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]

For more on the history of Longford read

“Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts

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