Heathrow or Heath Row was a wayside

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

along a minor country lane called Heathrow Road in the ancient parish of Harmondsworth,

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

, England, on the outskirts of what is now

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

. Its buildings and all associated holdings were demolished, along with almost all of the often grouped locality of The Magpies in 1944 for the construction of

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

. The name Heathrow described its layout: a lane, on one side smallholdings and farms of fields and orchards which ran for a little over a , on the other, until the 1819

Inclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

for farmland,

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

: a mixture of pasture, hunting and foraging land on less fertile heath. Akin to Sipson Green it was a scattered agricultural locality of Harmondsworth. The two lightly populated places dotted the brickearth-over-gravel soils in the east of Harmondsworth which historically butted on to

Hounslow Heath Hounslow Heath is a local nature reserve in the London Borough of Hounslow and at a point borders Richmond upon Thames. The public open space, which covers , is all that remains of the historic Hounslow Heath which covered more than . The prese ...

. Yards from the lane, while the heath existed, General

William Roy Major-General William Roy (4 May 17261 July 1790) was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of Gr ...

mapped one end of the first baseline for measuring the distance between the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and Greenwich observatories, the first precise distance survey in Britain, in 1784. By the late 19th century Heathrow had developed three main agricultural settlement clusters with orchards and fields worked by teams of labourers — Heathrow Hall, Perrotts Farm and on some measures Perry Oaks at a fork in the southwest end of the lane. Abutting The Magpies, east along the Bath Road, Sipson Green also lay in Harmondsworth, covered in the article on the hamlet-turned-village of Sipson. A small orchard founded before the 19th century Kings Arbour, Harmondsworth, separated The Magpies from Heathrow. The Magpies had a mission church of the parish and has kept one of its pre-1765 public houses, ''The Three Magpies''.

History

''For a timeline of Heathrow events, see

Heathrow timeline This is an event timeline and minor geographical information about Heathrow hamlet. Founding and early history A sizeable Neolithic settlement is believed to have been in the Heathrow area. Many artefacts have been found in the gravel around ...

.''

Extent and development

By the 1910s the amenities of Heathrow had grown little since the, at latest, 15th-century laying out of the lane. It spanned, north–south, from Kings Arbour orchard to Perry Oaks farm (which sat at the junction of the lane and another).Ordnance Survey 25 Inch (to mile) Map of Middlesex Sheet XIX.8
1892-1914 series, revised 1912, published 1914 An agricultural cluster of buildings and great house Heathrow Hall were slightly toward the north of the lane. All the homes and farms clung to this 90° turning lane, a turn staggered by two bends. Detailed 1910s maps show its unusual continuing agricultural focus so close to London; about half of the buildings and homes were at the two farms. The northern was Heathrow Hall, 500 metres south of the area of Harmondsworth that was from the 16th century until the mid 20th century known as The Magpies, a mix of terraces and houses on and off of the

Bath Road The A4 is a major road in England from Central London to Avonmouth via Heathrow Airport, Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Bath, Somerset, Bath and Bristol. It is historically known as the Bath Road with newer sections including the Great West Road ...

, the west of which was a set of 18 densely packed houses, Belch's Row and the east of which was Sipson Green, further orchard-backed homes along the Bath Road in the same parish. Heathrow itself had no terraces, instead small cottages and a few larger houses in large grounds. Two offshoot lanes broke away, Cain's Lane southeast to New Bedfont and High Tree Lane south to West Bedfont (long part of

Stanwell Stanwell is a village close to two of the three main towns in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, about west of central London. A small corner of its land is vital industrial land serving Heathrow Airport – most of the rest is residential ...

); at the start of Cain's Lane was in the 1910s an Anglican Mission room in the heart of the orchards and fields of Perrotts Farm, the other main cluster of buildings of Heathrow. The

Diocese of London The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of England's Province of Canterbury in England. It lies directly north of the Thames. For centuries the diocese covered a vast tract and bordered the dioceses of Norwich and Lincoln to the north ...

was keen to give all people a convenient place of worship. By the end of the 19th century The Magpies had a mission church, on the north side of the Bath Road. Sipson Green is covered in the text on the hamlet-turned-village of Sipson. Both remain intrinsic parts of the ecclesiastical parish of Harmondsworth, whose parish priest is as at Amatu Onundu Christian-Iwuagwu in a church with elements surviving from initial 1067 construction. It will be re-sited or see elements curated in a museum if a third runway for Heathrow Airport receives final planning permission and all appeals are dismissed.

Founding and early history

A sizeable

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

settlement is believed to have been in the Heathrow area. Many artefacts have been found in the gravel around what is now the airport, and the Colne Valley regional park. Waste pits filled with struck

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

, arrowheads and fragments of pottery were also found in the area, indicating a settlement, though none other remains of such a settlement. Heathrow was one of the last settlements formed in the parish of Harmondsworth.. The page includes an image of a

half-timbered Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

cottage in Heathrow village. Its name was rendered in various orthographies which reflect approximately the same pronunciation as today ''La Hetherewe'' (about year 1410, first known mention), ''Hithero'', ''Hetherow'', ''Hetherowfeyld'', ''Hitherowe'', and ''Heath Row/Heathrow'',

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

spellings of "heath row" (simply a row (impliedly of houses) on or by a heath). Old maps show Heathrow as a row of houses along the northwest sides of the curve of a lane occasionally named Heathrow Road or Lane, which faced land until 1819 part of a great set of

s belonging to neighbouring parishes —

. The first orthography as "Heathrow" dates to 1453. ;Sipson Green earthworks Certain

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

maps before the Second World War, closer to Sipson Green and the adjoining Harlington Corner (localities of the Bath Road), show an earthwork, 300 metres due south of where New Road, Harlington meets the

, that had been excavated in 1723 by order of William Stukeley. He believed it to have been a Roman settlement, and named it "Caesar's Camp".

General Roy's western baseline

In 1784 General

chose the orchard of King's Arbour to be one end of first base line of the

Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) The Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) was the geodetic survey to measure the relative position of Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich Observatory and the Paris Observatory via triangulation (surveying), triangulation. The English operations ...

trigonometrical survey for the first triangles of a triangulation grid reaching across the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

. He chose Hounslow Heath for his lines it was near-flat, near barracks and about 15 miles from the Royal Observatory. The east/south end was the Poor House in Hampton. The ends were originally marked by vertical wooden pipes (which could support flagstaffs), but in the resurvey of 1791 they were found to be rotting and were replaced by upright

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

heads which are still to be seen. The marker and landmarks on the Bath Road enables visitors and historians to picture features on old maps when visiting today's airport, without the use of grid references.

Great West Aerodrome

In 1929, Fairey Aviation bought of land just southeast of Heathrow hamlet, to establish an airfield for flight testing; later purchases gradually enlarged the aerodrome to about . It came to be called the

Great West Aerodrome The Great West Aerodrome, also known as Harmondsworth Aerodrome or Heathrow Aerodrome, was a grass airfield, operational between 1930 and 1944. It was on the southeast edge of the hamlet of Heathrow, in the parish of Harmondsworth. The Fairey Av ...

, which in 1944 was greatly enlarged to become London Airport, which was later renamed as Heathrow Airport.

Development

Agriculture became the main source of income for residents in the hamlet, as the brickearth just as the underlying gravel in soils in the area made for reliable farming for fruit trees and bushes, vegetables, and flowers as it held manure well and markets were in easy reach of these perishable cash crops. Clay soil in other parts of England favoured potatoes and chalk favoured grains. Most residents and seasonal labourers joined in the large west Middlesex market gardening industry. Many residents grew which they would travel with into London to sell, on the return journey collecting manure for farming. As motor vehicles made urban horse manure (from stables and cleaned off roads) much less, local farm workers started instead using

sewage sludge Sewage sludge is the residual, semi-solid material that is produced as a by-product during sewage treatment of industrial or municipal wastewater. The term "septage" also refers to sludge from simple wastewater treatment but is connected to si ...

(up to annually) from the

Perry Oaks sewage works Heathrow or Heath Row was a wayside hamlet along a minor country lane called Heathrow Road in the ancient parish of Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, on the outskirts of what is now Greater London. Its buildings and all associated holdings wer ...

, opened in 1936, as fertiliser. The farms and buildings across most of south-east Harmondsworth greatly changed in the early 20th century; mostly a web of rural roads and lanes. An illustration being that until about 1930, only one building stood on the north side of Bath Road between Belches Row at The Magpies on the two kilometres to the demolished Kings Head west of the preserved Longford Pump,

Longford Longford () is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 10,008 according to the 2016 census. It is the biggest town in the county and about one third of the county's population lives there. Longford lies at the meet ...

. Three factories: Technicolor and

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Black & Decker were founded in those fields before 1939. No buildings equally stood on the south side of this major thoroughfare. Other than a few homes and gardens, six farms held land which became the airport in the 1930s, as documented in principal feature maps. Heathrow was away from main roads and further away from railways; that kept it secluded and quiet although near London. As Middlesex changed to market gardening and fruit growing to supply expanding London, parts of Heathrow held on to old-type

mixed farming Mixed farming is a type of farming which involves both the growing of crops and the raising of livestock. Such agriculture occurs across Asia and in countries such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, South Africa, China, Central Europe, Can ...

, and thus was chosen for Middlesex area horse-drawn

ploughing competition A ploughing match is a contest between people who each plough part of a field. Nowadays there are usually classes for horse-drawn ploughs and for tractor ploughing. Points are awarded for straightness and neatness of the resulting furrows. Th ...

s, which needed land which was under stubble after harvest. The ford where High Tree Lane crossed the

Duke of Northumberland's River The Duke of Northumberland's River or D. O. N. River consists of separate upper and lower artificial watercourses in west London, United Kingdom. The older name Isleworth Mill Stream/River more accurately describes the economic motivation behi ...

was a scenic spot used sometimes for

picnic A picnic is a meal taken outdoors ( ''al fresco'') as part of an excursion, especially in scenic surroundings, such as a park, lakeside, or other place affording an interesting view, or else in conjunction with a public event such as preceding ...

s and courting couples. There was a footpath along beside the river from the ford to

. The Middlesex Agricultural and Growers' Association held annual ploughing matches in Heathrow, until the last, the 99th, was held on 28 September 1937; the 100th match (in 1938) was postponed to 1939 due to severe drought, and in 1939 it was cancelled because

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had started. The Royal Commission on Historic Monuments listed 28 historically significant buildings in the parish of Harmondsworth, a third of which were in Heathrow. Notable buildings included Heathrow Hall, a late 18th-century farmhouse, which was on Heathrow Road,Sherwood 2006, p.14 and Perry Oaks farm, which was

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

. In the 19th century much brickearth-type land in west Middlesex, including in Heathrow, was used for

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

s of fruit trees, often several sorts mixed in one orchard. Much

soft fruit A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, rasp ...

was grown, often in the orchards under the fruit trees. Sometimes vegetables, or flowers for cutting, were grown under the fruit trees. An author in 1907 reported "thousands and thousands" of plum, cherry, apple, pear, and damson trees, and innumerable currant and gooseberry bushes, round Harmondsworth and Sipson and Harlington and Heathrow. After World War I the amount of fruit growing in the area decreased due to competition from imports and demand for more market-gardening land, and by 1939 less than 10% of the orchard area was left. Produce was taken to Covent Garden market, or by smaller growers to

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

market, which was nearer but less profitable. From the Three Magpies, the lane's northern end – much reduced and curtailed today – to Covent Garden is which was about 6 hours at laden horse-and- wagon speed; goods had to set off before 10 pm the day before to reach the market when it opened at 4 am, until motor trucks came. Lighter produce such as

strawberries The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

where freshness brought highest prices could reach Covent Garden Market in an hour and a half in a light vehicle behind a light fast horse. An field south of the Bath Road, about east of the lane, were between after 1912 and 1935

allotment garden An allotment (British English), or in North America, a community garden, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing food plants, so forming a kitchen garden away from the residence of the user. Such plot ...

s (shown on a map dated 1935) and in the 1940

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

air survey. In the 1930s Heathrow Hall and Perry Oaks were

mixed farm Mixed farming is a type of farming which involves both the growing of crops and the raising of livestock. Such agriculture occurs across Asia and in countries such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, South Africa, China, Central Europe, Cana ...

s with wheat, cattle, sheep and pigs, and the other farms were largely

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or s ...

ing and fruit growing. Photographs from early in the 20th century show to the southeast, at Cain's Farm facing modest Heathrow House, milk cattle (about 22 in the photograph) and the yearly horse-drawn ploughing competition on Cain's Lane. Later examples show such competitions in the far north-east near Tithe Barn Lane on Heathrow Hall land. In the 1910s a small gravel pit of just under an acre was on the east side of Tithe Barn Lane at the far west of what could be loosely, based mainly on Heathrow Hall's ownership be considered part of Heathrow and a similar marsh then pond to the north, all where today's Compass Centre stands.

Archaeology

Caesar's Camp

Caesar's Camp, also called Schapsbury Hill and Shasbury Hill, was a square, Early Iron Age, British (not Roman) fort site of c. 500 BC, south of Bath Road, about halfway between Heathrow Road and Hatton Road, and a bit north of due east of Heathrow Hall. It was about square (c. 1820 measurement) or square (1911 measurement). It survived because it was on

until the enclosure of the commons of Harmondsworth parish, after which the fort's ramparts were fairly quickly ploughed out. It was excavated hurriedly in 1944: see timeline below. Inside its rampart 15 circular hut sites were found, and a large rectangular building which was probably a temple. The east end of the north runway obliterated it.

Fern Hill

Fern Hill was another ramparted prehistoric site, represented in 1944 by a roughly circular cropmark about in diameter, near Hatton Cross. The site is now partly under an aircraft hangar.

Terminal 5 site

Construction of

Heathrow Terminal 5 Heathrow Terminal 5 is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London. Opened in 2008, the main building in the complex is the largest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom. Terminal 5 is currently used exclusi ...

began in September 2002, on the site of the Perry Oaks sewage works, with earthworks for the construction of the buildings' foundation. The long delay caused by planning discussions allowed a thorough

archaeological dig In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

at the site, which found more than 80,000 artefacts.

Industry

A brickearth and gravel quarry and brick works was opened in the 1930s. At a survey in 1934 the quarry was , of which was lake. Later it expanded to the northeast and finally the lake was about long. The Heathrow Brick Company went into liquidation in 1943 and was wound up in 1944. A sewage sludge works was built in the Perry Oaks part of Heathrow in 1934, and a gauge railway installed three years later. Improvements were made in the 1950s and 1960s, and the works were eventually demolished in 2002 to make way for Terminal 5. The settled sludge of the large

Mogden Sewage Treatment Works Mogden Sewage Treatment Works is a sewage treatment plant in the Ivybridge section of Isleworth, West London, formerly known as Mogden. Built in 1931–36 by Middlesex County Council and now operated by Thames Water, it is the third largest sewage ...

(West Middlesex Sewage Treatment Works) in

Isleworth Isleworth ( ) is a town located within the London Borough of Hounslow in West London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane, London, River Crane. Isleworth's or ...

Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...

was pumped west to Perry Oaks for further settling and conversion for use in agriculture in pelleted or powder form as

biosolids Biosolids are solid organic matter recovered from a sewage treatment process and used as fertilizer. In the past, it was common for farmers to use animal manure to improve their soil fertility. In the 1920s, the farming community began also to use ...

. Sales were eventually stopped because of the possibility of contamination with toxic metals. ;Timeline of the sludge works * 12 June 1931:

Middlesex County Council Middlesex County Council was the principal local government body in the administrative county of Middlesex from 1889 to 1965. The county council was created by the Local Government Act 1888, which also removed the most populous part of the coun ...

bought the site for £33,000 from W.Whittington & Son, the owners of Perry Oaks farm; it was

then. * 1934: It occupied ; later enlarged. * 1937: A portable gauge

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

was in use on the beds to transport sewage sludge. * 1944: The Air Ministry, when taking over Heathrow, tried to take over the sludge works, but for obvious basic hygiene the sludge needed somewhere to be treated, which forced Middlesex County Council to resist; after a volcanic official row the Air Ministry admitted defeat and had to change its plans. * 1952: The early circular concrete tanks were supplemented with large rectangular tanks, and later by a series of lagoons. * 1960s: A large dried sludge storage/collection area was built. * 1965: This was augmented by installing a conveyor system. ** Both were replaced by centrifuges able to discharge directly into parked trailer units. * 2002: The second-stage works forming the whole site was replaced by Terminal 5, preceded by a detailed archaeological dig over the area. It has been inferred that the route of the under-pressure sludge sewer, which needed access points to prevent blockages, could have stopped the building of the airport. He states if it had gone across the Heathrow fields area, e.g. straight from Harlington Corner to Perry Oaks, the amount of work and time in wartime needed to divert it would have stopped the airport from being developed.Old 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey maps, reproduced at about 15 inches = 1 mile, publ. Alan Godfrey Maps:- * Heathrow, 1934, Middlesex sheet 19.08, * Hatton, 1935, Middlesex sheet 20.05, * Sipson, 1935, Middlesex sheet 19.04,

Education

Heathrow School was founded in 1875, as Heathrow Elementary School, on land given by

George Stevens Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford George Stevens Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford, PC (8 June 1806 – 29 October 1886), styled Viscount Enfield between 1847 and 1860, of Wrotham Park in Middlesex (now Hertfordshire) and of 5 St James's Square, London, was a British peer and Whig ...

by the north side of Bath Road. The school opened two years later and was enlarged in 1891. In time the school was renamed 'Sipson and Heathrow School', because more than half its pupils came from Sipson. After the construction of Heathrow Airport started in 1944, the school was affected by aircraft noise from the north runway. Pupils from the few Perry Oaks cottages for more than a year travelled by

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

to avoid construction works, until its sludge-to-fertiliser farm led to the end of almost all its homes. In 1962 the school lost its playing field when an airport access road was built and four years later it moved to Harmondsworth Lane in Sipson, and became Heathrow School again. The school's current logo is a

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

in flight.

References

;References ;Notes {{Reflist, group=n

External links

Heathrow – The Lost Hamlet By Philip Sherwood
Buildings and structures demolished in 1944 Areas of London Districts of the London Borough of Hillingdon History of Heathrow Airport Former populated places in Middlesex Settlements demolished to make room for airports