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The Changing Face of Hounslow
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By
Miss Gingham
Saturday,
28 April, 2007
Hounslow is a town on the A4 road around 10 miles west of London. For many centuries, until Heathrow airport was built in the early 20th century, the town was a staging post on the vast expanse of Hounslow Heath west of London for travellers en route to the West Country.
Today it is the nearest major settlement to Heathrow airport (the largest local employer) and home to an ethnically diverse community with Sikhs making up the largest group but also Hindus, Moslems, Somalis and Poles and other Eastern Europeans. There is a refugee/aslym seekers hostel nearby.
Yet look carefully and you can find traces of the town's historic past as a stopping place for travellers over the centuries.
From the early 13th century, when Hounslow began to develop, to the present day, one of the main sources of its economic survival has been transport. In the Middle Ages foot and horse traffic travelling between London and the West Country brought weary travellers to rest in the village. When the Barons and King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede, the Barons held a tournament at Hounslow. 1227 saw the disafforesting of the Warren of Staines, a great wood, which allowed the Hounslow Heath to expand.
The heath was a popular hunting ground for Kings and Queens through the ages, including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and William III. Armies also made use of the heath due to its proximity to London, Windsor and Hampton Court. Oliver Cromwell placed an army on the heath at the end of the Civil War in 1647, and James II camped his army and held military exercises and mock battles to, unsuccessfully, intimidate the population in London.
It grew rapidly during the stage coach era of the 18th century when the Heath was notorious for highwaymen and footpads preying on travellers. The trade was not exclusive to men as the example of Mary Frith, who dared rob the Parliamentary General, Sir Thomas Fairfax, shows.
A permanent barracks for armies that camped on the heath was built in 1793 as part of the preparations to meet possible invasion by the French, and by 1884 had its own station. This was demolished and rebuilt a short distance away, and renamed Hounslow West Station in 1925, and the suburb that sprung up in the surrounding area adopted the station’s name.Between the 17th and 19th centuries it was the stagecoach services that brought prosperity to the growing town.
The prosperity of the town declined sharply when the Great Western Railway was built between London and Bristol, offering a much more comfortable and safe journey. The town began to flourish once more when the Great West Road was built to bypass the town in the 1920’s and the factories that lined the road brought jobs and prosperity.
As the old industries along the “Golden Mile” began to decline in the 1970’s, they were replaced by offices, with many international companies setting up there, attracted by the proximity of London and the areas transport links.
Today although some English shops remain, and many old buildings have survived in the London road, much of Hounslow has been taken over by ethnic minotiry shop keepers, with the Sikhs well to the fore and parts of the pedestrianised London road evoke downtown Chandigarh in the Punjab in Northern India.
One surprising feature of Hounslow is how much of its 1930s art deco architecture has survived, albeit with new store fascias. Take a walk down the pedestrianised London Road in the town centre and you will see several striking examples including the bus station, the underground station, the former cinema now a Summerfields store and Boots in an art deco store once familiar throughout the UK as the home of Burton menswear.
OntheLam 2007
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Copyright OnTheLam 2006
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