in their footmen’s fitness, and would bet each other that their footman could walk further or faster than their rivals could. Samuel Pepys, in his diary, mentions attending several such foot races and the sport became known as pedestrianism. It was particularly popular during the first half of the 19th century when crowds of spectators would gamble on the outcome. The sport had spread to America by the end of that century.

Mr Greatrex, a former sportsman, was landlord of the Three Magpies and encouraged the leading sportsmen of the day to take part in athletic events at his pub. A few yards from the pub was the fourteenth milestone (which is still in place today), and this was used as a meeting point for the start or finish of races.

Sometimes the race was against the clock and in 1848 two noblemen wagered the other 200-1 that no one could walk twenty miles in three hours. [1] The proprietor of the Blue Boar’s Head in Long Acre, London – himself a notable pedestrian – was asked to submit a candidate and Charles Westall was chosen. The parties met on the Bath Road at 2pm, and such was the excitement generated by two members of the nobility betting for high stakes on the ability of just one man, that over three hundred people assembled. Mr Westall, a Londoner, was 25 years of age and 5ft 9½in tall and weighed 9st 12oz. He was described as “manly-looking fellow in “extraordinary condition”. The race began at the Three Magpies (“the fourteen stone”) and proceeded towards London and back. The course was measured six times to ensure accuracy and with the spectators hushed he set off at 3pm. His style “elicited expression of admiration from the nobility and gentry present”. He had the support of a fellow athlete who regulated his speed and gave him refreshment. He was in fine form until the sixteenth mile when he began to get tired, and by the last two miles, he was struggling, but he completed the route in two minutes and thirty seconds under the three-hour target. When he finished he was greeted by great excitement and cheers from the spectators. He was taken into the Magpies and given “a good sound rubbing” to ease the cramp in his legs and to receive the warm congratulations of his Gentlemen supporters. This feat, equivalent to Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute mile record, was reported in newspapers throughout the UK.

As pedestrianism became popular, crowds would gather to watch and gamble on the result, Mr Greatrex, used his six acres of land behind the Three Magpies to build a 440-yard (a quarter of a mile) athletic track that circled a large fishing lake. On the 1st of May 1848 two well-known walkers, Robert Fuller and John Mountjoy staged a 40-mile match using a measured mile from the fourteenth milestone, near the Three Magpies, to the fifteenth milestone – still in place today near Longford village. [2] This was a race much anticipated because both of them were major stars of the sport, but also because of the gruelling distance. The good weather and the vast interest in the race brought out many spectators. However the wind and the clouds of dust and the horse-drawn traffic on the busy road was a hazard for competitors and spectators alike. The race was gruelling and Mountjoy, 45, appeared to be flagging until, after sipping some tea, he overtook Fuller, 32, in the 36th mile and was in front when Fuller suddenly collapsed a mile later. Mountjoy completed the race in seven hours, four minutes and seven seconds and went into the Three Magpies to be revived with a friction rub and warm tea. It was considered one of the best long-distance races on record. Meanwhile, during the day-long race, Mr Greatrex, ever mindful of keeping the spectators amused and their purses open, put on sporting entertainments at the rear of the pub on the new sprint ground. Sportsmen such as Ned Smith and Johnny Walker amused the public by a succession of bizarre races. One involved Ned Smith hopping for 120 yards whilst Johnny Walker ran 200 yards backwards which resulted in a defeat for Ned Smith. [3]

Although endurance racing was admired, sprint races were also popular and by mid-nineteenth century Henry Allen Reed (born in High Wycombe in 1826) held the record for running the fastest quarter of a mile with a time of 48.5 seconds. Reed competed against various challengers, each time for a larger purse, until he was challenged by an American, George Seward, to run a level quarter of a mile for £100 a side. The match took place on the turnpike road near the Three Magpies. The day before the match The Era described the proposed match as “the eve of a great event” which had generated intense excitement. Although both men were ranked at the top of their sport they had never competed with each other before. Reed had paid his opponent 10 sovereigns for the right to choose the venue for the race, and he had selected the Three Magpies Inn. The 25th June 1849 was a very hot day and although the match was due to take place at 3pm both parties agreed to postpone the start until 5pm, but they did not approach the start until 7pm. The measured distance was roped off two hundred yards from the finish in order to keep the 6000 spectators back. [4] The referee took up his position in a carriage half-way along the course, and the timer stood on the roof of the Three Magpies about midway along the course where he could see both the start and the finish line. When the racers moved to the starting line in their racing gear Reed was described as “being in the pink of condition having reduced his weight from eleven to a little over nine stone”. He was so confident of victory that he staked his last £20 on a bet to win. There were 25 false starts. Eventually Reed said to Seward , “If you are trying to ruffle my temper then the attempt will be futile. I will wait as long as you please because I am going to win.”

The good-looking Seward smiled and nodded.

Reed said, “Do you mean to go now, George?” and they were off. Both started at a fast pace and the spectators thought that Reed had used up his resources too early. Seward had won the toss for the side and stuck well to his man on the left side for about 100 yards, but then fell slightly behind. At 150 yards Reed was still going at a good speed and increased his lead by nearly two yards and as they approached the Magpies it was evident that Seward could not keep up the pace and was gradually left behind. As Reed crossed the finishing line in his famous 8-foot long strides he turned his head to see his opponent fourteen or fifteen yards behind, but the fast pace left Reed in a state of near collapse. His time was a remarkable 48.5 seconds. It was the first 440 yards run under 50 seconds. The current World Record Speed (2016) is 43.03 for 400 metres.

The popularity of pedestrianism was its downfall. The amount of gambling it encouraged and the enthusiastic crowds that blocked the highway caused the police to stop events, and the sport had to move off the roads onto the proliferations of arenas now being built by enterprising publicans. In 1866 the first English amateur walking championship took place in Fulham and by 1880 the Amateur Athletic Association was formed. It introduced rules and regulations for the sport, now called racewalking, which became an Olympic event when the International Olympic Committee was formed in 1893.

Shooting was less of a spectator sport and usually a wager between two opponents. On 16 February 1850 a shooting match took place in the Three Magpies grounds. Mr Stringer bet Mr Morrison to shoot at 50 pigeons for £20. These would have been captured wild pigeons held in “traps” and released by a “pull” on the sliding lid to release one “bird” at a time. [5] All these terms are used in the sport of clay pigeon shooting today.

Equestrian events were not forgotten. In 1825 betting took place on a steeple chase which started at the Magpies and ended at the Dog Kennel on Ascot heath racecourse. The cross-country race was between Mr Montague and Capt. Hordham for 100 sovereigns. Each gentlemen took different routes, the former went across the heath to Staines and the latter crossing the Thames at Datchet Bridge. [6] The Captain won the 11-mile race in 42 minutes.

Long before the construction of the sporting arena at the Three Magpies, the pub was a weekly meeting point, in the winter months, for the Royal Staghounds hunt. Although not an Olympic sport it was still an important country event for elite riders and was sometimes attended by up to 500 sportsmen and many spectators. This many hooves trampling down the crops in this market garden area caused complaints and by the end of the century hunting had moved away from urban areas.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century a new invention created a popular sport that boosted the income of the Three Magpies. Bicycle mania led to the formation of cycling clubs and their members would go on regular excursions in the summer months. The Bath Road was a popular route and the Three Magpies was a respectable distance from London for it to be a good place for the club members to stop and eat before making their return journey. Even then the Three Magpies had a reputation for providing good food and drink to the travelling public as it still does today.

[1] Hereford Journal - Wednesday 23 August 1848

[2] Morning Advertiser - Monday 01 May 1848. Both milestones are still in place.

[3] The Era - Sunday 07 May 1848

[4] Seldon, Edward. George Seward: America's First Great Runner (Sears 2008)

[5] https://www.bristolclayshooting.com/history.php

[6] Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 07 April 1825. Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser - Friday 01 April 1825

The Highwayman's Pub at Heathrow

Mon, 06 May 2024 16:16:41 GMT

The Three Magpies

The Three Magpies is the last surviving building of the hamlet of Heathrow. It sits on the southern side of the A4 at Harmondsworth, near the junction with Sipson Lane and Nene Road, isolated between two demolished building sites and surrounded by a road network.

Isolation is nothing new for this building. In the eighteenth century this site was on the edge of the notorious barren wastes of Hounslow Heath, where footpads and Highwaymen lurked to relieve travellers of their valuables. Once the coach travellers arrived at the lone inn they felt relief that the danger was past, but there were still hazards. Lurking in the smoky corners of the inn, were shady characters listening to conversations to pick up clues about future victims. The Bath Road was the busy turnpike road to Windsor, Reading, and Bath and although its dirt surface was reinforced with gravel dug from the fields, it could become rutted with mud in the winter and dusty in the summer all of which slowed the carriages and made them vulnerable to attack. Today, the pub (800 Bath Road) continues to provide food and drink to the travelling public just as it did when the customers were enduring the bumpy, rattling, two-day journey to Bath.

One writer suggested that The Three Magpies was built in the 17 ^th century ^[1] , although British History Online say it was built in the eighteenth century which is a more likely date. It was called the Three Pigeons until 1765 ^[2] , to distinguish it from the building a few yards away which was a low-level thatched beerhouse called The Magpies, said to have possibly existed since 1216. [3] Both inns were always run separately with a different class of customer favouring one or the other, but they were collectively known as the Magpies. The Old Magpies was demolished to make way for the Heathrow underpass in 1951. For this blog we will just consider the Three Magpies and the fortunes of its licensees.

The landlords were many and varied. Some enterprising and industrious, others were less so. There was an auction in 1792 at the building, which included two stables, a large yard, and a garden. John Meads, the landlord, had just died and his executor, Thomas Jarvis, was selling the inn on behalf of his legatees. John Meads had been landlord since at least 1782 when he was paying a modest amount of land tax, but over the years he had taken advantage of the agricultural depression and had been buying pieces of land from local farmers. By 1789 he was paying enough land tax to equal some of the major landowners in the parish.

At this time landlords were long-term owner/occupiers. In 1799 thirty carriers a week travelled along Bath Road from London to Reading, and fifty-five coach services, but transport systems were evolving. By 1836 Welshman Jonathan Evans was insuring the Three Magpies, but as the public found rail travel quicker and more comfortable than coach travel, trade was dropping off. The nearest station was West Drayton on the Great Western Region and it can be no coincidence that soon after the station opened in June 1838, Evans was looking for other sources of income. He placed an advert in the London papers for “Lovers of Angling” to visit his spacious pleasure grounds where they could fish in his large well-stocked fish pond and afterwards the “piscatory visitor could rely on any fish they caught to be delicately cooked”. [5] Evans was still there in the 1841 census when he was 46 and running the pub with five live-in servants.

Sometime before 1844 Charles Morton became landlord of The Magpies. Formerly chief Huntsman to the Earl of Derby, he had kept several inns including the Magpies before being robbed by his housekeeper in London of a considerable amount of money and subsequent law suits wiped out the little money he had left. He was found hanged in a barn in Kent, aged 76, and the inquest Jury’s verdict was “that the deceased had destroyed himself”. [6] There might have been another factor involved in his suicide for in March 1843 a little boy aged between three and four years was visiting the landlord of the Magpies Inn and whilst playing in the garden he fell into the pond and drowned. [7]

The search for more sources of income for the Three Magpies led the next landlord, Mr Greatrex, to use his influence within the sporting fraternity. [8] He was a sportsman himself and the growing sport of pedestrianism (distance walking or running races) was attracting participants who could earn good prize money and spectators who would place wagers on the winners. Now that the carriage trade was reduced, many races, of all kinds, took place on the wide, flat Bath Road, where distances could be accurately measured between the milestones. Mr Greatrex , however, developed the facilities further. On his six acres of land behind the pub, he built a running track that circled the fishing lake. Some long-distance road races would finish on the track and to keep the spectators entertained, while they were waiting for the competitors to arrive, Greatrex arranged novelty races such as hopping and running backwards. [9] In fact any sport that could be wagered on took place at or around The Three Magpies. These included steeple-chasing (on horse-back), bare-knuckle fighting, trotting, as well as being the regular meeting place for the Royal Staghounds and other Hunts.

Mr Neville Brown was the licensee when on Tuesday 8 ^th January 1850 the Three Magpies had an unexpected visit from 30 to 40 fellow sporting licensed victuallers who were there to witness one of their number attempt to walk 20 miles in under four hours for a £50 prize. There was heavy betting on the outcome and the task was accomplished with 12 minutes to spare. About 25 of the group then sat down to a spread that was “a credit to mine host Brown who had no notice of the affair coming off”. [10] The unexpected visitors did not disperse until nine in the evening. Neville Brown made further improvements to the running track, extending it to 440yds (a quarter mile) for the Grantham v. Levett match in March 1850. Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle described the enclosed ground as a “delightful spot; and the sprint and quarter of a mile courses have been put in excellent order by Mr Brown.” [11] However in July 1850 Brown was declared bankrupt caused by a mixture of overspending and allowing too much outstanding credit to debtors. [12] By January 1851, the Magistrates at Uxbridge had removed Neville Brown’s licence from the Magpies Inn and transferred it to Mr Haywood. [13] It must have been around this time that the pub was acquired by the Isleworth Brewery because the tenure of the licensees became shorter as they were moved around between the Brewery network.

George Williams, originally from Gloucestershire was licensee when in 1870 he was summoned for allowing people to drink in the bar before 1pm on a Sunday. He pleaded guilty and was fined £2 at the Uxbridge Petty Sessions. [14] Two years later he was present when Edward Tillier broke into the pub via the skittle alley between midnight and 1am. Tillier took off his boots and carrying a lighted candle entered the bar area. However, Tillier’s big mouth had been his undoing and laying in wait for him was local policeman, William Belch, who had overheard the thief planning his break-in. PC Belch had informed George Williams, and they had both stayed up to catch him red-handed. Tillier was found guilty of breaking into the inn and even though it was his first offence, he was sentenced to three months hard labour. [15] Williams remained at The Three Magpies until at least 1878 when he and his wife, Jane, moved to nearby Ashford and opened a grocery shop. He died in Colnbrook in 1901 aged 79.

Leonard Sayer, a former Butler at Mount Stuart House, Scotland, who had been born in Canterbury, Kent, was landlord at the Three Magpies in 1889, and was there for at least 3 years.

By 1894 Alfred Henry Mays was landlord when he was accused of assault by a customer who had been barred from the pub. One evening on 3rd January Thomas William Luckett tried to buy a drink, and being refused was asked to leave. He was roughly ejected from the building by the barman, Arthur Albert Mays whom he alleged assaulted him. At the trial, after hearing the evidence, the magistrates deliberated before finding Alfred Mays, the landlord, not guilty, and fined Arthur Mays £3 of which £2 would go to the victim for his injuries. [16] By 1899 Edward Varnell had taken over the licence. Varnell was born in the Strand, London, and as a young man earned a living as a hammerman in a ironworks in Southwark, later buying his own greengrocery shop in Battersea. However his London-born wife did not seem to relish being the wife of a country publican and stayed in London running a Boarding House when he took over the Three Magpies. Between 1904 until after WW1 there were a series of caretaker publicans: Charles Henry Finch, a former Army Quartermaster Sergeant in the Army Service Corp, Henry Wheeler and David Wiggins. [17]

It was not until George Rawlings took over the licence around 1924 that the pub had a long-term landlord again. Rawlings had already spent 20 years as the landlord of the Eagles Arms, Hammersmith, and was to stay at The Three Magpies for another seventeen years. During that time he established himself in the community. He was connected with many local groups including St Saviours church, The British Legion, Licensed Victuallers association, and was a Freemason. During WWII he was an ARP warden. His wife, Caroline, died in 1931 and was buried in Harmondsworth cemetery. A year later George Rawlings married, in Marylebone, the widowed Alice, and she helped him run the pub. In January 1934 the deep fishing pond behind the pub almost dried up and 500 fish were lost. This was a financial blow for Rawlings who had 30-40 regular anglers using the pond. The cause was unknown, but Rawlings thought it was caused by excavation work in the area. [18] During his tenure the clubroom of the pub was a popular venue for charitable Whist Drives. There was also a darts team, a football team, and a Thrift Club. When George Rawlings died in 1941 his wife, Alice, took over the licence. [19]

Alice Rawlings was not the only female licensee in the area. With many men at war the women were keeping the pubs open. Down the Bath Road, at the Coach and Horses at Harlington Corner, the licensee was Alice Jeffreys. She had live-in help in the pub from H.W. “Bill” Sell and his wife. Bill Sell was also working part-time as a commercial traveller for a bookseller. In 1945, just as Bill Sell was approaching his 70 ^th birthday and looking forward to a peaceful retirement, the licence of the Three Magpies became available and he decided this "country" pub would suit his retirement plans. By then the distant farmland to the south of the pub, was in the process of being cleared and concrete runways constructed, for what was thought to become a military airfield. The construction crew would make use of The Three Magpies for their breaks, and the trade from the lorries and cars using the Bath Road made up for the loss of takings from the farm labourers on the requisitioned Heathrow Farms. It must have come as a pleasant shock to Bill Sell when the following year London’s first civil airport opened and suddenly the pub was in demand by the airport workers and passengers alike who were using the temporary airport buildings (ex-Army marquees), along the edge of the Bath Road adjacent to the Magpies. It soon attracted a cosmopolitan clientele speaking many languages and ten years later Bill Sell was still serving drinks to air and road travellers who stopped at his pub. [20] It was during Bill’s tenure that the remaining 4.5 acres of land behind the pub - having long been renowned for its sporting activities - was requisitioned by the Government in 1948 for the use by the airport. [21] Bill Sell continued as landlord until his death in 1959.

Since the airport opened to the public in 1946 the area it covers has increased many times and the once remote pub is now surrounded by hotels. But it is a survivor. Even if the third runway gets built it is not scheduled for demolition, but will be stranded between the northern and third runways with no passing trade. There is every hope that the airport expansion plans will be quietly forgotten, but a more worrying prospect is the fact that Greene King are considering closing many of their pubs. It will be very sad if we lose this ancient pub which continues to be a welcome place for a drink and a good meal.

This is just a glimpse of the Three Magpies long history. The landlords might have shaped its story, but so did transport, people and culture. The fascinating 300 year-old history of the Three Magpies is soon to be published in paperback.

[1] Robbins, Michael, Middlesex, (Chichester, 2003), p.279. Built 18 ^th Century according to British History online. See footnote 7.

[2] London Borough of Hillingdon, Review of Local List of Buildings of Architectural or Historic Importance, 2010. No. 219.

[3] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 09 December 1949

[4] Morning Advertiser - Thursday 13 May 1824

[5] The News (London) - Sunday 26 August 1838

[6] Kentish Mercury - Saturday 26 October 1844

[7] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 11 March 1843

[8] Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle - Sunday 30 April 1848

[9] The Era - Sunday 07 May 1848

[10] Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle - Sunday 13 January 1850

[11] Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle - Sunday 24 March 1850

[12] Gloucester Journal - Saturday 13 July 1850

[13] Bucks Herald - Saturday 11 January 1851

[14] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 23 April 1870

[15] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 09 March 1872

[16] Middlesex County Times - Saturday 27 January 1894

[17] Ancestry.co.uk 1911 Census

[18] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 26 January 1934

[19] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 26 September 1941

[20] Daily Herald - Thursday 16 August 1956

[21] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 17 September 1948

For more historical stories about Longford, and Harmondsworth read

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

For a Look Inside option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Tales from Longford: The Kings Arms

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:21:13 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Kings Arms

The Kings Arms in Longford has recently ceased trading after over 250 years of serving travellers. It is not a listed building, but it has a history going back to the late eighteenth century, and is within the Longford Conservation area.

The Kings Arms is on the once busy Great Bath Road which was the main route to Windsor, Reading, and Bath. In eighteenth century Regency England, it became fashionable for elite society to spend the winter “Season” in Bath taking the medicinal waters at the Roman Baths, socialising and enjoying the entertainments. As the road to Bath got busier more inns were built along the route. The Kings Arms was one of four inns in Longford catering for the travellers. The first landlord/victualler of the Kings Arms that I could find was John Redifer who had insured the building on 19 April 1786. He was a Londoner who, with his wife Susanna, and their young family had moved to Longford in the early 1780s. A daughter was born while they lived there and was baptised, Harriet, at St Marys church, Harmondsworth on 22 August 1783. By 1789 the pub had been sold to Cole & Co., brewers of Twickenham and remained in their ownership until Brandon’s Brewery of Putney bought the brewery in 1898.

It was not the largest pub in the village, but it had rooms and stabling for single travellers and was a favourite among the local residents. The ostler would be in charge of the stables and he would assist passengers on and off some of the 55 coaches a week that would pass through Longford on the way to Slough, Windsor, or beyond. [1] Mr Andrews was the landlord when, in October 1809, two coaches on their way to Windsor were passing through Longford at the same time. One stopped outside the inn and the ostler ushered a passenger into the carriage. As he did so he was knocked down and injured by another Windsor coach driving furiously through the village. The ostler was badly injured but survived. [2] Mr Andrews was the resident landlord for about twenty years, but later tenants had shorter residencies, and nearly all of them originated from outside of the parish.

The pub was the location of many community events. It had a full licence to serve beer and spirits as well as food. In 1818 two brothers, James and Richard Tillyer, hosted a dinner at the King’s Arms after a day in which farmers had demonstrated the strength of the local community co-operation. The brothers had just taken the tenancy of nearby Stanwell Park Farm, owned by Sir John Gibbons. It was November, a time when the fields would normally have been prepared for the next year’s harvest, but this ground was untouched. To avoid the brothers having to miss the harvest, the neighbouring farmers offered to give the brothers their labourers for one day’s work. Between six and seven in the morning of an unusually fine November day 125 teams assembled on the land comprising 389 horses and a yoke of oxen. In that one day 100 acres were ploughed, harrowed and rolled and sown. [3] At the end of the day the labourers’ were presented with a small gratuity, and a substantial lunch with plenty of ale. The Gentlemen farmers were treated to a good dinner at the Kings Arms in Longford. ^[4] The event would lead eventually to the formation of a West Middlesex Agricultural and Market Garden Society in 1837 which existed for 99 years.

No all the events at the inn were so friendly. In May 1839 a customer, Joseph Reynolds, was set upon by two women when he went to the privy and his purse, containing £30, was stolen. The women and their male accomplice were caught, and at the resulting trial at the old Bailey all three were sentenced to transportation to Australia. [5] The punishment was harsh because Judges would hand down sentences based on the value of the theft. William Godfrey was the landlord at the time, but following the death of his 9-year old son in August that year, he lost interest in the pub and by May 1840 he was selling up his furniture, bedding and bar equipment. [6]

As a public space the Kings Arms was used for inquests, which were carried out soon after the discovery of the deceased. Local people would make up a jury and the Coroner would call witnesses. Henry Monk was the licensee when in 1848 a young man booked a room in the Kings Arms which he shared with another man. In the morning, after the second man left, the door was bolted from inside and when his room mate returned he was unable to gain entry. Eventually a policeman was sent for who used a step ladder to get through the window and found the man hanged. Inquest verdict suicide. [7] He was buried in the graveyard at St Mary’s church Harmondsworth and the sad entry in the parish register just noted him as “Young Man, name unknown. Hung himself at the Kings Arms Longford. About 28 years.” [8] Another unexpected death at the inn, was Mrs Eliza Smith the wife of the landlord who in 1856 was found dead in her bed on Christmas morning. She was 52 and the inquest, in her own home, heard that she had been suffering from a heart complaint. [9] The funeral took place in St Mary’s, Harmondsworth on 1st January 1857.

The landlords where not always as honest as they were supposed to be. In 1864 Landlord William Cole was prosecuted for allowing drinking in the pub out of hours. He was fined 20s and cautioned. [10] Five years later the landlord was Thomas Baker and he was in trouble when he was fined for serving incorrect measures to customers. [11]

The nearby Queen’s river had to be dredged and kept clear of weeds and debris. Watermen were employed for this work and one lodged at the Kings Arms. Waterman Thomas Hedges had a shallow punt moored on the river with which to do his work. One night as he was drinking in the taproom, he was assaulted by labourer Edmund Buckland. Buckland wanted to borrow the boat, but Hedges refused and this made Buckland, who was already drunk, call him names and hit him. Hedges was sitting down at the time and he did not return the blows. The landlord Mr Paul tried to calm the situation. The next day Hedges went to work with a bruised and bloodied face which was noticed by his superior, the Clerk of Works of Hampton Court Palace. He told the Crown Estate Commissioners who brought in a lawyer to prosecute Edmund Buckland. After both sides called witnesses, the Magistrates decided the case was proven and Buckland was fined fifteen shillings for assault. [12]

In 1906 plans were submitted for the “re-erection” of the Kings Arms. There are no images of the pub before the twentieth century so it is hard to tell if the whole building was demolished or just major works carried out. Seven years later a surveyor for the National Valuation survey described the pub as having a “brick & tile building, modern, in good condition”. The accommodation consisted of a modern bar, a saloon, a public bar, a Jug & Bottle, a small private room, kitchen, scullery and the building had a large archway at the side which is apparent in the main photograph above. It had a cellar, sitting room and five bedrooms. The archway led to the rear yard where there were stables and a coach house, but these probably remained from the original building as, by 1923 when the survey was carried out, motor cars and bicycles were the popular transport, not horses. If the current building originates from the 1906 alterations then the facilities were not updated at that time. Even in 1923 the building still had no running water and there was a pump in the yard for water. There was also no main drainage. Having spent money modernising the King’s Arms it is all the more surprising then that fourteen years later Brandons were ready to abandon their investment and proposed to build a new pub on the Bath Road near Hatch Lane, Harmondsworth.

This decision was caused by the building of the Colnbrook bypass in 1927 which rerouted the Bath Road and left the pubs of Longford with no passing trade. Mr Garrett, the licensee of the Kings Arms made an application to the licensing authorities to have the Kings Arms license removed and transferred to premises, yet to be built. [13] However there was opposition. Mr W.H. Wild, the parish overseer (who lived in the Weekly house at Longford) said the parish objected to the transfer. This was because the old Peggy Bedford pub (the original Tudor building is now an endangered, Grade II listed building) had also requested the removal and transfer of their licence to new premises on the Colnbrook bypass. Their application was granted because they were building on their own land at a cost of £6500 to £7000, and only a short distance between the old and new premises. The new Peggy Bedford would have hotel accommodation and a tearoom as well as parking spaces. The magistrates agreed to the Peggy Bedford transfer, but refused the Kings Arms application. However the original Kings Arms continued to trade and when Mr Garrett died the following year, his wife, Bertha, took over the licence.

Ernest Oakham had become licensee of the Kings Arms at the beginning of 1929, taking over from Mrs Garrett. [14] He was landlord until 1933 when he died aged 49. [15] His wife Maud became licensee helped by her son, also called Ernest. Ernest, jnr, was captain of the darts team and in 1937 he took his team to Cornwall to play a match at the Queens Arms, Botallack, Penzance, Cornwall. [16] For the Cornish pub-goers, the Kings Arms team were a novelty as they included two women in their team, one of whom Ernest Oakham married six months later. The match had been widely advertised and drew a large crowd of spectators. The home team narrowly won, and after prizes were distributed the host entertained the visitors to supper and an evening of entertainment. Maud Oakham was licensee throughout the war. In 1939 she had with her at the Kings Arms, a live-in housemaid, her 86 year-old mother and a younger son who was still at school.

The hospitality trade in Longford prospered because of its location on the main road from London to all the major towns to the West. Where once there were four inns in Longford to cater for the travellers now there is only one, The White Horse, and even that will disappear if the Third Runway is built at Heathrow. Change is inevitable, which is why it is important to record the stories connected with buildings while they still exist.

[1] Rosevear, Alan. A booklet on the Turnpike Roads around Reading. http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Reading%20turnpike%20roads.htm

[2] Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser - Wednesday 25 October 1809

[3] Tares: see panel in the next chapter.

[4] Hereford Journal – Wednesday 11 November 1818

[5] Tibbitts, Wendy. Longford: A Village in Limbo, (2022)

[6] Morning Advertiser - Saturday 23 May 1840

[7] Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News - Saturday 07 October 1848

[8] Ancestry.co.uk. London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812

[9] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 03 January 1857

[10] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 17 September 1864

[11] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 18 September 1869

[12] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 24 August 1878

[13] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 11 February 1927

[14] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 04 January 1929

[15] Buckinghamshire Advertiser - Friday 17 March 1933.

[16] Cornishman - Thursday 12 August 1937

For more historical stories about Longford, and Harmondsworth read

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

For a Look Inside option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Tales from Longford: The Bath Road Milestones

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 17:31:46 GMT

Tales from Longford:

The Bath Road milestones

Few of us, as we drive along the A4 on the northern edge of Heathrow airport, realise we are travelling on an old coaching route called The Great Bath Road. Nor can we now imagine how it felt for the eighteenth-century travellers in their coaches and carriages, bumping along the hardened earth road, stopping every seven miles to change horses, eat and drink, and enduring that for the three-day journey to Bath. Whilst most people have forgotten the history of the Bath Road there are still reminders of the old days which lie unnoticed against a fence or a wall on the airport side of the road.

The road was a busy coaching route between London and Bath where fashionable gentry would take the medicinal waters. After leaving Hounslow the road crossed part of the isolated Hounslow Heath which brought with it the additional fear of being robbed by highwaymen, but it did not deter passengers from making the journey. The carriages would stop to change horses at the many inns along the route, and passengers would have time to refresh themselves at the Three Magpies at Sipson Green, or the four inns in Longford. For the passengers, the coach journey along the Bath Road, was not a comfortable ride. The packed earth surface was sometimes reinforced with gravel dug from the nearby fields, but this did not prevent it from becoming a constant source of complaint. The vehicle wheels damaged the surface, and dry hot weather baked the mud into deep ruts, which in wet weather would fill with water and produce cloying mud. The solution was to impose a proper maintenance plan on the road. On 1 June 1727 thirty-two trustees met at the George Inn, Colnbrook, for the first meeting of the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust. This trust was formed to maintain the Bath Road, for a length of seven miles, between Cranford Bridge and Maidenhead Bridge. The cost of the road maintenance would come from tolls paid by the highway users. The improved road surface, strengthened by a proper gravel surface and improved drainage, meant the journey-time to Bath could be shortened to less than a day, but there was still room for improvement.

In 1741 the Colnbrook Trust erected mile stones along the seven miles of Bath Road under their administration. The stones were commissioned from Mr Woodruff of Windsor and cost £2 8s each. Although recut in the 1820s the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth miles stones are still in place today. They show the distance between local towns as well as the total distance from Hyde Park Corner.

One of the natural hazards in the summer for the Bath Road travellers was the choking dust created by the wheels of the carriages breaking up the dried mud on the road. In 1827 the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust spent £759 on trying to solve this problem. They had wells dug every two miles, installed pumps and bought new water carts. The pumps were made by Fowler & Co of Lambeth and were about two metres high in order to be tall enough to fill a barrel mounted on a cart. The water carts would then be used to spray water on the road in order to lay the dust. From March to October the road would be watered twice daily in dry weather, except for Sundays. This practice continued into the twentieth century until just before the first World War when the road surface was sprayed with tar. One of these pumps has been preserved, today, at Longford near the 15th milestone opposite MacDonalds on the old Peggy Bedford site.

Today we hardly notice the milestones which still mark the miles from London as they have done for 283 years, but they are still there and still standing smartly to attention to fulfil their purpose. The thirteenth-mile marker is outside the telephone exchange at Harlington Corner and opposite the Best Western Arial hotel and the Airport Bowl. The fourteenth is just past the Three Magpies pub, near Newport Road that leads onto the Northern Perimeter Road West, and opposite the Leonardo Hotel. The fifteen-mile marker is against a car park fence and opposite a petrol filling station and a MacDonalds where the Peggy Bedford used to be. This and the sixteenth marker, close to the bridge that carries the Old Bath Road over the M25 near Colnbrook, will be removed if Longford village is demolished to make way for the Third Runway, and another piece of Longford history will disappear.

Read more about the last three hundred years of Longford in:

" Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts

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The river built for a King’s vanity.

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 17:49:38 GMT

The river built for a King’s vanity.

The Longford River, in Middlesex, is not a river but a canal cut by a King and now owned by a King. It starts from a place on the Colne/Wraysbury river in the village of Longford at a point just after an island of four acres. The main river flows on to join the Thames at Staines, whilst the man-made river flows south. This passes through the Middlesex villages of Stanwell and Bedfont where it is only metres away from one of Europe’s busiest Airports. It then flows through Feltham, Hanworth Park, Hampton and Bushy Park before fulfilling its purpose in the Hampton Court Palace water gardens and exiting into the River Thames.

This artificial river was dug on the orders of Charles I in 1638 to improve the flow of water to the Hampton Court fountains. [1] He designed the fountains to impress his wife, Henrietta Maria. It was often known as the King’s, Queen’s or Cardinal’s river, but is now universally known as the Longford River and is still Crown property.

Soon after the river leaves the River Colne at the Saxon village of Longford it crosses The Great Bath Road. This busy road, which leads to Windsor, Reading and Bath, was once in constant use by horses, carts and carriages. After years of coachmen having to negotiate the narrow bridge that crossed the Kings River, and over which successive Monarchs had been driven on their journey’s to and from Windsor, King William IV decided to do something about it. In 1834 he had built a cast iron bridge bordered on each side by an elliptical arch with a parapet with a trellis design. In the centre of the arch is a plaque with a raised crown and underneath “WR IV 1834”. This is now a Grade II listed structure.

As Crown property the river was strictly monitored to prevent any external encroachments on the river or its surroundings. In Victorian times only those granted permission by Mr. Jesse the Superintendent of Palaces were allowed to fish in the river. One of those granted a line permit was William Singleton, a grocer from Hampton. He was fishing at 7pm on 31 August 1846 when he saw two men retrieving stunned or dying fish that were floating on the surface from the river. The following morning about 6am a local Surgeon, Henry Jepson, who also had a permit, was fishing with a line when he was asked by Mr Plumbridge, a river inspector, whether he had seen anyone on the riverbank. Mr Plumbridge had received information that fish had been seen floating in the river, and a passerby had pointed out two suspicious men. Fifteen minutes later, the Doctor saw two men on the bridge looking down into the shallow water. It was a while before he saw what they were looking at until he spotted, laying on the bottom of the river, several large fish some dying, and some dead—they appeared to be under the influence of some narcotic and as he looked he saw more. They were everywhere. He pulled a couple of the roach out of the water and took them home to examine them. Later that evening, in the presence of Mr Plumbridge and of Mr Benbow, the local chemist, he surgically cut them open and discovered they had deep yellow matter in their stomachs, which he knew to be characteristics of the coculus indicus plant. This plant often called the Indian berry or fishberry induces stupefying effects, and although a poison was, until it was banned in the mid-nineteenth century, sometimes added to cheap beer to make it more intoxicating. Adding the berries or a paste of the berries would have stupefied the fish making them easier to catch. At the subsequent trial at the Old Bailey on 21 September 1846, nineteen year old Jesse Lucas, one of the men looking over the bridge, stood in the Dock. George Henry Benbow, a chemist from Hampton gave evidence that the accused came into his shop on the afternoon of 31 August and bought half-an-ounce of coculus indicus.

Mr Benbow said, “he did not ask for it by that name—I do not remember the name he called it—it is called by so many names—it was the common name—but I sold him half an ounce of coccnlus indicus—he did not say what he wanted it for—before he left the shop I cantioned him—I told him it was transportation to use it—I did not say what for”.

He told the Court that he was present when Mr Jepson opened the fish that had been removed from the river. “I am satisfied that what was found was coculus indicus—I know that it is sometimes mixed with dough and put into the water.”

Jesse Lucas was born in Hampton Common. [2] His father had died when he was a baby and he had been in trouble before, but had been holding down a job as a bricklayers’ labourer for the last 18 months. Now he was in serious trouble. When the two men were arrested, Lucas’s companion, Jim Lee, sprinted away and was never found. At the trial Jesse Lucas’ defence statement was, “I never chucked any stuff in.” Nevertheless he was found guilty and sentenced to transportation for seven years. He was first taken to Pentonville Prison and then transferred to Millbank and a prison hulk. Weighing 9st 11lbs he had to do hard labour until after eighteen months he was put on board the Anna Maria and sailed for Port Phillip, Melbourne, Australia. He then disappears from the records.

Fishing was not the only activity restricted by the Crown authorities. It was an offence to use the water for irrigation or to damage the river or its banks with any type of construction other than that authorised by the Crown authorities. In 1836 William Stevens of Longford was summoned before the Magistrates Court by the Superintendent of the water supply belonging to her Majesty to Hampton Court. Stevens was charged with pulling down and damaging the palisade fence enclosing the river. He was convicted with a penalty of twelve shillings and costs and sent to the treadmill for one month. [3]

The Crown employed men to help maintain the river, one such riverman was Thomas Hedges. He lived at the Kings Arms in Longford village. He used a long shallow boat like a punt to dredge the river and keep the banks clear of weeds. Hedges also had an obligation to report on misuse of the river. On 12 August 1878 Mr. Hedges was in the Kings Arm’s tap room when a labourer called Edmund Buckland accused Hedges of not lending him his boat. Hedges said he wouldn’t lend it to him and an argument broke out which resulted in a fight, although Hedges did not return the blows. Buckland was drunk and had previous convictions and was upset that Hedges had caught him netting the river. Buckland was found guilty of assault and was fined fifteen shillings (a week’s wages). [4]

The bridges over the Longford river had been maintained by the Crown authorities, but complaints about the narrowness of the bridges for modern traffic, caused conflict between the local council and H.M. Office of Works in the late 19th century. The Board declared it did not have a budget for replacing the bridges, nor were they willing to assign additional land for a wider bridge. In 1901 an attempt was made for the Middlesex County Council to take over the ownership of the bridges from the Crown, but negotiations broke down. The issue was still unresolved in 1913, when H.M. Office of Works said they had no money for bridge improvements but they were willing to re-open negotiations about the ownership of the bridges. [5] In fact under the Crown Lands Act 1906 bridges owned by the Crown could be transferred to any authority “willing and able to accept such a conveyance”. So one by one the local councils along the route of the Longford river applied to take responsibility for a bridge in their area and removing the necessity to keep applying the Crown when maintenance or improvements were necessary. They were however to do nothing that would interfere with the flow of the river. [6]

As well as the issue of the bridges there were other construction issues. There was a smallpox outbreak in 1907 and the Staines council wanted to build an isolation hospital near the Longford River. The Crown authorities objected strongly to this, the inference being that the river could be contaminated in some way. [7] In 1914 Feltham council applied to H.M. Office of Works for permission to utilise a portion of the Longford River as a bathing place, but permission was refused. However they did concede that if the Council wanted to build a swimming bath near to the river then, on receiving details, they would sanction the use of the water from the river. Council Surveyors estimated that such a swimming bath would cost £830, but with the start of the First World War, the Council decided to defer the proposal at that time. [8]

Occasionally nature interfered with river. In severe winters the river would freeze over. At other times the storms caused flooding. Cottages next to the river in Stanwell were flooded in 1914 and the council requested that the surface water be allowed to drain into the Longford river, but the Crown objected as they felt it would cause pollution. [9]

This water hazard also caused tragedy. In Hanworth in 1894 72 year old Charlotte Penfold accidentally fell in the river. Her body was seen floating down stream face down by a neighbour William Morgan. He managed to get her out of the water and called a doctor, but she was pronounced dead. At her inquest it was explained that she had recently had influenza and was still groggy when she went to the river bank to feed the ducks. It was thought she had become dizzy and fallen in and a verdict was returned of Accidental Death. Mrs Penfold had been a respected member of the parish of Hanworth for 35 years. Her late husband was the foreman at Curtis and Harveys Mills (gunpowder mill on Hounslow Heath) for many years. Another long-term worker from Curtis and Harvey accidentally drowned in the river in 1922. George Rowe, aged 71, of River View Villas, Bedfont, fell in the river. He was in the habit of rising early and walking along the banks to see his son. [10] Not all drownings were accidental. Elizabeth Martin, aged 31, was found drowned in the river, after leaving her three children with a neighbour and a note for her husband, who was working away. The inquest verdict was suicide. [11]

When Charles I began his quest for a picturesque water garden at Hampton Court and spared no expense in getting twelve miles of waterway cut from the Colne River to feed it, he probably never envisaged the growth of Middlesex surburbia, nor transport such as planes and automobiles. But the fact that it has survived for 385 years through changing times, and its tranquil waters and natural habitats have given pleasure to many over that time means that the river is well-loved and admired. It will be sad to see it disappear into a culvert at Longford if the third runway is built at Heathrow airport and the village of Longford is demolished.

Wendy Tibbitts is the author of “ Longford: A Village in Limbo ” now available in paperback and ebook.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

[1] Wikipedia. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Longford_River_at_Bedfont_-_water_for_Hampton_Court_-_geograph.org.uk_-_112074.jpg

[2] Ancestry.co.uk

[3] Windsor and Eton Express – Saturday 24 December 1836.

[4] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 24 August 1878]

[5] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 27 September 1913

[6] Crown Lands Act 1906 An Act to amend the Crown Lands Acts, 1829 to 1894 1906 CHAPTER 28 6 Edw 7

[7] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 28 September 1907

[8] Middlesex Chronicle - Saturday 07 November 1914

[9] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 11 April 1914

[10] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 17 February 1922

[11] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 18 April 1908

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 15:45:41 GMT

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

When Bath became a fashionable place for Society to visit, the Great Bath Road (A4), which went from London, through Hounslow Heath to Longford and Colnbrook and onwards to Bath, saw an increase in the long-distance carriage trade. The constant movement of carriage-wheels damaged the compressed earth road and often resulted in a quagmire of deep mud through which pedestrians, riders and coaches had to pass. When the mud dried out the crushed mud then covered travellers in clouds of dust.

Local people would sometimes spread gravel on the road to improve the surface, but it soon became clear a proper maintenance policy was needed. Turnpike Trusts were formed on all major roads. They would charge users a toll to travel along the roads and this money paid for the cost of road maintenance. Gates were set up across the road where the toll was to be collected and toll houses built for the toll-house keeper and his family to live in.

The Colnbrook Turnpike Trust was set up in 1727 to maintain a length of road from Cranford Bridge to Maidenhead Bridge. A turnpike gate was built at Salt Hill in Slough, but the main gate was west of Colnbrook. This gate was later thought to be inconvenient and collected insufficient funds, so in 1739 it was moved to the eastern side of Colnbrook near the road to Poyle and a tollhouse built alongside it. [1] Two toll gatherers were employed to collect the tolls. The tollhouse was often isolated and vulnerable to thieves who knew that sums of money were held there.

On 16 June 1735 the Colnbrook Toll keeper was robbed of all the previous days takings. [2] In April 1768 the tollhouse keeper, Benjamin Harvey was robbed of not only his takings, but his silver watch and eight shillings and ninepence of his own money. The Colnbrook Turnpike Trust refunded him £2.18s.3d for his loss.

Joseph Pierce from Langley Marish had married his London-born sweetheart in 1764 when he was 26. Later Joseph became the tollhouse keeper and moved his growing family into the tollhouse at Colnbrook. On the night of 23 February 1781 he heard a noise in the tollbooth and went to investigate. At two in the morning a butcher from Windsor, with another traveller, entered the tollhouse to pay their turnpike toll and found the keeper badly injured on the floor, covered in blood, and dying. His head appeared to have been caved in from the use of a blood-covered poker that lay nearby and there was a large pool of blood around his body. It was later found that twelve pounds had been stolen. [3] Joseph Pierce did not survive the night. He was 43 and left his wife with a teenage daughter and three young children. The family lost their home and their wage-earner on that terrible night.

The murder shocked the nation and the hunt was on for the killer. In March a man was arrested in London and confessed to the murder and robbery at Colnbrook turnpike, but appeared to be “disordered in his senses” and it was discovered that he had arrived from India since the murder and robbery were committed. [4]

It was not until three years later that the culprit was discovered by chance. In April 1784 a man called Robert Griffith was employed by Samuel Dixon who lived in the 16th century Wallingtons Manor, a large manor house in the village of Kintbury, Berkshire. On the night of 7 April Samuel Dixon was staying in London when the manor house was badly damaged by fire. Robert Griffith was sent to London to tell Mr Dixon about the fire, but his suspicious behaviour caused Dixon to question Griffith about the fire. He eventually confessed that he started the fire to cover up the fact that he had stolen a brace of pistols, a gun, and a quantity of money.

Whilst in custody he also confessed to the murder of the Colnbrook Tollhouse keeper. At the time of the murder Griffith had been the second toll-gatherer at Colnbrook and it was thought Joseph Pierce had surprised him whilst he was stealing the takings. Griffith was sent to Reading Goal where he tried to slit his own throat, but he missed his windpipe and, after the cut was sewn up, he survived. [5] His sentence is unrecorded, but the crime would have been classed as highway robbery for which a death sentence is mandatory.

The tollhouse was demolished in 1962. There is a rumour that it was haunted by the ghost of Joseph Pierce, and that his spirit is said to walk at Halloween.

For more historical stories about Colnbrook, Longford, and Harmondsworth read “Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

[1] Rosevear, Alan. A booklet on the Turnpike Road around Reading. http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Reading%20turnpike%20roads.htm

[2] Newcastle Courant - Saturday 21 June 1735

[3] Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 01 March 1781

[4] [4] Reading Mercury - Monday 19 March 1781

[5] Northampton Mercury - Monday 26 April 1784

The Hunt Family of Harmondsworth

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:10:45 GMT

The Hunt family of Manor Farm and Heathrow Farm,

Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

Heathrow Farm 1936 (now under Terminal 3).

I first came across the Hunt family when I was researching the farming community of Heathrow. In the 1910 Valuation Survey book, at the National Archives, it showed that Heathrow Farm (now under Terminal 3) was being farmed by W.J. Curtis and his family, but it was part-owned by another man called Hunt. [1] This led me to include the Hunt family in my research about Harmondsworth. I found extensive records about the family in both the National Archives and the Metropolitan Archives in London. I traced Frederic Hunt, in 1911, to Burford House, Caversham, Berkshire where he had been living and working as a private secretary. Why was he there when he was once a major farmer in Harmondsworth?

The Hunt family inherited land from the Atlee family with whom they intermarried. I have found it impossible to create an exact Atlee family tree. Each generation had several sons, many of them called their son, John, and each son went into business either in London or in farming. They acquired property in Hillingdon, Ickenham, Harmondsworth, Harlington and Ealing. Even up to the twentieth century there were various John Attlee’s in Hounslow, Hammersmith, Heston and spread around West London.

In 1666 both the Hunt family and the Atlee family were paying Hearth Tax in Harmondsworth. In the seventeenth century Heathrow Farm was in the possession of the Atlee family. From wills, I have found a John Atlee with land at Heathrow who died in 1674 and who left it to his son of the same name. Two years later another John Atlee died and wrote a will leaving all the Heathrow property to his wife in her lifetime. The next will that specifically mentions Heathrow Farm is that of another John Atlee who died in 1762. He left the farm to his son, John Atlee, but by then his daughter had married John Hunt in 1758. [2]

From 1781 a John Atlee was farming Manor Farm in Harmondsworth for absentee landlord, John Powell, and he remained there until his death in 1801. It was the largest farm in the Parish and therefore the largest employer. He left most of his land to his son of the same name who was farming his Harlington land and the tenancy of Manor Farm at Harmondsworth he left to John Hunt. John Hunt’s son, Atlee Hunt, was already running Heathrow Farm and later added the tenancy of Manor Farm to his land holdings when his father died. Although Atlee Hunt and his wife, Maria, had six sons and five daughters not all the sons enjoyed the farming life. The Hunts, like most of the farmers of Harmondsworth and Harlington, were Baptists. Therefore the children were expected to marry into other Baptists families, which restricted their choices. The eldest son, John Atlee Hunt, married a Eliza Pewtress from St. Pancras and for a while was farming in Harmondsworth, but by 1851 he had moved to London and was running a boarding house. His father did not leave him a bequest in his will so we assume he received a sum of money to set himself up in business in his father’s lifetime. Atlee Hunt had given his second son, Josiah, a farm in Uxbridge Road, Hayes. The third son Benjamin was “afflicted” and was supported throughout his 69 years by his brothers and sisters. The fourth son, Samuel, was destined to take his father’s place as tenant of Manor Farm and owner of Heathrow Farm. He was 32 when his father died, and although his mother took over the running of the farm, she needed Samuel’s help, until her death in 1848. That was also the year his first son, Frederic, was born. Samuel had married Caroline Tillyer, from another Baptist Harmondsworth farming family, in 1845 at the age of 41. The year after Frederic was born another son, Samuel Charles, was born, followed by a sister, Caroline, and a brother Edward who was only eight when his mother died in 1868. Another son, Josiah was born in 1852, but died aged 14 and two other children died in infancy.

In 1871 Samuel Hunt of Manor Farm was farming 276 acres, but this was the decade that the agricultural industry was beginning to go into a depression. Samuel had been widowed in 1868 and by 1881 had retired from running the farm. He was still living in the farmhouse with his son Frederic who now had the full responsibility for the farm and was changing the type of crops he grew to be able to ride out the slump in wheat sales. Frederic was 33 and unmarried. His brother Samuel Charles, a year younger than Frederic, had been helping on the farm, but had married a London girl in 1874 and had left the farm. In the 1881 census Samuel Charles and his family were living in Egham where he was working for the local council. He rather bitterly, adds his occupation as “formerly farmer – given up by loss”. It is not clear whether the “loss” is due to the farm being unable to earn enough for him to support his wife, or whether he had married outside the Baptist faith and therefore was now considered an outsider to the family. Whatever the reason there was some residual tension within the family as illustrated in subsequent wills.

Frederic had been so busy running the farm that he didn’t have time to marry until 1883 when he was 35. His bride was Florence Ward of Stanwell and he brought her home to Manor Farm where they lived with his widowed father. Samuel Hunt, died in 1885 aged 81. I have tried many archives and repositories, but have been unable to find his will. Heathrow Farm was put up for auction soon after. This is when W.J. Curtis and Frederic Hunt decided to buy the farm as a joint enterprise. Frederic struggled on at Manor Farm, but in 1896 Frederic held an auction at Manor Farm selling 120 items of Live and Dead farm stock, and furniture, because he was “giving up farming”. [3] In the same year Frederic gave up his lease and handed Manor Farm back to the absentee landlord, Percy H.G. Powell-Cotton. [4]

Frederic was active in the community. He was Chairman of the School Board. [5] He was the Secretary of the Harmondsworth branch of the Young Men’s Christion Association. He was also quite vocal in his political views. He spoke at the National Farmers Club in London in 1883 on the proposed Agricultural Holdings bill. As a member of the National Council of the YMCA he would travel all over the country to attend to meetings giving passionate and “pithy” speeches in order to expand the reach of the Association to all towns and villages and raising funds to send missionaries to China. [6] One of these missionaries was his brother Edward, who was by now a solicitor in Uxbridge. Before Edward left he gave a speech, with other departing missionaries, at a multi-denomination church meeting in Uxbridge explaining his calling to give up his comfortable lifestyle for this voluntary work in China. [7] At the age of 28 he boarded a ship on 29 November 1888 for a six week voyage to Shanghai. [8] Before he left he wrote his will. I read this will in the Metropolitan Archives and inside the document was a sealed envelope. I asked if I could open it and a conservator unsealed it for me. I was the first to read the contents since 9 July 1888. This is what it said, “With regard to my bequest for the benefit of my brother Samuel Charles’ family I wish that the income only be given to him unless there is a special emergency such as him emigrating when all the funds can be released. Strongly wish that no capital be used to set him up in business where he is his own master. I also wish that his boys be brought up to learn some handicraft and that capital can be freely used to obtain this end, but not to put them into professions unless my trustees think they are specially suited to them”.

Edward met and married Alice Whitford whilst in China and they were married in the Cathedral in Shanghai in 1894. Three years later Edward, with his wife, returned to England where they toured the country promoting the work of the China Inland Mission and their 600 missionaries. [9] They would give speeches dressed in chinese robes to church groups, about their work at a mission in Gan-King province. [10] Throughout their service in China they sent regular reports back to England. These are now held in the University of Birmingham.

In 1900, at the time of the Boxer rebellion, the Hunts were back in China. The uprising against missionaries and ‘foreign’ interference in Chinese affairs was savage. The China Inland Mission lost 58 adults and 21 children who were killed when several mission bases were destroyed. [11] The Hunts managed to flee to the safety of Shanghai. [12] In 1907 Edward wrote about the success of the Christian movement post-Rebellion: “We have 1,500 regular attendants at our services" [in Zhejiang province]. [13] In April 1918 They went from Hong Kong to Vancouver in Canada having travelled there from Yokohama, Japan. And arrived in Liverpool in February 1919. Edward was now ordained, but Harmondsworth was no longer home for Edward and on the passenger list they put their English address as the China Mission House, Newington Green (now used as student accommodation). [14] The England they saw on arrival was very different from the one they left before the war. The first World War had changed Britain from an agricultural based society to industrial. Motor transport and aircraft were now the norm. On their immigration form they had stated that they had intended to stay in England. They were both in their fifties and due for retirement as missionaries, but by August 1919 they were on a ship back to Canada and onward journey to China. [15] Both died in China in 1922. Edward Hunt died on 12 February and his wife seven weeks earlier. Both had written new, identical, wills in 1909 . By this time it seems Samuel Charles has been forgiven and he received equal amounts with his brother and sister, and all the nephews received £50 each, whilst the nieces share the residue. Edward had grown up a farmer’s son, but also a Baptist’s son and he made the latter vocation his life’s work. His brother Samuel Charles died later in 1922 and Frederic at a later date. None of them returned to farming or to Harmondsworth.

[1] The National Archives’ reference PROB IR58/39632

[2] The National Archives' reference PROB 11/875/454

[3] Middlesex Chronicle 29/8/1896

[4] The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies 134.1960

[5] Edinburgh Evening News - Wednesday 18 February 1885

[6] Reading Mercury - Saturday 10 November 1888

[7] Middlesex & Surrey Express - Saturday 24 November 1888

[8] London Metropolitan Archives ACC/0538/2ND DEP/1864

[9] Hastings & St. Leonards Times - Saturday 13 February 1897

[10] Berkshire Chronicle - Saturday 17 April 1897

[11] Wikipedia. “Boxer Rebellion”

[12] Liverpool Daily Post - Tuesday 24 July 1900

[13] London and China Telegraph - Monday 23 September 1907. Edward Hunt, "Encouragements, Difficulties, Needs, at Wen-chow," China's Millions (June 1907), p. 95.

[14] Dover Express - Friday 04 July 1919

[15] Ancestry.

Read more about the social history of Longford and Harmondsworth in: " Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts.

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Harmondsworth Fair - "a fruitful source of intemperance and immorality"

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 09:32:07 GMT

"A fruitful source of Intemperance and Immorality”

The hard-working nineteenth century parishioners of Harmondsworth, had little time for pleasure. They worked six days a week, and on Sunday they were expected to worship at St Mary’s church or the Baptist Chapel. They had two annual public holidays on Christmas Day and Good Friday although for the day-work labourer this meant the loss of pay. However there was another non-working day that most people in Harmondsworth looked forward to, and that was Harmondsworth's annual fair held on 12 May. It was a time when people could dress in their best clothes and mingle on the centre of the village with their friends and neighbours for a day of enjoyment.

The day would dawn with many traders coming into the village and setting up stalls selling food and drink, trinkets, sweets, ribbons and beads. There would be some stalls for games where throwing or shooting at a target would result in a prize. There might also be simple fairground rides like swings and roundabouts. The fair was principally for pleasure, but it was probably also a hiring fair where employers who needed servants or labourers would mix with those looking for work. The farm workers would all wear their Sunday best and have a ticket or token in their hat, or carry an implement, that denoted their trade. Shepherds would have some sheep wool, and thatchers some straw in their caps. Horsemen would carry whips for, and labourers spades. The hat emblem would be replaced with ribbons if they were hired. The employer and the employee negotiated the wage, and if they agreed the bargain would be sealed with a token coin, usually a shilling, and this would soon be spent on the stalls around the green. It was a rare day off for the farm-workers and they made the most of it, but it often ended in rowdiness.

In 1871, The Fairs Act was passed into law by Queen Victoria on 25 May, which set out a framework under which citizens could apply to have Fairs abolished if they were: a) unnecessary; b) the cause of grievous immorality; c) injurious to the inhabitants of the towns in which such fairs were held. On the same day the widowed Queen also signed into law The Bank Holidays Act 1871. This would give the nation four more public holidays, i.e. Boxing Day; Easter Monday; the first Monday in May and the first Monday in August.

Now that the public had four extra days for pleasure, the Baptist farmers of Harmondsworth, and the churchgoers of St Mary’s felt that they did not have to put up with the dreaded nuisance of the annual fair which usually degenerated into a drunken, noisy event. On 19 May 1879, a petition was sent by to the Magistrates in Uxbridge asking them to apply to the Secretary of State, under the Fairs Act 1871, to have the fair abolished. Their reasons were that the fair had become “a nuisance to the neighbourhood, and a fruitful source of Intemperance and Immorality”. It was signed by J.C. Lewis, the vicar, his curate, Claud Brown, Charles A. Wild of The Grange, William G. Ashby, churchwarden, James Ladds at Cambridge House, Samuel Hunt, Guardian, Frederick Hunt, Chairman of the School Board, H.C. Belch, Surveyor of Highways, and W.H. Sternberg of St. Mary’s Cottage. Note that there were no representatives of Harmondsworth’s three pubs on the petition to whom the fair brought a welcome influx of people and their spending money.

On 15 July 1879 the clerk to the Magistrates forward the application to abolish the Fair on to the government and by 18th August a poster was displayed on the church door and three other places in the village proposing that the fair be abolished. [1] The announcement was also published in the Uxbridge and West Drayton Gazette. By 20th August the Secretary of State had signed the order and issued a certificate abolishing the Fair. Less than a year later the Secretary of State also approved the abolition of West Drayton’s annual Whit Monday Fair. [2]

These days we have plenty of leisure and plenty of choice on how we spend it. The nineteenth century Harmondsworth agricultural workers were less fortunate. They had little spare time and had no transport to travel further than they could walk. However, things were changing and soon, they could make the most of the four extra Bank Holidays by the use of a marvellous new invention called the bicycle.

[1] National Archives HO 45/9581/85797

[2] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 17 April 1880

For more details of the history that will be lost if the Third Runway is built at Heathrow read my book "Longford: A Village in Limbo"

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Tales from Longford: The Witch of Longford Cottage

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 11:27:33 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Witch of Longford Cottage.

In January 2023 the trees and shrubs in the front garden of Longford Cottage (493 Bath Road, Longford, Middlesex) were completely removed leaving the former Quaker Meeting House and graveyard open to view by passers-by. It was shocking to see the environment surrounding this Grade II listed building destroyed after its long history.

The site of Longford Cottage was a Quaker burial ground before it had a meeting house built there in 1676. As the first building of its kind in Middlesex it attracted worshippers from a wide area, but as more local Meeting Houses were built it lost its popularity and was eventually sold by the Society of Friends in 1875 to a local landowner who used it to house two labouring families. From then on it was residential.

Around 1934 Longford Cottage was bought by Ian Robert Kumar Maclaren, who owned the Golden Arrow Garage at Colnbrook. [1] He shared his house with his wife. Some people still remember the wonderfully named, Alexandrina Georgina Lexlie Maclaren who lived at Longford Cottage until 1986. Towards the end of her life she was regarded as an eccentric. Neighbours were convinced she was nocturnal. She had an impressive horse-chestnut tree in her garden that produced the biggest conkers in the village, but the children were scared to enter her garden to retrieve them. If she saw them she would rush out of her cottage waving her arms and chasing them out of her garden. With her wizened face and wild grey hair, the children were convinced she was a witch.

Alexandrina MacLaren, née Shiels, was born in London to Scottish parents. In later life she was just known as Lexlie. Her father was Alexander Shiels, a doctor of medicine, and a prolific inventor. He was clearly a very energetic polymath who together with his brother-in-law, William Elliot, registered various engineering patents for items such as milking machines, electrical equipment for trains, and weldless tubes. [2] He started a company, called Kosmoid, with several well-known Glaswegian industrialists as share-holders and directors. This company manufactured metal tubes and also experimented with a secret process . [3]

In 1902, at the age of 38, Dr Shiels married Georgina Clark aged 22 in London and kept the wedding a secret from his formidable mother in Glasgow. Lexlie, their first born, arrived on 29 October 1903. A son and another daughter were to follow. Meanwhile the medical fraternity in Glasgow were turning against Alexander Shiels and calling him a charleton. In 1905 the Kosmoid company built a large factory in Dumbarton which was intended to employ 6000 people, with plans to turn the area into a garden city for employees. The other directors had recklessly allowed Shiels full control of the finances and to make business decisions regarding manufacturing. Some of these processes were kept secret, but in 1906 the Daily Express reported that they had seen a document which appeared to confirm that Dr Shiels was attempting transmutation of metals into gold at the Kosmoid factory in Dumbarton. After a series of bad decisions Dr Shiels relinquished control of the company and disappeared to Northamptonshire. The only part of the company that his fellow directors could rescue from the ruin of the enterprise was the weldless tube company, which eventually became Babcock and Wilcox who continued to occupy the Dumbarton factory until 1996. [4]

Alexander Sheils moved his family into a large house called Grangefield in Earls Barton, Northampton. It is now a Care Home. He died there, just a year later, on 22 October 1907 and is buried in Berkhamsted, Herts. He left a 28-year-old widow, 4-year-old Lexlie, a son, Alexander, aged 3, and a new born daughter, Aileen. They remained at Earls Barton until at least 1911. Nothing is known of Lexlie’s early life until she married Ian Robert Kumar MacLaren in July 1931 in Chelsea. Ian MacLaren was the son of a well-known Yorkshire and England cricketer, Archie Maclaren. Ian’s parents, who lived in Warfield Park near Wokingham, died in 1944 and 1945 respectively. Their house was requisitioned by the Army during WW2. In 1947 the house, now in poor condition, was handed back into Ian's ownership.

Ian MacLaren, now saw an opportunity to build Warfield Park into his vision of an ideal landscaped housing environment. Lexlie did not share his dream so Ian gave up the Golden Arrow Garage and moved to Warfield Park to manage the property and the extensive grounds. The main house was demolished in 1950 and the ex-army huts in the grounds, which were housing civilian families, were replaced by caravans. [5] . The caravans were then replaced by the present day park homes, which are set in an impressive landscaped community. [6]

Ian did not return to live at Longford Cottage, but he and his wife never divorced. The couple had no children. Ian died in 1969 aged 64 leaving £46,802 and an annuity to Lexlie, who lived on until 1986. When she died at Longford Cottage she left legacies to the RNLI, the Mary Rose Trust, World Wildlife Fund and the Salvation Army. The residue of her £86,238 estate was left to the Polish Housing Society of Pwllheli, Gwynedd. This included her house and land which she “expressed the strongest wish” that it would be used as a home for Polish Ex-Servicemen and their families. It is not known if the Society did house ex-servicemen in the Longford Cottage or whether they sold it to use the money elsewhere, but the Society continues today as retirement village in Pwllheli. The most important clause in her will said:

"I WISH to be buried in the garden of my house at Longford Cottage 493 Bath Road Longford West Drayton Middlesex (which is consecrated ground) in the pathway near the large chestnut tree (which I have pointed out to my executors) and I DIRECT THAT the burial site be covered with Scottish granite bearing the

inscription 'Alexandrina Georgina Lexlie MacLaren Born 29th October 1903 Died........ widow of Ian Robert Kumar MacLaren younger son of the renowned cricketer Archibald Campbell MacLaren'"

This is why it is sad to see the front of Longford Cottage so bare of the shrubs and trees that have surrounded the building for centuries. The Hillingdon Enforcement Planning officer is investigating , but the damage is done now. As well as Lexlie's grave, this is the burial ground for 120 Quakers with unmarked graves and is part of the village history. Longford has had a long and glorious past and while the buildings survive the history will continue to be preserved and cherished.

Postscript: 3/7/2023 Hillingdon Council Planning Department has refused the application to landscape the garden. I hope it can now be restored.

Read more about the remarkable history of Longford in:

" Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to

https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

[1] Ian MacLaren had no association the McClaren racing team

which was formed in 1963 by New Zealander, Bruce McClaren.

[2] http://www.valeofleven.org.uk/babcocks.html

[3] https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12324849.alchemist-of-kosmoid-hall/

[4] Harvie, D. (1997, May 24). Alchemist of Kosmoid Hall

[5] Wokingham Times - Friday 05 May 1950

[6] https://www.warfieldpark.co.uk/

Tales from Longford: The King's secret island

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:16:59 GMT

Tales from Longford: The King's secret island

There is a four-acre inhabited island at Longford, Middlesex, little known to outsiders. The residents of the island would like to keep it that way. It is a peaceful haven surrounded by the River Colne in an unexpectedly tranquil setting considering its location in between the M4, the M25 and London’s Heathrow airport.

Ancient folk knew the advantage of making settlements near water. The water was needed for drinking, washing, crop irrigation and cattle rearing. The banks of the River Colne in Middlesex attracted the Saxon invaders who began to settle in clearings they made in the Middlesex Forest and gave the settlements appropriate names. [1] Longford is part of the parish of Harmondsworth which belonged to Harold Godwinson the last crowned Saxon King who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William the Conqueror then gave the parish to Abbey of Holy Trinity, Rouen, before it passed to the Bishop of Winchester, and was acquired by King Henry VIII in 1543. [2] The King assigned the parish to a nobleman, but kept ownership of the island at Longford and it remained Crown property until 1874.

There was a mill on the island at Longford mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086. At various times it was repaired or replaced and the waterpower was used for a variety of commodities. Sometime before 1745 a substantial house, known as Island House, was built on the tip of the island nearest the bridge that led to the Bath Road. The site is now an apartment block. As well as the mill and its outbuildings there were two acres of meadow land, and footbridges led to smaller islands. The strip of land running along the opposite bank of the river, with its fishing rights, was also the King’s property.

Island House was one of the largest buildings in Longford. It was leased to various London gentry who used it as their country abode, and the meadow and mill were often leased separately. In 1747 when there were 16 taxpayers in Longford, Mr Hurst was paying nineteen shillings and sixpence in land tax for the island. By 1767, when George III was on the throne, there were 25 tax-paying households in Longford, and a Mr Burnet was paying taxes on Island House. George III’s long reign was marked by continual global conflicts and more taxes were needed in order to raise money to fight these wars. In 1770 a window tax was imposed on the residents. From the returns for Longford we can see that the two largest buildings in Longford were the Tudor-built ‘Yeomans’, and Island House. [3] Both had 19 windows and were paying £1.11s.6d in tax. By 1772 Thomas Willing was the occupant at Island House and paying the same amount of tax as his predecessor.

Thomas Willing was a Quaker businessman from London, originally from Bristol, whose brother was Mayor of Philadelphia, and whose nephew was later involved in the formation of the American Independence movement. [4] Thomas Willing died at Island House in 1773 and was buried in the chancel of St. Mary’s, Harmondsworth. In his will he left the lease of Island House to his niece, Dorothy Stirling whose husband was Admiral Sir Walter Stirling. Dorothy brought up her three children at Island House while her husband was away at sea, but by 1782 with her children all grown up she journeyed to Scotland to visit her married daughter. There she became ill and died aged 42. Her husband lived another four years and on his death his body was brought back to Harmondsworth to be buried in the church.

Dorothy had left the lease of Island House to her eldest son, Sir Walter Stirling, who was a banker in the City of London. His bank was doing well and he married an heiress from Kent. He also became an MP, a fellow of the Royal Society, and a High Sheriff of Kent. He and his wife, Susanna had a son and four daughters, but shortly after giving birth to her last daughter, Mother and daughter died. Both were buried in one coffin in St Mary’s church, Harmondsworth. More bad news was on the way for Sir Walter. There was a banking crisis in 1825 which resulted in a run on the banks and small bank’s like Sir Walters were unable to pay their depositors. The bank collapsed owing thousands to their customers. Sir Walter had to sell all his assets including his property in Kent and Middlesex. It took him two years, but he did eventually manage to pay all his debts and restore his reputation. When he died in 1832 aged 74 he was brought back to Harmondsworth and laid to rest at St Mary’s. In 1833, his brother, Charles, who was an Admiral like his father, died and was brought back to Harmondsworth to be buried next to his wife. This ended the 60-year association the Willing/ Stirling family had with Harmondsworth.

In April 1788 plans were put forward for a new mill to be built on the Island on the tributary nearest the village [5] This replaced the paper mill which had ceased running eighty years earlier. It is now the site of Colne Cottage. The new water Mill with its spacious yard and a range of workshops and buildings was leased to a series of calico printers by George III's Crown estates. In 1791 it was Robert Buchanan who was insuring he premises, [6] and in 1799 the tenants were Edmund Hill and John Thackrah we were paying rent of £17.7s.6d per annum. [7] Thackrah and Hill renewed the lease in 1806 for 41 years. Island House and two acres of meadow were leased to a member of the Jarvis family. The Jarvis family were a long-term dynastic Baptist family that had lived in Longford for centuries. Thomas Jarvis was occupying the Island House when he died in 1823. He and his wife did not have children, but he amassed a fortune as a property auctioneer in the late 18th century and when he died his bequests changed the fortunes of most of his nieces and nephews. He left land to two of his nephews, Thomas and William, and his bequest virtually doubled their landholdings. The condition of the bequests were that their mother, who was already living in Island House, would remain there for her lifetime and the two brothers would support her. In his will he rather pointedly left them the land and stipulated that they should carry on the farming business as tenants in common, “without any difficulties” implying that the brothers had had “difficulties” in the past and he was hoping to restore peaceful relations between them.

The leaseholders of the mill, Hill and Thackrah, sublet the house and business in 1833 when the sale of the lease was advertised as being sold “without reserve”. The house and its garden, together with a length of the opposite bank of the Colne, which had fishing rights, was sold to John Batchelor. Andrew Inight bought the lease to the Mill and its own patented machinery for printing of calico and other fabrics on a flat bed press, plus other presses, boilers, stoves, winches, and other equipment. [8] These two purchasers either did not know that the properties were leasehold, or hoped that if they kept quiet long enough the freehold would revert to them, but the Crown caught up with them.

On 13th May 1850 the pair’s solicitor was in court to defend an action brought by the Attorney General over who actually owned the island. Their defence was that they did not recognise the Crown as owners of the island and claimed that as they had not been paying “rent or profits” to the Crown for 20 years the island had reverted to their ownership. However the Receiver General for the Crown produced receipts that showed the rent had been paid annually in the name of the original leasees until the expiration of the lease in October 1847 when the payments ceased. After hearing all the evidence the Judge ruled in favour of the Crown and the defendants were evicted from the disputed land and premises. [9]

By 1874, with Queen Victoria on the throne, the Crown were selling the Freehold of the whole island and all the buildings on it. It included a separate island and a thin strip of land along the opposite river bank plus all the buildings. [10]

There is no mention of a mill in the sale details, but there are two meadows each of over an acre in land and a kitchen garden with fruit trees, where violets were being grown for sale. The main Island House is described as “Old-Fashioned” and there is a stable for two horses, a coach house, cottage, wash-house and baking oven. The occupier was James William Jarvis, Market Gardener, a yearly tenant who was under notice to quite at Michaelmas 1874. At the auction the whole island was bought for £750 by George Shuter, of London, a potato salesman. His Company, George Shuter Ltd, was a very successful Potato Sales business which was still trading at Covent Garden in 1971.

George Shuter also happened to be married to James William Jarvis’s eldest daughter and he had bought it so that his father-in-law could continue his tenancy. However, the 1870s was a bad time for British agriculture when there was a collapse in grain prices. Jarvis was struggling. By 1880 he was in the bankruptcy court. [11] He continued to live in Longford, but to make ends meet he became a travelling salesman before eventually moving to Park Lane, Hayes, where he died in 1894.

In 1892 the freehold of the Island was once more up for sale by auction, but failed to sell. It was then sold by private treaty. The Island passed through several more owners and in 1897 was put up for auction by Mr J.T. Lane who advertised the remodelled family home as a ‘Summer residence’ or ‘Hunting Box’. [12] A London businessman, Thomas Fuller Toovey, bought it as a home for his retirement. Although only 40 he had made his money designing and manufacturing bicycles. He moved into his house on 30 June 1898. He had paid £1080 for it and spent another £800 in alterations. [13] He and his wife lived there most summers, but they would let it fully furnished for three months or more each October. By November 1905 Toovey was selling the entire contents of the house and outbuildings, which included a 8hp Peugeot motor car and a 2¾ hp motor bicycle, as he was “going abroad”, although he retained the freehold. [14] From December 1905 Joseph Perrin, a button merchant had a seven-year lease on Island House. The Perrin family attended Poyle Congregational church where their son Edward was Secretary for the newly formed Poyle and Colnbrook Congregational Institute.

It appears that Joseph Perrin did not renew his lease because by February 1913 the house had been redecorated and was available for rent. In October 1914 Mr Frank Pagesmith was given a seven-year lease on Island House at £120 p.a. There was a dispute however in August 1915 between owner and tenant over some tools and equipment on the property that Pagesmith had agreed to purchase from T.F. Toovey. The payment was not made and Toovey took Pagesmith to Uxbridge County Court before successfully getting his payment.

Mrs Pagesmith was a member of the Harmondsworth Women’s Institute. In August 1923 she hosted a summer garden party for all its member in the “old-world” garden of Island House. There was a jazz band, punting, games and refreshments. The party ended at 10pm with fireworks. [15] The family were still there in 1926 when Mrs Pagesmith was advertising for a house-keeper. By 1939 Frank Pagesmith was dead but his wife and son, Gordon, were still living in Island House. Gordon had been a City of London rubber broker, but in 1930 had been declared bankrupt and was forbidden to deal after some of his speculations left a £56,000 deficit. By 1939 he was calling himself an “Estate Manager”. Another son, Norman was a Music Hall entertainer and the third son, Saxon, had the Fairfax plant nursery in Hounslow. Gordon and his mother breached the blackout regulations in 1941 and were fined 20 shillings. They continued to live at Island House until 1948 when Blanche Pagesmith died aged 84. Gordon moved to Staines and died there in 1957. [16]

By the time the 1939 register was drawn up there are several other residences on the Island. In Island Cottage lived Mr and Mrs Howard. Colne Cottage housed Mr and Mrs Begg. The Rees lived at Banco, and there were two other houses: Watersmeet, and Riverside.

The island has continued to be a delightful, hidden, part of residential Longford. Now the island is under threat from the proposed Heathrow Airport Expansion. If the third runway is built the island will disappear, the buildings will be demolished and the tranquil river Colne, which has given sustenance and industry to Longford for centuries, will disappear into an underground culvert. We must treasure the island and its history while we can.

[1] Bate, G.E. And So Make a City Here, (Hounslow, 1948)

[2] Impey, Edward, The Great Barn of 1425-27 at Harmondsworth, Middlesex. (Swindon, 2017)

[3] London Metropolitan Archives, LMA/4067/A/03/005

[4] Tibbitts, Wendy, Longford : A Village in Limbo, (Dorset, 2022)

[5] The National Archives, MPI 653, part 2, DSCF7826.jpg

[6] London Metropolitan Archives MS 11936/378/588220

[7] The National Archives E 367/6134

[8] Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 26 January 1833

[9] London Daily News - Tuesday 14 May 1850]

[10] The National Archives, MPI 653, part 1

[11] https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/24902/page/5775/data.pdf

[12] Middlesex County Times - Saturday 08 May 1897

[13] 1910 Valuation Survey Field Book. TNA IR 58/39632

[14] West Middlesex Gazette - Saturday 25 November 1905

[15] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 10 August 1923

[16] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 14 March 1941

For more on the history of Longford read

“ Longford: A Village in Limbo ” by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc or scan the QR code:

Tales from Longford: Heath Gardens

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 17:33:05 GMT

Tales fro m Longford: Heath Ga rdens

Heath Gardens 1909

Opposite the Kings Arms in Longford, Middlesex, is a cul-de-sac of ten houses called Heathrow Close. These were built on a market garden, but today only the 18th century farmhouse remains. This building, at 550 Old Bath Road, now has a Grade II listing by Historic England under the name ‘Longford Close’, but it was known locally as Heath Gardens. [1]

The extensive Heath family farmed in and around Longford for many generations. Like most ancient farming families of Longford they were Baptists. [2] The hamlet of Longford with no church or manor house was a haven for non-conformists. Heath Gardens as the name suggests was a market garden that, at the time of the Harmondsworth Enclosure Act of 1819, was the home of James Heath who was farming there. [3] He had an orchard behind the house and beyond the trees his market garden land stretched down to the River Colne. He also had other land further along the Bath Road. At that time he and his wife, Elizabeth, had two surviving children: Rachel Low Heath who married William Jarvis the following year (a member of another Longford Baptist farming dynasty) , and William Heath aged 19 who was helping his father run the farm. Farming in the early nineteenth century was mostly manual, and horses were the energy source. Four years after the Enclosure Act William married local girl Sarah Abeard and brought her to live at Heath Gardens with him and his widowed father. She, like many country people at that time was illiterate. She signed her marriage certificate with a cross. [4] The couple remained at Heath Gardens and had four children by 1841, but shortly afterwards William died. Sarah and her children remained at Heath Gardens with her widowed father-in-law until his death in 1850. In his will he left the farm to Sarah for her lifetime and on her death it was inherited by her son. [5]

In the 1861 census, Sarah with the help of her son James and a live-in labourer, was still farming Heath Gardens. When Sarah died, three years later, James had just married Elizabeth but it was a bad time to be in farming. There was a national agricultural slump in the 1870s and by 1871, James, 46, was struggling to earn enough money on the land which now amounted to just a few acres. He died in 1875 leaving his widow with five children aged between eleven and two. [6] Elizabeth could not manage the farm on her own and moved to the centre of Uxbridge and supported the family with what she could earn as a laundress. [7] None of the children returned to Longford.

The name of the small holding was retained, but with the size of Heath Gardens diminished there was not enough land to make the farm viable. Several people tried, including 23 year-old Stephen Norton, but by 1882 he was selling up all his horses, carts, farming equipment, growing crops, and household furniture. [8]

By 1892 the farm was just a five-acre orchard when the freehold was bought by Walter Fewell of Chelsea for £1000. Walter had a thriving fruiters and greengrocers business in the Kings Road, Chelsea, but his health was failing and he was advised by his doctors to retire and move to the country. [9] He was a regular purchaser at Covent Garden market and a good customer of William Wild who lived in the Weekly House at Longford and was the salesman for the Wilds’ farm produce at the market. The two men had become good friends over the years and it was probably William who told Walter that Heath’s Gardens which was up for sale. Walter, his wife Eliza and their eight year old daughter, Winifred left Chelsea and moved into the large farmhouse. In 1911 a surveyor described the main house as having a drawing room, dining room (“rather damp”), kitchen, hot water supply, good pantry, small scullery, new addition at back of the house, large paved space with moveable glass enclosure, five bedrooms, bath room (H&C) and a lavatory basin. There was an attic in the roof. Water came from a well and gas was laid on. There were small glass houses, a fully-planted garden behind the house, and a sixteen-foot high four-stall stable. There was a chicken house and an open brick and tiled cart shed with a small loft over it in good condition. In addition there were old timber and tiled barns and some useful old buildings. [10] The surveyor thought the house was in good condition.

The Fewells tried to rename the building, Fewell House, but the name never really stuck. The family got very involved in the community and Walter became a Deacon of the Congregational Church at Poyle. In 1901 their daughter, Winifred, was at boarding school in Whitstable with two of the Heyward daughters from Bays Farm, Longford. [11] Two more Fewell children were born in Longford and they grew up with William Wild’s daughters from Weekly House across the road. By 1911 the Fewell’s daughter, Netta, was at the same Whitstable Boarding School with Margaret Wild of the Weekly House. [12]

Walter Fewell died in 1912 aged 56. He had gained a lot of respect from many people in the village and his funeral and memorial service was well attended. [13] His son, Victor was only 12 and still at school, so a nephew moved into Heath Gardens to help the family with the fruit garden. In 1914 Victor was a boarder at the Chelsea South West Polytechnic (Sloane School) in Chelsea, but soon after war broke out the school building became a hospital for wounded soldiers and Victor returned home. [14] When he was old enough Victor took over the farm. The two children of Walter Fewell, Victor and Netta, cemented their place in the community by marrying within it.

At the end of 1926 Netta married Frederick Heugh, a wartime comrade and friend of Frederick Heyward at Bays Farm. Fred Heyward was best man and her brother, Victor, was an usher. [15] After a honeymoon in Brighton the couple returned to live next door to Heath Gardens and to help Victor with the farm.

Netta’s schoolfriend, Margaret Wild, from the Weekly House, got married in July 1929, for which Margaret’s sister, Betty, hurried back from Indonesia where she had been doing missionary work. [16] Betty had only been in Indonesia for three months, and it was the combination of wanting to be at her sister’s wedding and homesickness for a certain young man who lived across the road in Heath Gardens, that encouraged her to make the long journey home after such a short stay. After Margaret’s wedding Betty Wild’s relationship with Victor Fewell blossomed, but neither wanted a big wedding. One morning In October 1930 they suddenly announced to their respective families that they were getting married later that day in the Parish Church. There was no wedding dress as the bride wore her travelling clothes, and no wedding breakfast. After the ceremony the couple left for a honeymoon in Torquay. [17] On their return they made their home in Heath Gardens with Victor’s mother and sister. They had a son, Robert, in 1932 and a daughter, Margaret, in 1936. Victor’s sister Winifred, never in the best of health, died aged 48 in 1934. His mother, Eliza, died in 1937 aged 76. In 1939 Victor and Betty were still living and working at Heath Gardens where Victor described himself as a self-employed pig breeder and Market Gardener (mainly fruit). [18] He died in 1985 aged 85.

At the time if his death Victor was living at Pear Tree Farm, which is now the Heathrow Special Needs Centre in Longford. [19] Heath Gardens was sold off and the current Heathrow Close build on the farmland. In 1974 Historic England gave the farmhouse a Grade II listing and described it as a mid-18th century red brick house of two storeys with a tiled roof, end chimneys and early mid-19th century sash windows. [20] The porch is a late 19th century gabled porch and at the rear of the building is a mid to late 19th century extension in stock brick. The old farmhouse is now nicely preserved as a reminder of its agricultural roots and the families that lived there.

[1] Ancestry: 1939 Register, BDM and Electoral registers.

[2] Kerridge, David J., "He leadeth me beside the still waters": the story of the Particular Baptists in Colnbrook from 1645; 1997

[3] Harmondsworth Enclosure map and summary book.

[4] Ancestry.co.uk: Marriage certificate

[5] The National Archives' reference PROB 11/2106/261

[6] Ancestry: 1871 census and death certificate

[7] Ancestry: 1881 census

[8] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 09 December 1882

[9] Chelsea News and General Advertiser - Friday 12 April 1912

[10] The National Archives: Valuation Field Book IR 58/39632

[11] Ancestry: 1901 Census

[12] Ancestry: 1911 Census

[13] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Saturday 20 April 1912

[14] Ancestry: School Admissions

[15] Lynn Advertiser Friday 31 December 1926.

[16] Ancestry: Incoming Passenger Lists

[17] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 03 October 1930

[18] Ancestry: 1939 Register

[19] Ancestry: National Probate Calendar

[20] Historic England list number 1080297 https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1080297

Read more about the history of Longford in ,

"Longford: A Village in Limbo" by Wendy Tibbitts .

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Heath Gardens 2018

Tales from Longford and Harmondsworth: The Magnetaire, the preacher and the builder

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 09:05:01 GMT

Tales from Longford and Harmondsworth :

The Magnetaire, the preacher and the builder

The Magnetaire was an electrical device invented and promoted at the end of the nineteenth century as a cure for all kinds of ailments. It worked by passing a weak electrical current through the body. Its inventor, Richard Lonsdale made great claims for its effectiveness, but he was considered a quack by the British Medical Association. The Magnetaire was manufactured by Light Laboratories in Brighton. This company was formed by three brothers, Arthur, Alfred and Walter Light, and it was two of these gentlemen that were to have an impact on life in Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

***

Arthur Light was the brains behind the Light Laboratories company. The company manufactured electric devices, for the medical profession, for recording body temperature, and later other equipment. His brother Alfred, who was originally apprenticed, at the age of 13, to a sadler, joined him in the business. Alfred described himself as a medical electrician in some censuses, but he also had other callings. From an early age his gift for Christian oratory was obvious and he later accepted an invitation to join the Wycliffe Preachers and to speak at meetings around the country. [1] Walter Light, eight years younger than Alfred was helping his brothers at Light Laboratories in Brighton, but he was also publishing ‘penny dreadfuls’. These were cheap reprints of American adventure stories. Alfred and Walter were later to make Harmondsworth their home.

Alfred would occasionally preach at the Colnbrook Baptist Chapel, and afterwards would be invited to stay overnight at the house of Henry James Wild, a Deacon of the Colnbrook Particular (or Strict) Baptist Chapel for 37 years. [2] Henry (or H.J. Wild as he was known) and his family lived at The Farm, next to the Weekly House. He was the largest farmer and employer in Longford. Henry and his wife, Mary Ann, had nine children. Their second child, Marion Jane, was born on 16 May 1870.

She grew up to be a studious, intelligent child, who regularly attended chapel in Colnbrook with her family. She got to know many visiting Baptist preachers when her father invited them to stay overnight at the farmhouse with the family. One particular visitor attracted her attention, not just for the erudition of his sermons, but also because it was difficult not to notice his size. Alfred Weldon Light weighed 27 stone. Their friendship blossomed.

Soon after they met, Alfred went to Ghana to do a preaching tour of missionary churches and when he returned to England in 1903 he renewed his relationship with Marion. They were married in 1905. She was 34 and he was 32. On census night 1911, he was living at a flat in Hampstead, London, while his wife was with her parents in Longford, but they were living apart for a reason. Alfred was writing a book on the memorials in Bunhill Fields, a historic burial ground for dissenters in the City of London, (published in 1913). Alfred later became well-known in the Baptist community, not only as an itinerant preacher, but as a reliable administrator. He accepted posts as a secretary or trustee to various organisations. He was a composer of hymns and regularly played the organ at the Baptist Chapel.

After their marriage Marion and Alfred were living in Brighton to be near Light Industries. While Alfred was away preaching Marion involved herself in the Magnetaire business. By this time the Magnetaire was being promoted by Benjamin Copson Garrett, and the business had evolved into selling a form of the magnetaire built into wearable devices such as belts and chest protectors. The gadgets were widely advertised in the Christian press and this was possibly Marion’s influence. Because of the medical fraternity’s scepticism of the effectiveness of these devices, it seems strange that Marion should throw herself into the promotion of them, but her faith probably led her to believe she was helping to bring comfort to those that were suffering. She was proud enough of her involvement in the business to describe herself, on the 1911 census form, as being an employer in the Magnetaire business, but it is not known what her exact role was.

Whilst in Brighton Marion made frequent visits to her older cousin Elizabeth Jane Humphreyson (nee Wild), originally from Hayes, who had lived in Brighton since her parents and husband died. Inevitably, Elizabeth was to meet other members of the Light family, including Alfred’s younger brother, Walter, who was a charmer and a chancer. He courted the wealthy widow and eventually the two cousins, became sisters-in-law, when the widowed Elizabeth married Walter in 1908. She was 48 and he was 26. The couple continued to live in Brighton until 1922 when Elizabeth died leaving her husband £6000 – a substantial sum at that time.

By this time Marion and Alfred had returned to Longford, and made their home at Walnut Tree Cottage, 551 Bath Road. After Elizabeth died Walter came to stay with Marion and Alfred. With his new wealth Walter immediately began investing in land in and around Longford and Harmondsworth, probably with added investment from Marion and Alfred. Walter set up a building company call Lindsay Building Company Ltd., in Station Road, West Drayton. He remarried in 1924 and bought a house, “Te Kupe”, in Hatch Lane, Harmondsworth. Whereas Marion, who taught at Sunday School for many years, and Alfred, who continued to preach, (although in later life he preached sitting down because of his size) concentrated on their church work, Walter involved himself in community affairs. In 1928 he was nominated for the Staines Rural Council. In December 1929 he presided over the inaugural meeting of the Harmondsworth Liberal Association, held in the Vicarage Hall, and was elected Chairman of the Association. His new wife was one of the committee members.

In May 1928 Walter Light put 30 acres of orchards and meadow land, on the banks of the River Colne at Longford, at the disposal of the Health First Association and other “open air” organisations such as the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland and the Boy Scouts Association. [3] Walter had installed a well and a pump on the land; had had the river dragged and weeds removed to provide bathing facilities; and hung life-buoys in the trees. The camp also had its own letter box and telephone. There was a camp manager and a flag-pole flying the Union Flag. The camp was open for fifteen weeks and used by over 5000 outdoor enthusiasts. Each weekend there were talks and activities at the camp. Just how the rural community of Longford felt about having such an influx of campers (some of them nudists) in their midst can only be imagined.

The two brothers heard that a seven acre orchard was for sale off Hatch Lane, Harmondsworth, owned by Mr Bateman of Manor Farm. They bought the land, dug up the fruit trees, and by the end of the 1920s had built an estate of houses there. The semi-detached houses sold for £695 each. They named the road, Candover Close.

Having made a success of his development of Candover Close, Walter Light was now on a spending spree for land in the area. Sometimes he bought land outright sometimes he just bought an option to buy. He knew that in the inter-war years, turning any farmland that had a road frontage into housing was a money-maker, but things did not always go to plan. In 1931 Walter and Harry Charles Baillie Underdown formed a company, at the Station Road address, to develop and build the Colne Park Estate in West Drayton. Walter had an option to buy land there and this new company bought some of the land. The problem was that it had no road frontage so before they could build any houses they had to build a section of Sipson Road and add all the necessary services. This took up half their capital and the Company was stretched so much that they needed a mortgage on the twelve houses they were about to build. The completion of the houses coincided with a slump in the market and they failed to sell the houses. The company then tried to dispose of the rest of its land, but there was no demand for land, either. To raise capital they sold bonds to friends and family, but none of these were ever redeemed. Eventually The Board of Trade applied for compulsory liquidation of the company in 1935 when the company had gross liabilities of £32,367. [4]

In the interval between 1931 and 1935 Walter was continuing to buy land in the area, but with little capital he had to be inventive and this brought him up against the authorities. He was in Court in June 1931 because of a dispute over land. Mrs Alice Sherwood of Bath Road, Harmondsworth claimed an injunction restraining Walter Light of Hatch Lane, and George Albert Green of Swinley, Bath Road, Harmondsworth, from trespassing on her land and asked for the wire fence they had recently erected on this land to be removed and for Mr Light to restore her gate. When Mrs Sherwood had bought the house called “Ashlyn” from Mr Light in 1928, the property was to have a total of 40 foot frontage to the Bath Road. Just before Mrs Sherwood took possession however Mr Light caused the western boundary to be altered by cutting off three foot six inches (1m 6cm). Subsequently the adjoining land was sold to Mr Green and therefore he was now in possession of the three feet six inches of her land, which was where Mrs Sherwood had intended to erect a garage. Mr Green said he purchased the land in good faith and without knowing that Mrs Sherwood had a claim. The parties agreed to settle. Mrs Sherwood paid £3 for the strip of land three feet wide on the western boundary and Mr Light said he would restore and repair the gate. [5]

In 1932 Walter made an offer of £3,250 on seven acres of land at The Lawns at Colnbrook (once owned by Richard Cox of Cox’s Orange Pippin fame). Walter planned to build an estate of houses there, but later changed his mind. The seller took him to court and the court ruled that Walter had to fulfil his contract to buy the land, and had to pay the Court costs. [6]

In November 1932, Walter was again in Court in London. His accountants, Messrs Jones and Peel sued him to recover £151 13s in professional fees. Walter had by now formed several companies for whom these accountants acted. The companies got into arrears with their payments, and Mr Light promised to pay the arrears if the accountants continued to work for the companies, which they did. It was a verbal promise which Walter denied in court that he had guaranteed. The Judge decided the agreement did not need to be in writing to be enforceable and he ruled that Walter should pay the plaintiffs and all the costs. [7]

In January 1933 Walter was once more in Court. This time the Egham and Staines Electricity Company were claiming £507 for providing Walter with an electrical supply for the Longford Gravel Co. Ltd. for the month before the company was wound up. The Judgement was for Walter to pay part of what he owed and the balance would be negotiated. [8]

Walter’s business methods were questionable and he sometimes extended his resources. To secure his Hatch Lane house he put it in the name of his wife. However this did not stop disgruntled workers from showing their displeasure. William Muir Curran of Bath Road, Harlington, had chronic bronchitis brought on my filling sacks with quick lime whilst working for Walter’s building company. Curran thought he was entitled to compensation, which was denied. One day he went to Walter’s house and threw stones at it breaking four panes of glass. In Court Walter assessed the cost of repairs to be about £1. The Chairman of Magistrates was sympathetic when he heard Curran was no longer able to work and had six children to support. He suggested that Curran should pay for the damage and be bound over for a year. Walter’s solicitor said that his client would pay for the damage, but welcomed Curran being bound over to keep the peace for twelve months. [9]

Both brothers left their mark on Harmondsworth and Longford. Marion and Alfred were renowned for their piety and church work, Walter for his, sometimes misguided, entrepreneurial adventures. Both Alfred and Marion ended their days at Walnut Tree Cottage, 551 Bath Road, Longford. Alfred, who was never able to reduce his weight from 27 stone, died in 1954. Marion died in Hillingdon Hospital in 1959. Walter went to live in Mill Cottage, Poyle Mill, Colnbrook. He died in 1963 aged 82.

These stories of Harmondsworth and Longford are part of the parish’s social history. The people may die, but the existing buildings retain the fabric of the past. All the buildings in Longford and Harmondsworth mentioned in this blog are at risk of demolition by the airport expansion bulldozers.

My book: LONGFORD: A Village in Limbo tells the remarkable story of three hundred years of Longford History.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to

https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

[1] https://www.praise.org.uk/hymnauthor/light-alfred-weldon/

[2] Kerridge, David J., ‘He Leadeth Me Beside the Still Waters’: The Story of the Particular Baptsist in Colnbrook from 1645, (Slough, 1997) p.40

[3] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 25 May 1928

[4] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 01 February 1935

[5] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 26 June 1931

[6] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 08 July 1932

[7] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 11 November 1932

[8] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 27 January 1933

[9] Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 20 April 1934

Thanks to Douglas Rust for supplying the photographs.

Tales from Longford - The Pauper and the Pretty Girl

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:58:04 GMT

Tales from Longford -

The Pauper and the Pretty Girl

Figure 1: View of Harmondsworth from Summerhouse Lane across to the church tower and the Sunhouse.

Sarah Jarvis, a modest, pretty, sixteen-year-old girl, left the warmth of her married sister’s house in West Drayton to walk the two miles back to her home in Longford, Middlesex. It was mid-morning and she knew she would be needed at home soon to help her mother with the fourteen Jarvis children.

The end of March 1799 was colder than normal and she walked briskly to keep herself warm, wrapping her cloak around her and the bundle of items she carried for her father. As she walked along this familiar footpath, entering Harmondsworth village, between the Sun House and the churchyard of St Mary's, she crossed the High Street and walked down Summerhouse Lane and onto the field path that led to Longford.

She was walking close to the field-edge, treading carefully to avoid getting mud on her boots, when she was startled by a man who jumped out of a gap in the hedge and stood on the path close to her. She screamed as he grabbed her and was trying hard to fight him off, but he still managed to grab her bonnet, cap and cloak and ran off with them back through the gap in the hedge. Shocked and shivering she stood there in disbelief. It was cold without her cloak and she was frightened. She just wanted to get home as quickly as she could. She started hurrying towards Longford, but glancing behind saw the stranger had come back into the field and was running after her.

“Don’t hurt me. Here is my bundle you can have it if you leave me alone”.

She threw the bundle at him but he advanced towards her and knocked her to the ground, then he picked up the bundle and ran off.

Her father, James, was a labouring tenant of land in Longford. When she arrived home in a distressed state he immediately sent for the parish constable, William East, who went off in search of the offender. He caught up with him half-an-hour later on the other side of West Drayton heading towards Uxbridge, still carrying the bundle, which he intended to sell to buy food. The man, Thomas Green, a nineteen-year-old from Shropshire was arrested and tried at the Old Bailey less than a week later. Sarah, her father, and William East all gave evidence. The prisoner did not say anything in his defence and the Judge sentenced him to death. [1]

This sentence may seem harsh for just stealing a bundle of clothes, but the attack took place in a field close enough to a road to be classed as Highway Robbery, which carried a mandatory death sentence. A month later the sentence was respited to transportation for life. Green was transferred to a prison hulk to await his fate. Conditions on these old overcrowded decommissioned ships were deliberately harsh. On arrival the prisoner was given a metal plate, mug, blankets and basic clothing. The prisoners were shackled with leg irons and made to work for ten to twelve hours a day doing heavy manual work. The inadequate food, poor hygiene, and cramped conditions often caused disease to spread among the inmates. [2] At the turn of the nineteenth century, one in ten prisoners did not survive their punishment. [3]

After a year in the prison hulk, on 23 May 1800 Thomas Green was herded aboard the Royal Admiral with 301 other prisoners. They were shackled in leg irons and endured a long voyage in which 43 prisoners died before arriving in Sydney, Australia, on 20th November. Green was put to work making roads and after four years of good behaviour was given a conditional pardon and fifteen years later was a well-respected police constable in the Sydney suburb of Windsor. Inland areas around Sydney were the territory of the indigenous population, but in 1814 the New South Wales Governor, Lachlan Macquarie lifted restrictions on building on aboriginal lands. A road was built from Sydney, crossing the Blue Mountains, to Bathurst, the first inland settlement in Australia. The road, twelve foot wide and 100 miles long, was opened by the Governor in April 1815. [4] He travelled along the new highway with his wife and 50 officials, soldiers and servants. The party included Thomas Green. [5] However this was to be Thomas Green’s last journey. The road culminated in The Grand Depot, a small settlement of road-builders and soldiers. On 7 May the Governor raised the British Flag over the depot and a ceremonial volley of shots was fired by the soldiers. On the 12 May as the dignitaries started to return to Sydney, Thomas Green left his companions, to go with some ‘natives’ to their camp and was never seen again. It is not known whether he got lost in the bush or whether “he has fallen a victim to his own rashness in venturing among natives with whom we are so little acquainted”. [6] He was 35.

Sarah Jarvis, continued to help her Mother, Elizabeth, keep house and never married. She died aged 40, in Longford in 1824.

The extended Jarvis family remained in Longford until the twentieth century and were auctioneers and farmers. They farmed in various parts of the village including The Island, and later Bays Farm, where Bays Farm Court now stands.

Longford is threatened with demolition if the Heathrow expansion goes ahead.

My book, Longford: a village in Limbo , tells the story of the last three hundred years of Longford, Middlesex. For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

[1] Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 16 April 2020), 3 April 1799, trial of THOMAS GREEN (t17990403-26).

[2] https://www.royal-arsenal-history.com/prison-hulks.html

[3] https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/19th-century-prison-ships

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathurst,_New_South_Wales

[5] https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/green/thomas/100330

[6] Sydney Gazette Saturday 17th June 1815 p. 2

Tales from Longford: The Shy King and the Soldiers Shed

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 17:47:11 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Shy King and the Soldiers Shed

King George III of Great Britain was a shy man. He did not like travelling nor meeting people. As he got older he made Windsor Castle his principle dwelling, and spent a lot of money on renovating and furnishing the castle to his taste. Occasionally he had to travel to London for matters of State.

The journey between London and Windsor took him along the Bath Road through the village of Hounslow and across the notorious Hounslow Heath to Longford in Middlesex. Previous Monarchs would make a stop at the Kings Head in Longford (later called the Peggy Bedford) to change the carriage horses. However George III, shy and reserved, did not like meeting the public so he had his own stables built along the route. One was at Hounslow and another one was a mile from Longford near the 14th mile stone (measured from Hyde Park Corner). These buildings were isolated, square brick buildings with bright red pantiled roofs, doors at the front, and windows that faced up and down the road. [1]

On a cold damp winter’s day in January 1805, George III was returning to Windsor from making, what turned out to be, his last speech at the Opening of Parliament. He sat snugly in his carriage wrapped in fur rugs and, as the carriage and his military escort stopped at the Royal stable on Hounslow Heath, a modest building known locally as the “Soldiers' Shed”. ^[2] There, already waiting for his arrival, were a troop of mounted soldiers ready to take over escorting the King to Windsor. Only this day it was different.

Unfortunately, due to bad communication, two military parties turned up to take over as escort to the King. After the change of horses, and as the carriage continued its journey towards Longford, the Light Dragoons took their place as the escort. The Oxford Blues insisted it was their duty and a scuffle ensued. Both parties defended themselves with swords drawn whilst his Majesty’s carriage was still going on at the usual pace and each party doing its duty and trying to keep position as escort. After some distance, the Light Dragoons gave up and the Blues continued as escort. ^[3] George III, now almost completely blind, would not have noticed the kerfuffle, but out in the fields alongside the Bath Road were the field workers watching the entertaining spectacle of two mounted troops fighting each other. As the King’s carriage passed, they politely doffed their caps, puffed on their clay tobacco pipes, and then returned to their toil.

This was one of the last journeys King George III made. With the reclusive King now living at Windsor Castle, the “Soldiers' Shed”, and the one and a quarter acres around it, were no longer needed, but stayed in the possession of the Crown Estates until 1859, when Queen Victoria’s Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Woods Forests and Land Revenues sold it to local landowner, William Philp for £60. [4] The building was still there in 1910 although in a decrepit state.

The place were the “Soldiers' Shed” once stood is now the staff car park of present day Crown employees working in the offices of HM Revenue and Customs. This building is sandwiched between the Bath Road (A4) and the northern perimeter road of Heathrow airport.

[1] Harper, Charles G., Half-hours with the Highwaymen, (London, 1908)

[2] Belsham, William, Memoirs of the Reign of George III.: From the Treaty of Amiens, A. D. 1802, to the Termination of the Regency, A. D. 1820 : in Two Volumes, Volume 1, (Hurst, Robinson, 1824 - Great Britain) p.80

[3] Evening Mail - Monday 21 January 1805

[4] London Metropolitan Archives. Acc2305/PH/17/1

For more on the history of Longford read “Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc or scan the QR code:

Yeomans and the Tax Collector.

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:56:18 GMT

Yeomans and the Tax Collector

Yeomans is a grade II listed Tudor house and it and the village of Longford in West Middlesex will be demolished if the third runway at Heathrow airport is built.

Thomas Streeting was not a popular man. He lived in the biggest house in the village of Longford, Middlesex, and employed many of the villagers to work on his farm. This non-conformist land-owner might have received the respect of his labourers, but in some households he was unwelcome. He was the parish tax collector and twice a year he visited every house in the parish to collect taxes.

The tax collector’s job was unpaid. The gentry of the parish formed the Vestry Meeting (parish council) and oversaw the parish governance. Each member of the Meeting was expected to play an important, but voluntary, role. One member would be appointed as tax assessor. His job was to assess the rental value of each property, and this would be the figure on which the poor relief tax was based. The assessment varied little from year to year. Then the nominated tax collector, in this case Thomas Streeting, would have the job of extracting these sums from his friends and neighbours in the parish.

There were government taxes to be collected, too. In 1748 there were 34 land tax payers in Longford. This was a regular tax paid twice yearly from 1692 until 1963. However, in the reign of George III, this was not enough to fund the various conflicts that Britain was fighting in Europe and Colonial America, and so other sources of taxation had to be found, some of them very inventive.

In 1696 window tax was introduced which was easy to assess. The Longford records for the years 1766/1767 show who had to pay window tax. Most houses, with seven windows or less paid a flat amount of two shillings a year. For larger houses there was a variable rate. In 1767 Thomas Streeting, as owner of one of the largest houses in Longford with nineteen windows, was paying twelve shillings for his window tax and £4.17.6d for his land. Thomas Streeting died in December 1773 and his son-in-law, Thomas Weekly, at the Weekly house took on his role as Tax Collector. Thomas Weekly’s voluntary job of collecting taxes was now not just a time-consuming, form-filling, distraction from his farm and his Baptist chapel, but was an onerous role to perform when individuals objected to having to pay extra tax when they were struggling to survive after poor harvests. ^[1]

There were so many different taxes to collect that parish tax collectors received a preprinted form from the government to help them enumerate them all. Previous tax collections in the parish had just been noted in a hand made notebook.

One new tax was on male servants (1777-1852). A male servant was considered a luxury and their employers' were liable to pay tax for this privilege. Those servants engaged in husbandry, trade or manufacture were exempted. The servants of tavern-keepers, shop-keepers and merchants were also exempt unless they performed any personal duties like scrubbing floors or cleaning shoes, or saddling a horse. In 1779 this tax was one guinea per servant per year.

Another tax was Horse Tax (1784-1874). This was liable on riding horses, including racehorses, but not working horses. In 1785 an amendment exempted those farmers occupying a farm worth not more than a rental value of £150 a year where the horse was used only for riding to church or market. The yearly rental exemption rate was reduced in 1802 and thus many more owners were liable. There was also a dog tax (5 July 1796 to 5 April 1797). This was a tax on non-working dogs, and people receiving poor rate were exempt. Most people in Longford had just one dog, but Mrs Bedford at the Kings Arms inn (now the Grade II listed King Henry or The Stables) had two dogs.

The following tax year, there was also a clocks and watch tax with a variable rate depending on whether the watch was gold, silver, or of another metal. Thomas Weekly’s tax bill was 4s.10½d on his thirteen windows, and 11s.3d on his five horses. He had one clock and one silver watch for which he paid five shillings seven and a half old pence. Of the 60 householders/rate payers in the parish only 35 had a clock and 5 had two clocks. No one had a gold watch. This tax was repealed nine months later. It was difficult to collect because people hid or disposed of their clocks and watches. Inn-keepers were happy to pay the tax when they found that their clocks attracted customers who came in just to check the time, but it was devastating for the clock and watch manufacturers when people no longer bought them. ^[2] Not only was the tax payer liable to these sundry taxes, but in some years a surcharge of 20% was added to the total.

In 1796 Britain, after years of fighting in the American war of Independence and in the process losing the colonies, was now fighting a war against Spain and a separate conflict with France. The government needed to introduce more taxes to fund these wars. They had already been levying tax on all types of possessions, but then the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, in anticipation of the need to establish a war chest of cash in case of a war with Napoleon who had just became First Console of France, had to think of other means to raise tax. In addition to the supplementary taxes in 1799 the Prime Minister introduced, the concept of income tax as a means of raising funds for the government. It was the first tax to be raised on people’s incomes and was intended as a temporary tax. [3] Anyone earning over £60 per annum had to pay ten per cent of their income. Initially it had to be collected from individuals and was not deducted at source until four years later. However, most of Longford’s labourers earned less than £1 a week and were not eligible. The introduction of this tax reduced Pitt’s popularity.

Those eligible to pay tax sometimes struggled to find the money, especially when the amount demanded varied from year to year. The increasing taxation was inflationary making goods cost more, but wages did not keep up. A pound in 1795 would be worth £117 today. This does not seem an excessive amount to pay today, but compared to the average earnings of an agricultural labourer of fifteen shillings a week, all of which would go on food and rent, for some people it would be a struggle. [4] This is why the parish tax collector was not a popular man.

[1] https://bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/01n1a5.pdf

[2] https://taxfitness.com.au/Blog/the-clock-tax-of-1797#:~:text=The%20tax%20was%20introduced%20by,their%20clocks%20or%20destroyed%20them.

[3] www.politics.co.uk

[4] A Short History of English Agriculture by W. H. R. Curtler

Read more about the last three hundred years of Longford in:

" Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts

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The history of Yeomans

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 14:44:50 GMT

Tales from Longford: The history of Yeomans

Yeomans is a Grade II listed Tudor house in the village of Longford in West Middlesex. It will be demolished if the third runway is built at Heathrow airport.

The Elizabethan House in the centre of Longford village in Middlesex dates back to the sixteenth century. It is situated in a prime position on the Old Great Bath Road which run through the village. It has two storeys, a tiled roof, and with exposed timber framing with brick infilling. The building has a central range with two cross-wings, the left hand wing has an attic. Most of the windows are now modern casements, but to the left of the central front door is a seventeenth century casement.

In the mid-eighteenth century this house was owned by Thomas Streeting who died there in 1773. It was inherited by his daughter, Elizabeth, who had married the other prominent Longford farmer, Thomas Weekly. By then Thomas, and his wife, and their nine children were established in the Weekly house, a hundred metres along the Bath Road. They did not need the house for themselves so they decided to divide it into three dwellings for their farm labourers’ families. The house remained in the possession of the Weekly and Wild families until the middle of the twentieth century.

This building is now known as Yeoman’s, and was probably named after a labouring family called Yeoman who were living there in the nineteenth century. The early history of this building is obscure. In 1542 Leland in his Itineraries describes a building about a mile north of the wooden bridge over the Colne between Longford and Colnbrook, which suggests it could be the building now known as Yeomans. At the time it was the manor house of Colham and owned by the Earl of Derby who died there on 23 May 1521. He had built the Tudor Manor House on the site of a medieval house. At that time the manor of Colham had extensive land around Hillingdon. A son of the second Earl of Derby, Henry Stanley, died at the Colham Manor House in 1528 and there is a memorial brass to him in the Chancel of St John’s church, Hillingdon.

This Tudor Manor House, which might have been the Colham Manor House, was known to be standing in 1636 and shown on a map dated 1742, but its existence is uncertain after that. [1] Daniel Lysons ( An Historical Account of Those Parishes in the County of Middlesex , 1800) said the manor of Colham extended over almost all the parishes of Hillingdon, Cowley, and Ickenham, and once extended into the manors of Hatton, Dawley and Harmondsworth, although he also added that he thought the manor house in which Lord Derby died might have been pulled down. However I believe Yeomans is the right age and in the right place to be considered as a likely candidate to be considered as the Colham Manor House. The Earls of Derby were extensive land-owners throughout England and there is a vast collection of documents relating to their property in the Lancashire archives, as well as early records in the Nottingham, Staffordshire and National archives. I obviously need to do more research at these archives to try and establish the origin of this building.

Today the building is Grade II listed by Historic England and divided into three separate dwellings. It continues to be a well-regarded part of the street-scene and history of the Conservation area of Longford, Middlesex.

[1] https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol4/pp69-75#p7

For more stories about Thomas Weekly and the history of the village of Longford, read: Longford: A Village in Limbo by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Tales from Longford: The Weekly House

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:29:29 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Weekly House

This house and the village of Longford in West Middlesex will be demolished when the third runway at Heathrow airport is built.

It had been ten years since the Great Fire of London, and Thomas Weekly, a wealthy London cloth-merchant was looking for a change in lifestyle. His ride along the Great Bath Road from his home in Westminster led him to the village of Longford, fifteen miles from London, in search of a farm that was for sale in the centre of the village. Recently married he wanted to build a home for his bride and establish himself as a farmer and maltster. As a Baptist, and a descendant of John Wycliffe, the medieval theological reformer, he was attracted to this village of non-conformists, who were now allowed to meet openly without fear of prosecution.

Thomas Weekly bought the farm and built the Weekly House as a family home. It was quite different from the timber-framed Tudor inns and houses that already existed in the village. The house was two storeys high and built of red-brick with two attic rooms, and a high pitched tiled roof. The walls were thick and the large sash windows had internal wooden shutters.

The two main rooms had huge beamed fireplaces large enough to stand-up in, with recesses in the chimney for smoking hams. These fireplaces and those of the bedrooms all connected to the central chimney. The beautiful staircase with wooden bannisters continued up to the attic on the second floor where there were two large attics rooms and a box room. On the northern side of the ground floor was a single-storey cool store room with hooks for storing hams and next to that a white washed dairy. On the eastern wall of the house was a large single-storey kitchen with a huge fireplace matching the one on the other side of the wall in the main house. As well as the kitchen, there was a boot room, log store and outside privy.

Thomas Weekly and his family, lived in this house from the end of the seventeenth century, until the last surviving Weekly died in the house in 1899. After that the house and land was inherited by their cousins, the Wilds, who occupied the house until 1940. During the war the empty building was used as an ARP Warden’s post, and also an HQ for the local Home Guard. It suffered damage to the roof in 1944 when a flying bomb landed nearby and debris hit the Weekly House. After the roof was patched up the house stood empty. All its farmland had been compulsorily requisitioned to build a war-time airport in the neighbouring hamlet of Heathrow. In 1948 the Weekly House was bought by a local resident, Christopher Challis, who set about restoring it, with the help of the local blacksmith, Tom Adams, and made it into a family home once more. It is for this reason the house has survived. The house is now an office building and the House, barn and wall are now all grade II listed structures. The barn, now overgrown and derelict, is now on the Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register 2020.

When Thomas Weekly journeyed to Longford in 1676 he was not to know that he had founded a dynasty that continued for three centuries in the village of Longford. The family saw the village prosper and grow, and witnessed many historic events on the only road through the village, The Great Bath Road.

For the full story of the Weekly family read my book, " Longford: A Village in Limbo ", which tells the story of Longford over the last three hundred years.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Tales from Longford: The Strawberry Season

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:00:34 GMT

Tales from Longford: The Strawberry Season

The village of Longford in West Middlesex will be demolished when the third runway at Heathrow airport is built

At first light, the front door of Zion Cottage opened on a glorious June morning in 1900. Mrs Clara Brain, dressed in a shawl and head scarf with a white apron over her long black skirt, walked towards The Farm in the centre of Longford. Even though it was 3am she were joined by a growing stream of similarly dressed women all moving in the same direction. The village was quiet as most residents had yet to begin their morning routine. When the women reached the field they replaced their white aprons with coarse hessian sacks, criss-crossed their shawls across their bodies, under their arms and tied them at the back. They pulled their long skirts up between their legs and hitched them into the front of the waistband. In the field, the boy from the village with his wooden rattle had been scaring the birds away since first light. He was pleased to have some company. The women immediately set to work. The foreman allocated a row of strawberry plants to each girl. He handed out wooden punnets and the girls picked the ripest fruit handling only the stem. The punnets were lined with a strawberry leaves before the fruit was laid gently on top. Later in the packing shed, each punnet would be weighed to make sure it weighed exactly a pound, then 36 punnets would be packed in a wooden crate and the lid nailed down. About sixty of these crates would be stacked ten-high on a lightweight yellow strawberry van that with one fast horse could travel the fifteen miles along the Bath Road to Covent Garden market in one and a half-hours. Strawberries with the dew still on them would sell at a premium price in the market.

Fruit was one of the main produce of the market gardens in West Middlesex in the nineteenth century, but there was often a glut. An enterprising farmer in nearby Sipson, Jonathon Smith, had started a Jam Factory there in the 1890s which would buy any farm surpluses. One of the main crops in mid-summer was strawberries. The berries ripened in the open fields where the strawberry plants were laid out in long rows and the plants packed with straw around them so that the slugs could not reach the ripe fruit. The strawberry-picking season was relatively short, but labour intensive, and because the plants were at ground level, back-breaking. The warm sun of mid-summer made the job easier, but in pouring rain it was unpleasant work. Women were regarded as the best pickers of strawberries because of their light touch and Longford had an army of women who would rise at dawn to pick them.

Clara Brain was born in Weston on the Green, Oxfordshire, in 1856. She and married the boy next door, West Brain, in 1889 when they were both 33 and moved to Longford before the end of the century. Her husband worked as an agricultural labourer for H.J. Wild the biggest employer in Longford. Most of the farmland is now under Heathrow airport, but the main farmhouse still survives as the Grade II listed Weekly House. West Brain was always known as Brother Brain because of his way of greeting people by calling them ‘brother’. He was a lifelong Baptist and never missed going to chapel every Sunday. His employer described him as a “salt of the earth”. West died in Longford at the age of 87. Clara worked in the fields at harvest times, but was mostly a housewife. She won prizes for her bread and pastry-making in local produce shows. She died in Longford aged 90 in 1947.

My book, Longford: A Village in Limbo , tells the remarkable story of the village.

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

The King and the Eton Montem

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 15:05:58 GMT

The King and the Eton Montem

Every three years the boys of Eton College dressed in bizarre clothes marched from the school to an Anglo-Saxon burial mound at Salt Hill, on the Great Bath Road, where they climbed the mound and performed a mock ceremony. They called the ceremony ad montem (to the mountain), and Montem is the name of the sports centre and ice-rink in Slough.

The second Tuesday in June 1832 was a dull cloudy day, but that did not dampen the excitement felt by eighteen-year-old Richard Weekly, as he mounted his horse in the farmyard at Perry Oaks farm (now under Terminal Five at London Airport) and set off along the Great Bath Road. Richard was taking a rare day off from helping his father run their 300-acre farm. As he rode west along the Bath Road he was stopped at Colnbrook Bridge by two Eton schoolboys, named Thackeray and Walker, who were dressed in mock military uniforms. "Give us some salt", they demanded. Richard was expecting this and good-humouredly handed over some coins. They were raising charitable donations for the event Richard was about to witness. In return he was given a yellow ticket on which was printed, “Pro More et Monte – Vivant Rex et Regina.” He stuck the ticket in his hat knowing that it exempted him from any more requests for “salt”, and continued his journey. As he approached the village of Slough, Berkshire, the roads got busier with excited crowds of people and riders. Gaily decorated carriages lined the roads from Windsor to Slough. Richard eventually found a vantage point where he stopped to view the event that everyone had come to see.

At eleven o’clock six hundred Eton schoolboys were assembled in the quadrangle at Eton College for the arrival of the seven carriages carrying the Royal Party. The King had been asked for “salt” at Eton Bridge and had handed over 50 guineas before continuing to the college. The Montem event, conveniently timed for The Court’s relocation to Windsor for the summer, was witnessed by King William IV and Queen Adelaide and their royal visitors. They were joined by the Provost and other exclusive guests to watch the boys, who were all assembled in various forms of fancy dress. The pageant paraded three times around the square in front of the King, until a heavy shower sent the Royal Party into the college to watch the ceremonial flag waving from the windows. Then the procession started.

Richard Weekly watched as first a schoolboy called Brown and four attendants dressed in Spanish dresses led the parade, followed by the Band of Scotch [sic] Fusilier guards. Then the school Captain, Williams, marched ahead of a group of boys dressed in Greek costume. Another boy, calling himself the Sergeant Major, in mock-military attire, was accompanied by boys in Indian costume. The parade continued with some boys in military-type uniforms with swords and plumes, and other boys in various forms of fancy dress. Following this motley crew was the band of the First Life Guards and then a pupil calling himself an Ensign with an escort of boys dressed as Highlanders. Boy musicians were followed by boys dressed in Robin Hood-style Lincoln-green velvet. Behind the marchers were the carriages of the Royal party, and then an endless line of carriages carrying the nobility and gentry.

Around two in the afternoon the procession arrived at Salt Hill where the King and Queen received a huge welcoming cheer. The Royal party stayed in their carriages whilst the boys once again paraded before them around the Mound. Then a detachment of boys including the flag bearer climbed the mound, unfurled the flag and waved it to endless applause. With the ceremony now over, the Royal carriages returned to Windsor, and the boys adjourned for refreshments to The Windmill coaching inn across the Bath Road from the Mound. The Windmill had extensive ornamental gardens around which the boys would normally promenade, but this year a heavy shower of rain prevented that. Now, soaked and bedraggled, the boys, like a miniature routed army, made their way back towards Eton. The mud and slush underfoot spoiling their elaborate costumes. About a £1000 had been raised in “salt” and after defraying expenses what was left went to R.D. Williams, Captain of the school, and son of the bookseller and publisher of the Eton Classics. It was to pay for his education at Cambridge University.

Richard Weekly pulled his hat down hard over his face to stop the torrents of rain hitting his face as he rode the six miles back to Perry Oaks to relate all the sights and sounds of what he had seen to his parents and sister.

The triannual event and the crowds it attracted, was already a magnet for pickpockets and pilferers. As the years went by and after the Great Western Railway Station opened at Slough in 1838, hordes more sightseers would travel from London for the event. By 1841 and 1844 the multitude of people became unmanageable, and these new sightseers were reluctant to continue the tradition of donating “salt”. In 1847 the Provost and Head-master of Eton College proposed to end the ceremony and give the Captain of the school a gratuity instead. This sparked protests from former Etonians and a petition was sent to Queen Victoria, but without success and the long history of the Eton Montem, probably derived from a pagan festival, came to an end.

The original Windmill hotel, a staging post for coaches on the Bath Road, was burnt down in 1882 and a new pub with the same name was built on the site by the brewery owners. This was demolished in 2000 and now the name is preserved in a newly built Care Centre.

Sources:

Windsor and Eton Express - Saturday 16 June 1832, and other contemporary newspapers.

Richard Weekly’s diary (in possession of the author)

http://www.sloughhistoryonline.org.uk/

Read more about Richard Weekly in: " Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to

https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

The King, the Assassin, and the Wax Woman

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 18:26:38 GMT

The King, the Assassin, and the Wax Woman

The first day of Ascot, 19 June 1832, was a dull damp day as King William IV and Queen Adelaide drove down the race course in their carriage procession to watch the races from the Royal Stand. As the King got out of his carriage the military band struck up the National Anthem and he ascended the steps to the Royal Box as fast as his portly 66-year-old body would let him. The usual enthusiastic welcome was subdued and looking around he could see few of the familiar faces of his Lords with their ladies who usually attended. He was puzzled at first until he remembered that he had signed into law the Great Reform Act twelve days earlier. This Act, so long resisted by the House of Lords, reformed the electoral procedure, making the election of Members of Parliament a fair representation of the people. Was the poor attendance at Ascot a sign of disapproval of the King or just in response to the poor weather? Whatever the reason that day would be remembered for its violent turn of events.

Inspite of the weather and the poor welcome the King was determined to enjoy the racing. The first race, a short one with just two contestants, was easily won by the favourite, Ida. While they waited for the next race the Royal couple were in conversation with their guests when a one-legged dishevelled man, in tattered sailors clothing looking up at the royal box from the crowd below took a flint stone, the size of a potato, from his pocket and hurled the missile directly towards the King. The stone hit the monarch on the forehead just above the rim of his hat, which probably saved him from major injury. Nevertheless the sound of the impact was loud and the King was stunned and falling back, exclaiming “My God! I am hit!” just as another stone was thrown which missed the King and hit the woodwork. The King was led to a chair where he took off his hat and with the first sign of a bruise starting to appear declared himself unhurt, much to the relief of his party, some of whom had burst into tears in shock.

The would-be assassin was set upon and handed over to Bow-street officers (the police force at the time) who removed him to the magistrate’s room under the stand. When news of the attack permeated through the crowd they pushed forward towards the foot of the royal stand and their horror turned to relief when just minutes later the King made an appearance to show he was unharmed. The sight of such a large crowd bursting into elated cheers of relief moved the King to tears.

The perpetrator, now a subdued wretch awaiting his fate, was examined by the magistrates. He admitted the offence and insisted he had no accomplices. Witnesses, including some from the Royal party, gave evidence after which the Magistrates concluded this was an assassination attempt and therefore High Treason. He was sent to prison at Abingdon.

Meanwhile the King, now fully recovered, and the Queen, stayed watching the racing until nearly six o’clock in the evening. In contrast to their arrival when they departed from the royal stand they left to a crescendo of enthusiastic cheers from all classes. The event caused a wave of public affection for the King after months of division during the long political wrangling before the passing of the Reform Bill.

Although at the time the incident was regarded as a highly treasonable assassination attempt, subsequently historians have dismissed it as a minor stone-throwing incident caused by discontent over the Reform Bill, but it was more than that. It was a cry for help.

The would-be assassin, Dennis Collins was put on trial at Abingdon, on Wednesday, the 22nd of August. He was charged on several counts with assaulting his Majesty, with intent to kill and murder him, with intent to maim and disable him, and with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm. Prior to the trial there was a debate about his sanity and he himself said twice in his lifetime he had been confined as a lunatic, but he believed he suffered from a “hot and irritable temper” caused by the injustice he met from authority. Any suspicions about his state of mind were dispelled at his trial when he appeared dressed smartly and with a new wooden leg made for the occasion. In his defence the prisoner, clearly more intelligent than his initial appearance suggested, made a compelling speech in his own defence to the Court:

"I own myself in a great fault for throwing these stones at his Majesty. I was in Greenwich Hospital on the 16th of December last, as an in-pensioner. I had been there eighteen months. The ward-keeper was sweeping the place, and I told him he had no business to sweep it more than once a day; the boatswain's mate abused me, and I returned it. A complaint was then made to Sir Richard Keats (the Governor), and I was expelled for life. I petitioned to the Lords of the Admiralty to have the pension which I had before I went into the hospital restored to me. I am entitled to that pension by an Act passed in the reign of George IV. which entitles a pensioner to have the same pension which he had before he became an in-pensioner, unless he struck an officer, or committed felony, or did anything of the kind, which I did no such thing. On the 19th of last April I petitioned the King to have my pension restored. He answered by sending the petition to the Lords of the Admiralty, and Mr Barrow, the secretary, sent a letter to me at a public-house, the Admiral Duncan, with the same answer the King gave. The answer was that his Majesty could do nothing for me. This was partly in writing and partly in print. I had neither workhouse nor overseer to apply to, and had not broke my fast for three days; mere distress drove me to it. His Majesty never did me an injury, and I am exceedingly sorry I threw a stone or anything else at his Majesty. On the 17th of the present month I went to Admiral Rowley's; he swore at me and kicked me. I can only say I am very sorry for what I have done, and must suffer the law. They had no right to take my pension from me, to which I was entitled by Act of Parliament."

Dennis Collins, an Irish-born sailor, was 57 years old. He volunteered for the Navy In 1797 and served for just over two years before he lost his left leg in an accident whilst stowing the booms on HMS Atalanta. He then became a cook on several Royal Navy ships. He received a pension of £8 a year after losing his leg which was later increased to £14 year. He had been admitted to the Greenwich Hospital on five separate occasions, each time exhibiting unruly behaviour and being asked to leave. Since December 1831 he had been begging and now desperate and with no means of support he felt he had no hope and he might as well be shot or hanged. He made the long walk from London to Ascot to make a final protest to the King and let the authorities end his misery.

The Court heard his admission of being guilty of stone-throwing, and the extenuating circumstances, but as Judge Bosanquet told the jury, they had to decide if the act of throwing the stone was aimed at the King with the intention to cause injury, or whether the stone had accidentally caused injury. The jury returned a guilty verdict of intention to do harm to the King, a highly treasonable offence; the highest crime in the land. The whole Court was packed for the jury’s verdict. There was a collective shocked silence, with many people sympathetic to the prisoner’s plight, as the Judge placed the black cap on his head and said: “Dennis Collins you have been convicted after attentive consideration of your case, of the crime of High Treason, in devising and attempting to do some bodily harm to the person of your King and in lifting up your hand against your Sovereign, you have destroyed that bond of allegiance which binds the King to protect the subject, and the subject to obey the King; and it now becomes my painful duty to pronounce upon you the sentences of the law. It is not for my learned brother who sits by my side, and myself, to offer any prospect of remission by us of the sentence which the law passes upon you. You have stated that you are sorry for the offence you have committed; if so, you can only prove your sincere contrition and repentance to your Sovereign, who you have injured; it is to him alone you can apply and in him alone rests the power of sparing your forfeited life. The sentence of the Court upon you, Dennis Collins is, that you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where you are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead; your head is then to be severed from your body, which is to be divided into quarters, and to be disposed of as his Majesty shall think fit”. The prisoner betrayed no emotion as the sentence was announced. His greatest fear was that he would be acquitted. He had already said that “If my Priest would give me the Sacrament today I would a great deal be executed tomorrow than turned out into the world to undergo all the misery and starvation that I went through for six months before this happened.” The jurors, before leaving the court, drew up a petition to the King for clemency for the prisoner.

Most of the newspapers reported the trial in great detail, and there was national sympathy for Dennis Collins’ circumstances and a wish for his sentence to be commuted. The trial followed an inquiry into the circumstances of his expulsion from the Greenwich Hospital which exonerated the Governor after Collins was found to have been a rebellious inmate. Nevertheless the public were appalled by his death sentence, and for several days the newspapers were calling for commutation, which the King, a former sailor himself, commuted ten days later to a sentence of transportation for life. Dennis Collins was kept on a prison hulk on the Thames until he was put aboard the Emperor Alexander which left Sheerness on April 10 1833 arriving at Sullivan’s Cove, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) four months later.

This was not the end of the story. Whilst awaiting trial Collins had been visited by a French lady who had purchased from him all his old clothes, including his wooden leg, and who had replaced them with a set of new clothes which he wore at his trial. By the end of September an advertisement appeared in the Hampshire Advertiser, that an exhibition was to be held at the Royal Victoria Archery Rooms, Southampton for a fortnight only where, for one shilling, visitors could promenade around a display of life-like figures of well-known persons. Among the new figures would be a full-length one of Dennis Collins, taken from life, “inhabited in the identical dress he had on when he made the atrocious attempt on his Majesty’s life.” The French woman who had visited Collins in prison was Madame Tussaud who with her sons made wax figures of famous and infamous people for public entertainment.

Madame Tussaud was not the only one to cash in on the notoriety of Dennis Collins. A publisher in Fleet Street was offering whole-length lithographic prints of Dennis Collins from a drawing by W.W. Waite for one shilling and six pence. W.W. Waite was a well-known Abingdon artist. This image was used in a publication detailing the life and trial of Dennis Collins as told to his solicitor. Even the Judge, Sir John Bernard Bosanquet, cashed in on the public interest in this trial by publishing his own account of the trial. Music hall comedians joked, “Dennis Collins was asked last week how near he was to the King at Ascot – ‘Within a stone’s throw’, he replied”. Poems were written about him, and for a while there was widespread public interest in his story, but Collins would not know about his notoriety. His imprisonment and transportation isolated him from all of it.

On arrival in Tasmania he was put to work on a chain gang in Port Arthur, a penal colony where the hardest criminals were sent. He wore leg irons and was made to do hard labour in horrible conditions. His behaviour did not improve and he was often punished by being put in solitary confinement. Two weeks after his last solitary confinement, on 1 November 1833, he died and was buried in the Wesleyan Churchyard at Port Arthur.

He had become a household name, but he was not around to know that. He had got his wish. As a felon he no longer had to go hungry or beg for shelter, but his life was still a misery.

Although the Dennis Collins story has disappeared from history books, it had unexpected consequences. The King, whose dithering earlier in the year over the government crisis had made him unpopular, was now reconciled in the public eye. The shock of knowing that the King might have died gave many members of government a jolt. They suddenly realised that if he died before the Princess Victoria came of age her Mother, the formidable Duchess of Kent, would become Regent, a situation nobody relished, so the monarch’s safety became an important issue.

Madame Tussaud’s astute opportunist purchase of Dennis Collin’s clothes enhanced her waxwork exhibition by tapping into the public’s curiosity about notorious figures. However she might not have foreseen that by giving Collins new clothes to wear at his trial, the public perception of the mariner changed. He was seen as no longer a villain but a character who needed sympathy.

Would-be lawyers can now learn from the published papers of the trial itself which as a text book can be found in law school libraries all over the world, and which is still in print today. The old prison buildings at Port Arthur, Tasmania, which ceased being a prison in 1877, are now a World Heritage Site and tourist attraction. Britain might have forgotten Dennis Collins, but the Tasmanians have not. Recently a play by Richard Davey called “The man who threw a stone”, based on his story, was performed at the very prison where he ended his days.

For more stories about King William IV and Queen Adelaide read my book:

"Longford: A Village in Limbo"

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How Milton used the plague of 1665 as an opportunity

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 16:45:18 GMT

How Milton used the plague of 1665 as an opportunity.... and how we could do the same in these uncertain times.

When the streets and commerce of London came to a standstill during the London plague in 1665 and the disease began to spread rapidly through the population, those that had the means and opportunity left the City for the countryside. King Charles II and his Court first went to Hampton Court and then moved further afield to Oxford.

Other notable thinkers removed themselves from their London bases and returned to their original Counties. Isaac Newton returned to his family’s Cambridgeshire farm. John Milton, who had grown up in Horton, in Buckinghamshire, moved his household to a little cottage in another Buckinghamshire village at Chalfont St Giles. Both men used this enforced down-time for creative thinking, and both made discoveries and progress in their respective fields.

John Milton moved to Chalfont St Giles in 1665 with his third wife, Elizabeth, 30 years his junior, whom he had married 2 years earlier. He was 57 years old and by this time blind and had to dictate his work to his wife and daughters. He had previously led a busy life as Latin Secretary to the Council of State, a teacher and a scholar during which time he had published several minor poems, but he had an idea for an epic poem which had been going round in his mind for some time before he started writing some opening verses in 1642. Since then he spasmodically added more verses when his other occupations allowed. During the English Civil War he made no progress, and he probably resumed writing around 1654. It was only during his enforced isolation in the peace and quiet of his Buckinghamshire cottage that he was able to finally complete his greatest work, Paradise Lost, which was published after the Great Fire of London, in 1667. Without the plague the book might not have been completed and published at this time.

It is not often that we are forced to slow down our busy lives and take stock. This time of self-distancing and isolation should be seen as an opportunity for thought and reflection. Not only can we re-evaluate our goals and ambitions, but with brains that are free from the bustle of life we have a chance to encourage the creative side of our minds. Into our calmer brain will flow ideas and thoughts that have lain dormant whilst we coped with everyday pressure. We should use Milton and Newton as an example of how to turn this terrible situation into an opportunity for personal growth.

How the election of 1818 changed the public attitude towards elections

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 18:37:49 GMT

How the election of 1818 changed the public attitude towards elections

The end of the second decade of the nineteenth century saw two General Elections two years apart and history has repeated itself in the same period in the twenty-first century. The current election laws are very different to those in the nineteenth century but the problems the politicians faced were not dissimilar.

The Tories had been in power for six years when the first election after the end of Napoleonic wars took place in 1818. The end of the wars had bought peace, but there was no work for the returning soldiers and the Corn Law restricted imports of wheat and pushed up the price of bread. Poverty and deprivation was causing social unrest, which the Government quashed with draconian legislation. Up to this time the members of parliament were traditionally the major landowners in the constituency area and were usually returned unopposed, but at this election more seats were being contested. People realised they had the power to change things. They did not have to suffer austerity in silence. This was the first time the public (or the small percentage of the population that were eligible to vote) realised they could make a difference. Candidates suddenly found they had to fight for their seats. They did so by inviting voters to election meetings where there was always plenty of food and drink on offer. They would arrange to convey voters to the polls, and they would use all the influence they could muster to entice people to vote for them. It was not a secret vote and afterwards the electoral list and how individuals voted was published. Therefore tenants of the candidate dare not vote against their landlord for fear of losing their farms or their patronage. Supporters were supplied with ribbons, banners and street decoration. Bands accompanied the candidates to their meetings. The candidates found that fighting for their parliamentary seats was becoming expensive.

Middlesex

In today’s 2019 election Boris Johnson is hoping to retain his Middlesex constituency seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. This is just one of 32 constituencies in Middlesex. In 1818 there were 14 constituencies in Middlesex which stretched across the whole of the north bank of the Thames from the City of London to the Buckingham/Berkshire/Hertfordshire borders. Middlesex had twelve borough constituencies and two county members of Parliament who represented the rest of Middlesex.

In 1818 George Byng, a member of the Whig (Liberal) party, who after 28 years in the House of Commons once again accepted the nomination of the freeholders to stand as a representative for Middlesex. It was a popular nomination and he had many cheering supporters when the nomination was made. His fellow candidate, William Mellish, a Tory and a governor of the Bank of England, was less enthusiastically nominated. In fact another candidate was considered to replace Mr Mellish. The formal proceedings took place on Friday 26 June 1818 and the freeholders of the county crowded into Brentford, Middlesex, to cast their vote. The road from London to Brentford was thronged with the carriages of the candidates’ supporters. The two seats in Parliament for Middlesex were uncontested, but freeholders wanted to show support for their preferred man, and the candidates put on a show. Mellish left London at 9am in a travelling coach with postillions in scarlet livery. His supporters wore light blue ribbons. Mr Byng’s supporters wore orange and purple ribbons. When both the candidates were present the two sheriffs went through the procedure of the hustings. The King’s Writ requiring two representatives to be elected for Middlesex was read and Mr Byng formerly proposed and seconded. Then Mr Mellish was proposed and seconded. The sheriffs asked if there were any other candidates and Mr Clarke, who had been proposed at an earlier meeting withdrew his candidacy. Both candidates were therefore declared duly elected and were chaired through the streets of Brentford as was the tradition.

1820

The 1820 general election took place between the 6 March and the 14 April 1820 and more seats were being contested. Discontent was growing nationally. A plot to kill leading cabinet members and the Prime Minister was uncovered in February, and the plotters executed. In Scotland a general strike and a movement for more autonomy and independence was growing, but was suppressed when the army were sent to arrest the ringleaders some of whom were later hung and others transported to the colonies. In the 1820 Middlesex election another Whig candidate entered the contest. All three candidates had to work harder at wooing the 10,662 members of the electorate. There were accusations of a coalition between the two Whig candidates which they refuted. However they were both elected and the Tory candidate eliminated.

From this time onwards the populace became aware of the unfairness of the electoral system. Pressure was on MPs to change the system which resulted in the Reform Act of 1832. This Act abolished ‘rotten boroughs’ where a MP was elected for a non-existent borough, and doubled the number of men eligible to vote, although this was still only 18% of the male population of the United Kingdom.

At today’s election there will be more representation, and most of the adult population are eligible to vote. A vote is a privilege that many of fought hard for over the centuries. Let us hope that everyone will make use of this privilege.

The village that Street View forgot

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 15:13:08 GMT

Longford village: destined for destruction

Middlesex as a county has lost its identity under the urbanisation of London. Most Middlesex towns are referred to simply as a London Borough of something. A few places to the north and west, and within the M25 unofficial boundary of Greater London, still proudly proclaim Middlesex as their county, but soon even more of its territory will be removed from our sight, our memory and our history.

The village of Longford will disappear with the expansion of Heathrow airport. To those that live there it will be a sad bitter time. To those that have yet to visit the village it will be a disappointment to find that you are unable to use Google’s Street View app to navigate through its streets. Street View cameras have only ventured to the outskirts of the village and omitted to capture any images of the historic core. Why is this? Street View has not offered an explanation to me. Was it a deliberate omission requested by the Government to stop any record of the village being preserved prior to its demolition, or just a casual mistake?

The village of Longford, within the London Green Belt and a Conservation Area, is a peaceful (ignoring the sound of screaming jets overhead) rural setting which has hardly altered over time. It has nine Grade II listed buildings, and five others of special architectural interest. The village, from Saxon times and earlier, has been a farming community. The prime horticultural land grew fruit and vegetables for London’s Covent Garden market. It straddles the Great Bath Road from where, for centuries, its four inns provided travellers with hospitality. Six miles from Windsor Castle the village was the usual stopping place for the Royals to change their horses on the way to and from London and Windsor.

The villagers were witnesses to many events, rejoicing at some and turning a blind eye to others. Highwaymen prayed on the coach travellers who had to cross the notorious Hounslow Heath to get to Longford, but if any villagers were aware of the culprits they kept it to themselves. With four rivers (two artificial) and acres of orchards and market gardens it was a thriving rural community up to the second world war when an airfield was built nearby to aid the war effort. This airport became the country’s main civil airport at Heathrow and from then on Longford was blighted. It has been threatened with extinction since the fifties, but the cohesive supportive community are proud of its history and have fought to prevent its destruction.

Google’s Street View boasts that it now has full coverage of the road networks for the whole of the United Kingdom, so why is Longford missing? Street View is not just a tool for navigation, but is becoming a social history resource. Google has an ongoing programme of re-surveying and, whilst the current image is presented to the user first, a clock symbol in the top-left of the screen can be clicked to see older images. This is a great asset to family or local history researchers, or just the curious, who want to track the transition of locations through time.

Sadly, because the village of Longford has not been visited by the Street View cameras, when the third runway is built no one will be able to see images of the village that once stood there, and with the loss of images will also go the story of centuries of village life. To preserve Longford’s history I have written a book on the life of the village through time. Even if the physical village disappears I hope the lives, loves, tragedies and triumphs of its people will live on in print. Longford: A Village in Limbo .

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

The Giraffe That Could Not Stand Up

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 15:50:37 GMT

The Giraffe That Could Not Stand Up

George III’s son, the Prince Regent, was a man of excess. He loved elaborate architecture, glamorous women, and excessive amounts of good food and drink. He also liked exotic animals. By the time he became Prince Regent in 1811 he had begun accumulating rare animals many of them given to him by Heads of State who were trying to ingratiate themselves with the British monarchy. The King housed these animals in a menagerie in Windsor Great Park built next to the crenellated mock-gothic mansion in Windsor Great Park called Sandpit Gate Lodge.

By the time the Prince Regent became King George IV in 1820 this menagerie had grown and there were, among other creatures, gnus, black buck, kangaroos, and a variety of exotic birds, but his most prized possession was still to come. On 11 August 1827 an eighteen-month old Namibian giraffe arrived in London a gift from Mehmit Ali, Pasha of Egypt. The giraffe was eighteen months old and although not fully grown was already ten feet tall. She was the first giraffe in Britain and arrived with two cows to provide it with milk and two Egyptian attendants who did not speak a word of English. She was a great curiosity because many believed that giraffes were just a myth and didn’t actually exist. The British people suddenly became fascinated with anything to do with giraffes. Magazines promoted fashions and furnishings that matched the design and colour of the giraffe’s skin. Household objects and ceramics celebrated this animal and newspapers throughout the country carried regular reports on the giraffe.

The animals at Sandpit Gate Lodge were kept in specially constructed enclosures each with thatched-roofed sheds, but a special building was constructed for the giraffe with stable-type double doors twelve foot high. She was an amiable creature who was happy to be petted and stroked. She was painted for George IV by Jacues-Laurent Agasse in 1827, with a degree of artistic licence.

The painting shows the giraffe standing with its two cows and two Egyptian attendants, but this is an idealised image of the giraffe. In real life it had difficulty standing up. The poor creature had been captured in Sudan as a calf and endured a year-long journey over land and sea before it arrived in London. During the first part of the journey it was too weak to walk for long periods so it had been strapped to a camel with it legs tied together. The tightness of the binding and the long journey resulted in the knees becoming deformed, and varies remedies were tried to restore it to health.

King George IV was delighted with his gift, and had great sympathy with his crippled giraffe. He too, because of gout and obesity, had a weakness of the knees. The King was 64 in August 1827 and spent nearly all his time at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park from where he took daily carriage rides around Windsor Great Park which included stopping at Sandpit Gate Lodge to spend time with the animals and check on the health of his prized giraffe.

Although the giraffe grew over a foot in height whilst at Windsor it never reached a normal height for a giraffe. The King and the giraffe were in synchronised decline and by July 1828 both were unable to stand on their own and were growing weaker. At the menagerie a hoist and sling were constructed to allow the giraffe to stand upright and newspapers throughout the land printed daily bulletins on the giraffe’s condition. Both the giraffe and the unpopular King were ridiculed in song and pictures.

George IV and the nation were very upset when the giraffe finally died on 11 October 1829. It was taken to the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park for dissection. A taxidermist, Mr John Gould, was asked to make a replica of the giraffe using a wooden form covered with the animal’s skin. The skeleton of the animal was exhibited alongside the stuffed model at the Zoological Society’s Museum until it closed in August 1855. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

George IV outlived the giraffe by only eight months. When William IV inherited the throne the menagerie was disbanded and the animals and birds moved to the new London Zoo at Regents Park, together with the residue of the Royal Menagerie still held at the Tower of London. The London Zoological Society received its Royal Charter in 1829 from George IV, and it has had a Royal Patron ever since.

I came across this story whilst researching my family history. My great, great, great, great grandfather, William Kell, was an usher to George IV and lived at Sandpit Gate Lodge at the time of the menagerie. His exact role in the royal household is unknown, but his proximity to the menagerie and the fact the Edward Cross (shown with the giraffe and the Egyptians in the picture above) was the executor of his Will indicates that he performed a duty connected with the giraffe and animals.

Read about the occasion when George IV took the young Princesss Victoria to see the menagerie: " Longford: A Village in Limbo " by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to

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Harmondsworth Hall

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 10:38:06 GMT

Designated for destruction

When writing about history the biggest part of the project is research. Research is not just looking at documents in archives and reading academic books, but being out there walking the streets; talking to people.

I went on a research trip in August. I am researching the lost Middlesx community of Heathrow, as well as the soon to be lost villages of Longford, Harmondsworth and Sipson. If the London Airport Expansion plans go ahead hundreds of homes will be demolished in these places, which include eleven listed buildings in Longford, and twelve in Harmondsworth. Only Harmondsworth medieval Great Barn and its Norman church will survive the destruction, but who will want to visit them when they will be meters from the airport’s perimeter fence?

Right in the centre of Harmondsworth is Harmondsworth Hall which is now a guest house, and where I had booked a bed for the night. This grand-sounding building was built in the early 1700s, but still has elements of a fire-damaged Tudor building which was on this site. The central chimney and a fireplace are remnants of the former house. There are tales of ghosts in the garden, priest holes and secret tunnels. In the garden is the remains of an old cannon thought to have been put there by the wife of an Admiral after it had been captured off the Spanish Main. The Hall once had four acres of beautiful gardens in which were held church garden parties, tea dances, and barbecues (such a novelty in 1957 that they asked a member of the U.S.A.F. in nearby West Drayton to do the cooking). In 1910 this house was the first house in Harmondsworth to have its own electricity supply. It had a 7hp Hornsly Ackroid Oil engine and accumulators (batteries) which provided electric light for the house, but that was its only amenity. It still relied on a well underneath the scullery floor for a water supply and had no mains drainage. At this time the village had only just got piped gas to provide street-lighting.

The ownership of Harmondsworth Hall passed through many families and in 1957 belonged to Mr S.D. Brown and his family. Mr Brown worked in Paris but frequently flew home at weekends to the nearby London Airport which had become a civil airport in 1946. He applied for planning permission to build five detached houses in the four acre garden. The Middlesex County Council rejected the plan, but today there is a street of twentieth-century homes close to the Hall.

The house itself still has its original marble black and white chequered hall floor, wood panelling, and huge fireplaces. Externally the large sash windows are interspersed with window spaces bricked up to avoid paying a heavy tax bill during the eighteenth century when tax was levied on the number of windows in a building. It is beautifully kept, both inside and out, the rooms are sympathetically furnished and majestic, and the whole place has an air of grand antiquity. It was a pleasure and privilege to have had the experience of visiting this historic building before it is disappears forever.

Progress cannot be stopped, and humankind must grow to survive, but there is still a need to have reminders of the past in our midst. Without visible history to excite our curiosity we cannot measure progress and judge the effect of our actions in the future.

Death of an Eton Schoolboy

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 09:04:53 GMT

Death of an Eton Schoolboy

On Sunday, in February 1825, two schoolboys got into an argument after church which transcended into a fist fight, which had to be broken up by other pupils. The two schoolboys however demanded satisfaction and they agreed to meet for a bare-knuckle fight the following day. The schoolboys in question were the Hon. Anthony Francis Ashley Cooper, the fourth son of Lord Shaftesbury and Charles Alexander Wood, the son of Colonel Wood a politician, landowner and courtier. The boys were pupils at Eton College, the renowned boarding school for sons of the nobility.

Bare-knuckle fighting was illegal but it was a custom at Eton for differences to be settled by a “pugilistic contest”, at the end of which the victor shook hands with his adversary. [1] At four p.m. on 1st March 1825 a large group of scholars gathered to watch the contest. Mr Cooper had declared he would never give in, but by the eighth round he was beginning to tire. Some of his supporters gave him brandy to help him recover and the contest continued. Brandy was administered between every round and after nearly two hours, Cooper fell heavily and hit his head and fell unconscious. He was carried to his lodgings by his brother and put to bed. No one thought to call the doctor as he appeared to be sleeping, but four hours later when medical assistance arrived it was too late and the youth died.

The fight and its consequences were widely reported in The Times and other newspapers. The death of the son of such a high-ranking nobleman was discussed for some time and the sorrow was felt by many. Immediately after the death the Secretary of Lord Shaftesbury arrived at Eton to remove his two other sons from Eton. A Bill in Parliament had to be postponed when Lord Shaftesbury, Chairman of the Committees of the House of Lords, rushed off to Eton on hearing of the death of his son. Colonel Wood also arrived at Eton on hearing the news and “evinced much sorrow”. The whole college was in shock.

The Inquest.

The day after the death the inquest took place in the Christopher Inn in Eton. Mr Charsley the Coroner swore in the Jury and they all proceeded to walk to the deceased’s lodgings to view the corpse. They returned to the Inn where crowds of scholars were in the inn-yard and several Masters inside the Jury room. The Constable was asked to bring forward witnesses and he declared that he had been unable to find any. This was a surprising statement after the Times reported that the majority of scholars were present at the fight. The Constable declared that he had “inquired amongst the Collegians but they were not inclined to give him any information.” Mr Christopher Teasdale was presented to the Court. He said he was a student who knew both combatants and was present at the first fight but did not know what it was about. He heard they had agreed to fight the next day at 4pm. He was so reluctant to give any details that the Coroner had to admonish him. Another witness, Mr Carter, said he saw no foul blows struck and thought it was a fair fight. He said that after the 11th and subsequent rounds he did see brandy being given to Mr Cooper. The witness knew that Mr Wood had an appointment with a Master and heard him ask Cooper several times to postpone the fight, but Cooper and his second would not agree. After another round the deceased fell heavily and Wood said he must go. He was prepared to make up with his protagonist but by this time Cooper was unconscious. The witness thought Cooper had drunk about half a pint of brandy during the fight, although the Coroner declared that it was an exaggeration.

A surgeon was called as a witness. Mr O’Reilly said he visited the deceased on Monday night. He declared that the cause of death was a brain haemorrhage. The Coroner asked if this was caused by a blow or by a fall or by a natural cause. The doctor said it was caused by a violent fall, and if there had not been a four hour delay in calling for medical assistance there was a chance that the deceased might have survived.

In the Coroner’s summing up to the Jury he said “he had no hesitation in saying that he did not believe they entertained a feeling of malice towards each other which would make the offence murder”. However the killing of a person is an unlawful act and amounted to manslaughter. It was up to the Jury to decide if the deceased was unlawfully killed even though the fight appeared to be a fair trial of strength. After several hours the Jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against Mr Wood and Mr Cooper’s second, Alexander Wellesley Leith.

The funeral of the Hon. Anthony Francis Ashley Cooper took place at Eton on Sunday 6th March, a week after the initial altercation, and after the service his body was placed in a vault in the ante-chapel. A newspaper reported that the Provost would address the boys on the “impropriety of their recent conduct”, but this speech did not take place. [2] It suggests that the settling of disputes by fisticuffs was still regarded as acceptable by the school authorities. However the Times would not let the matter drop.

A week after the death the Times Leader wrote a scathing attack on Eton College. They reported that they had received a great many letters on the subject of the “melancholy event” at Eton. Normally, it said, they regard “crimes or calamities” at schools and colleges as accidental and they recognise that boys left to “their natural resources” will often end up fighting after a quarrel, and up to a point they advocate this. The fact that Cooper and Wood fought is accepted, but that the lads at Eton should be given brandy as a substitute for their natural stamina is to be condemned. The Leader went on to question the “astonishing ignorance” of the students at Eton who did not recognise the fact that if a boy is insensible and remains so for several hours he should receive medical attention. In other words The Times suggested that parents of scholars at Eton who hand guardianship of their children to the supposedly intelligent and experienced staff cannot be secure about their care.

The Headmaster of Eton College, Rev. Dr. Edward Craven Hawtrey, replied indignantly to the Times refuting their accusation of lack of care. He also reports that three gentlemen, returning from a hunt, came across the fight in the school playing fields about 50 minutes after it had commenced. They watched the fight for ten minutes and rode away after seeing nothing that warranted their interference. [3]

Many of the facts of the case were mis-reported in the newspapers and in the days that followed the papers had to print corrections. Colonel Wood reported that his son was 14 and not 17 as some had reported. Lord Shaftesbury took out an advertisement to say that only one of his sons took part in the fight. The other was confined to bed by a severe illness. Both parents were unhappy with the amount of publicity the matter was receiving.

The Trial.

Charles Alexander Wood was held in custody at the house of his tutor guarded by a Constable. The Earl of Shaftesbury declined to bring charges but the parties still had to be tried on the coroner’s warrant.

The Trial of Wood and Leith for manslaughter began at Aylesbury the following week. Both pleaded ‘Not Guilty’. Mr Wood was described by the Times as being of elegant appearance, aged about 14, but his “eyes were very much confused”. [4] His coat sleeve was still torn from the fight. Mr Leith was aged about 19. No one appeared in Court to conduct the prosecution. The witness from the Coroner’s Court, Christopher Teasdale, was called three times, but did not appear. The Coroner was called who confirmed that he had given Teasdale, as well as two other witnesses, notice to attend, but none were present.

As there was no one to put the case for the prosecution the prisoners had to be acquitted and a Not Guilty verdict was given. An application to hear Mr Wood’s defence statement was refused and he returned with his father to London. Mr Leith also had a defence statement prepared had the trial proceeded. The Times printed his statement in full. Mr Leith disputed the amount of alcohol that was reported to have been administered to Mr Cooper during the fight. Leith said the deceased only sipped at the brandy between rounds and no more than one whole glass was consumed. He also said that it was not unusual for spirits to be given to contestants in fights at Eton, and that he was not the only supporter of Mr Cooper between rounds. He goes on to correct the report about the disparity in ages of the combatants and confirms they were of equal age. He concludes that he does not claim to be blameless, but thinks that the real cause of the fatality was inexperience.

After the trial the Times reported that Lord Shaftesbury had written to Colonel Wood, “couched in very friendly terms” in which he believed that no blame should be attached to young Wood in relation to the unfortunate affair and that he will continue to send his other sons to Eton. [5] By publicly releasing this letter the Earl managed to end the newspaper’s attention on this whole affair and the public viewed the event as an unfortunate accident, although for those involved the memories of the fight might have been harder to eradicate.

Both boys were distraught over the death. It is not known whether this incident affected their later life. Alexander Wellesley Leith succeeded his father to the baronetcy in January 1842 and died three months later in Madeira at the age of 35. [6] He left a wife and son. In his short life he does not appear to have made any impact on society and his life is not chronicled in any biographical dictionary.

Charles Alexander Wood continued at Eton and then went on to study at Cambridge.

He became a Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioner responsible for superintending the sale and settlement of the waste lands of the Crown in the British Colonies “and the conveyance of emigrants thither”. He was the Treasurer of the Society of Ancient Britons and attended royal functions in that capacity. He was also deputy Chairman of the board of the Great Western Railway. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1874. He died in 1890. [7]

Conclusion.

The fact that both Colonel Thomas Wood and Major-General Sir George Leith, fathers of the accused, were present at the trial reflects on the parental concern of both men, but it is strange that there were no witnesses or prosecutors at the trial for such a serious charge.

For two weeks, until Lord Shaftesbury’s letter to Colonel Wood effectively put an end to the gossip and discussion, the case was reported daily in the newspapers. It was probably seen by the public as an indication that children of the rich and noble were no different in character to street urchins. It showed that an education makes no difference to a boy’s natural instinct to fight. The Times leader called fighting a form of duelling among boys, a natural activity which teaches courage and strength, and suggested that by venting their angry feelings it extinguished person hatred. This is seems to be the same attitude demonstrated by the Masters and staff at Eton who, at that time, appear to have shown a blind eye to the occasional fight among pupils.

[1] "Coroner's Inquest." Times [London, England] 3 Mar. 1825: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

[2] "ETON, SUNDAY AFTERNOON.-The funeral of the Hon. F. A. Cooper, who was unfortunately killed on." Times [London, England] 7 Mar. 1825: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

[3] "E. C. HAWTREY." "Eton School." Times [London, England] 9 Mar. 1825: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

[4] "Aylesbury, Wednesday, March 9." Times [London, England] 10 Mar. 1825: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

[5] "We understand that Lord Shaftesbury has written a letter to Colonel Wood, couched in very friendly terms, in." Times [London, England] 14 Mar. 1825: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

[6] "Deaths." Times [London, England] 9 May 1842: 9. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

[7] “Obituary”Times, (London, England) 8 Apr. 1890: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Accessed 15 Sept 2016.

Read about the Eton Montem in my book: "Longford: A village in Limbo"

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

The First Royal 100th Birthday Greeting

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 15:38:01 GMT

The First Royal 100th Birthday Greeting

It has long been a tradition that anyone reaching the age of 100 years receives a greeting card from the Monarch.

George V sent out the first formal greeting in 1917 via his Private Secretary. [1] Before that other greetings had been sent, but not in an organised way. In 1908 Edward VII’s secretary sent a greeting to the Reverend Thomas Lord of Horncastle congratulating him on his 100th birthday. This is thought to have been the first official Royal greeting sent to a centenarian. However I have found evidence of an earlier occasion. King William IV verbally congratulating a centenarian on his birthday.

On 23 April 1832 (Easter Monday) King William IV and Queen Adelaide were in Staines, Middlesex, for the official opening of the Staines Bridge across the Thames. Staines had been a main crossing point on the Thames since Roman times and ever since then a series of wooden and iron bridges had been built to carry the main road from London to Berkshire. One by one the bridges failed until the fifth and final bridge, now built of granite, was finally opened in 1832. There was great rejoicing in the town that after five years of construction the bridge was finally complete, and many hundred turned up to see the pomp and pageantry. For the opening ceremony, the Royal couple, accompanied by military contingents and assembled dignitaries such as the members of the Staines Bridge commission and the architect, George Rennie, assembled on the bridge and the Rector of Staines made an official address. [2] After the opening ceremony and before the Royal Party proceeded to the Saracen's Head for a cold collation, the onlookers noticed “two men of unequal size making way through the crowd towards the presence of their majesties”. These men were Colonel Wood of Littleton and William Goring, a tailor from Chertsey. [3] Colonel Wood was a prominent landowner in the area and a member of the Staines Bridge Commission. He stood five foot eleven inches high and William Goring was five foot four inches. The two men stood before the royal couple and Colonel Wood introduced them to Mr Goring and added that the tailor wished to speak to them. The tailor told the king that he had walked from Chertsey to Staines that morning (about four miles) especially to shake hands with the King as that day was his hundredth birthday. Their Majesty's were impressed and heartily congratulated him.

The meeting of Mr Goring with the King and Queen was an event that was still being talked about four years later when Mr Goring died at the age of 104. This was a remarkable age for that period in history.

Prior to the 20th Century, reaching the age of 100 was almost unknown. Poor diets, hard physical occupations, and limited medical science meant that few people survived into old age. There was no such thing as enjoying a restful retirement. Unless people had managed to save money to keep themselves in later years they either had to continue working, live with a relative, or go into the Workhouse. State pensions did not exist before January 1909. The first pensions were paid to people over the age of 70. A single person received five shillings a week (25p) and a couple seven shillings and sixpence (37p). This was just enough to pay for basic food.

Today reaching the age of 100 is not unusual, but the greeting from the Sovereign is still eagerly awaited by centenarians, and may this tradition endure in the same way the granite bridge of Staines has survived in continual use ever since that Easter Monday in 1832.

[1] http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/a-royal-tradition-the-queens-100th-birthday-messages-8673. Accessed 3/10/16

[2] "Opening of the New Bridge at Staines." Times [London, England] 24 Apr. 1832: 2+. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 5 Oct. 2016.

[3] A story retold in the North London News, Sunday 31 October 1868.

[4] "Opening of the New Bridge at Staines." Times [London, England] 24 Apr. 1832: 2+. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 5 Oct. 2016.

Read more about King William IV and Queen Adelaide in my book,

" Longford: A Village in Limbo "

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Wending Through History

80 Years since the Opening of Heathrow airport

80 years ago: The Opening of Heathrow airport ﻿

ISBN 978-1-7390822-2-22

The Forge at Longford, Middlesex, is one of 700 buildings threatened by demolition if the third runway is built at Heathrow. This blog tells the stories behind the buildings of Longford.

Tales from Longford: The Forge

The Legacy Lost to Heathrow's Third Runway

How Hillingdon Borough celebrated VE day in 1945

How Hillingdon Borough celebrated VE day in 1945

Heathrow Expansion: Eighty years of Bad Decisions

Heathrow Expansion:

Eighty years of Bad Decisions

THE HIGHWAYMAN’S HIDEAWAY

THE HIGHWAYMAN’S HIDEAWAY

Mercury House - The aviation history of Hayes, Middlesex

Mercury House: The aviation history of Hayes, Middlesex

The Three Magpies pub and the pre-Olympic movement.

The Three Magpies pub and the pre-Olympic movement.

The Highwayman's Pub at Heathrow

The Three Magpies

Tales from Longford: The Kings Arms

Tales from Longford: The Kings Arms

Tales from Longford: The Bath Road Milestones

Tales from Longford:

﻿ The Bath Road milestones

The river built for a King’s vanity.

The river built for a King’s vanity.

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

The Hunt Family of Harmondsworth

The Hunt family of Manor Farm and Heathrow Farm,

Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

Harmondsworth Fair - "a fruitful source of intemperance and immorality"

"A fruitful source of Intemperance and Immorality”

Tales from Longford: The Witch of Longford Cottage

Tales from Longford: The Witch of Longford Cottage.

Tales from Longford: The King's secret island

Tales from Longford: The King's secret island

For more on the history of Longford read

“ Longford: A Village in Limbo ” by Wendy Tibbitts

Tales from Longford: Heath Gardens

Tales from Longford and Harmondsworth: The Magnetaire, the preacher and the builder

Tales from Longford and Harmondsworth :

The Magnetaire, the preacher and the builder

Tales from Longford - The Pauper and the Pretty Girl

Tales from Longford -

﻿ The Pauper and the Pretty Girl

Tales from Longford: The Shy King and the Soldiers Shed

Tales from Longford: The Shy King and the Soldiers Shed

For more on the history of Longford read “Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts

Yeomans and the Tax Collector.

Yeomans and the Tax Collector

The history of Yeomans

Tales from Longford: The history of Yeomans

Tales from Longford: The Weekly House

Tales from Longford: The Weekly House

Tales from Longford: The Strawberry Season

Tales from Longford: The Strawberry Season

The King and the Eton Montem

The King and the Eton Montem

The King, the Assassin, and the Wax Woman

The King, the Assassin, and the Wax Woman

How Milton used the plague of 1665 as an opportunity

How Milton used the plague of 1665 as an opportunity.... and how we could do the same in these uncertain times.

How the election of 1818 changed the public attitude towards elections

How the election of 1818 changed the public attitude towards elections

The village that Street View forgot

Longford village: destined for destruction

The Giraffe That Could Not Stand Up

The Giraffe That Could Not Stand Up

Harmondsworth Hall

Designated for destruction

Death of an Eton Schoolboy

Death of an Eton Schoolboy

The First Royal 100th Birthday Greeting

The First Royal 100th Birthday Greeting

80 years ago: The Opening of Heathrow airport

The Bath Road milestones

The Pauper and the Pretty Girl