From Friars to Fairs
Hounslow Heritage Research Project
Night of Festivals Hounslow 2019
From Friars to Fairs Thanks to support from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, community researchers worked with Hounslow’s Archive and Local Studies Service to reveal some of the people, places and stories that make the town tick.
*Neal’s Corner, Hounslow From Friars to Fairs was a pop-up and digital exhibition led by Art Reach, as part of Night of Festivals 2019, Hounslow’s rich heritage. The exhibition incorporates research by James Marshall, Librarian for the Archive and Local Studies Service at Hounslow Libraries.
From the Bronze Age to the Anglo Saxons Human settlements have been found in the Borough of Hounslow dating back to the Bronze Age (2300-650 BC). During expansion of Heathrow airport in 1969, pits and ditches were found indicating previous existence of living huts. In 1864, a hoard was discovered, now housed at the British Museum, that included flat axes, spearheads and sword fragments, as well as 6 bronze figurines from the Iron Age (800 BC- 100 AD): 3 boars, 2 dogs or horses, and a small wheel. Of the total 22 bronze figurines found in Britain, the 6 from the Hounslow Hoard have become the most famous for their quality and abstract design. It is thought that two of the boars, then a symbol of strength and often used in war imagery, most likely sat atop military helmets. The other has a crest along its back with two holes, and may have been worn as an amulet around the neck.
Hounslow Boar and Dog Figurines, 150 BC - 50BC (circa). The Trustees of the British Museum.
From the Bronze Age to the Anglo Saxons Roman Britain saw the introduction of an extensive infrastructure network, known as the Roman Roads. Hounslow’s High Street was originally part of a Roman Road from Londinium to the now abandoned Roman town of Calleva/Silchester, an important centre on the way to southwest England. Although Hounslow itself did not exist in Roman times, there were small Roman settlements at Brentford and Staines, and substantial through-traffic along the new highways.
From the Bronze Age to the Anglo Saxons Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain from Denmark and Northern Germany following the withdrawal of the Romans. With them, their language and culture quickly filtered into the existing ones. Hounslow gets its name from the Anglo-Saxons! Near West Thames College there once stood a large hill or hlaw.
This mound was the seat of the local open-air court for the Hounslow Hundred, an administrative division of the County of Middlesex – the land of the Middle Saxons! It is thought that an Anglo-Saxon settler named Hundi lived close to the mound. It became known as Hundi’s Hlaw, which is where the modern place-name Hounslow comes from!
*Night of Festivals Hounslow 2018 (AimVee Photography)
Friars and the Trinitarian Church After the Norman Conquest in 1066, London once again became the Capital city of England, which meant that new roads were needed to link London with other parts of the country. The King had closed the old Roman Road to the West Country because it crossed his great hunting park at Windsor. A new road to Bath and Bristol was decided upon, following almost the same route as our modern A4, via Reading, Maidenhead, Slough, Longford and Cranford. In the 13th century, at the junction of this new Bath and Bristol road with the old Roman road from London to Staines, the town of Hounslow began. It was a slow growth: a map of Hounslow 400 years after this shows the town to still only have one street!
Figures in the East glass window of the Aisle of Hounslow Chapel, undated.
Hounslow Heath and Gunpowder Mills Compared to its ancient extent, today’s Hounslow Heath is shrunken indeed! The ancient scale of Hounslow Heath gave it many different purposes over the years. In 1647, during the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell established a military camp on the heath. From there, Cromwell marched his ‘Model Army’ of 20,000 men on London to overthrow the monarchy. With his success, the monarch, King Charles I was executed and it is rumoured that his body was carried through Hounslow Heath, under the cover of darkness, to its internment at Windsor!
*James II Military Camp on Hounslow Heath, 16.000 Troops, 1687. Forty years later, in 1686, King James II established a military camp on Hounslow Heath. Every summer, the entire British Army came to the camp for training and tournaments. During the day, they built earthworks and siege-works, putting on displays where half the army would attack the other half in a mock battle.
Hounslow Heath and Gunpowder Mills We can thank the British Army for us having some of the heath left at all – much of the original heathland has been covered in housing and Heathrow Airport. However, after the Army had finished using the land for training, the government gave the land to Hounslow Council to make it into a Local Nature Reserve.
*Hounslow Barracks Guard Room with hussars, WWII General Roy’s first measurement in the survey that started the Ordnance Survey’s mapping of Great Britain was made on Hounslow Heath in the 18th century. He had to make a perfectly straight line that was five miles long so that sightings made from each end could be used to calculate the distance from Hounslow Heath to other landmarks across the country. General Roy and his soldiers marked the ends of the baseline with canon barrels, which can still be seen today. When Roy’s baseline was re-measured by GPS satellite in 1997, they found that the old soldier had done so well that his five-mile line had an error of only ten centimetres over its entire length!
Hounslow Heath and Gunpowder Mills Working in gunpowder manufacturing was incredibly dangerous no matter which position you held. Between 1775 and 1875 there were a series of explosions causing over one hundred deaths at the Hounslow Mills. Over the following 50 years there were another 56 explosions. Luckily, these occurred in unsupervised mills and as such caused only four more deaths. During World War I, gunpowder was used, yet increasingly became out-dated as chemical explosives became more effective. The Mills at Hounslow closed in 1926.
* Fatal Explosion at Houndslow, The Illustrated Police News, 26 June 1869.
The Age of Stage Coaches The early modern era saw the emergence of Stage Coaches as the fashionable and fastest way to travel – even the Royal Mail was transported by stagecoach! By the year 1800, stagecoach services from all over the west and southwest of England converged on Hounslow on their way to London. Every day 500-stage coaches changed four tired horses for four fresh horses in Hounslow. Mr Chaplin owned many coaching inns in London and owned a large stable at Hounslow. The Royal Mail coach would set out from Mr Chaplin’s inn The Swan with Two Necks and its first stop on the journey west would be Chaplin’s stable next to the Kings Head Inn at Hounslow. Hounslow was the busiest small town in the country.
*Duval and the Lady on Hounslow Heath (Taken from the painting by W.Frith. The vast expanse of the dark heath attracted many visitors looking to make a fast fortune. Highwaymen and women notoriously patrolled the area making Hounslow Heath one of the most dangerous places in Britain for two hundred years.
The Age of Stage Coaches Not all highwaymen and highwaywomen were renowned for indecency. Claude Duval was a young robber from France who became famous for his gallant ways and lack of violence on the roads. Working as a footman to a nobleman after the Civil War, Claude learnt the manners of upper society at a young age. By 1666 he was a known highwayman and had developed a reputation for being well dressed and popular with the ladies. Famously, Duval held up a carriage containing a nobleman and a lady on Hounslow Heath.
*An Inn Yard, Hounslow and The Halfway House between London and Bristol. In an attempt to appear confident, the lady began to play a flageolet, to which Duval was so impressed that he began to dance in front of her. After they had finished dancing, Duval escorted the lady back to her coach whilst remarking to the nobleman that he had not paid for the music before stealing his purse of coins. Duval was caught in London and sent to Newgate. He was so loved that even King Charles II attempted to save him, but the judge was adamant and he was hanged for his crimes. Many highwaymen were hanged at Tyburn and often their bodies were displayed on gibbets across Hounslow Heath to warn other highwaymen and highwaywomen of the punishment for their crimes! The gibbets were kept in place until 1809.
The Industrial Age The era of stagecoaches came to an end in 1841 when Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway opened between London and Bristol. The fastest stage coaches had taken 11 hours to do the journey to Bristol, but the new steam trains could do the journey in just 4 hours – and the trains didn’t have to stop every twelve miles in order to change their tired horses! This had a devastating effect on the town of Hounslow. Travellers no longer needed to stop off in the area on their way to the west. The inns and markets of the town suffered greatly, leading to mass unemployment. It took twenty years for Hounslow to get back on its feet.
During Queen Victoria’s reign, Hounslow and Feltham were amongst London’s most important fruit and vegetable growing districts. In the 19th century, horse and cart transported most produce. In order to ensure that fruit and vegetables were fresh for the customer, farms needed to be within a cart ride away from the markets. In response to this new trade, the coaching inns of Hounslow High Street began to be replaced by shops. Platt’s Store was once a big Hounslow-based family business with grocer’s shops and hardware stores in towns and villages all over West Middlesex. Today, an Argos shop has replaced Platt’s Store, but you can still see the old Platt’s name, in relief, on the wall of the shop.
The Industrial Age In 1850, Hounslow’s Waterloo line Railway Station opened and the town slowly began to expand. Large houses were built for city gentlemen and their families, who preferred to live in the country town of Hounslow and work in London. The age of the commuter had begun.
The Victorian era was also innovative for education. For the first time ever, Elementary schooling for all children between the ages of 5 and 11 became compulsory and free of charge. Before this, parents used to have to pay for children to attend school and each child had to take a few pence to school every week to pay the teacher’s wages. In order to find work to support their families, some children left school at the age of 10. To get permission to leave school, a child had to show the School Headmaster (or Headmistress) that they had learned to read and that they knew the times-tables by heart.
The Agricultural and Urban Expansion During World War I, Hounslow Heath Military Training Ground found a new lease of life as an aerodrome with a grass runway. With the increased use of aircraft in the war, the heath became a base for biplane fighters whose job it was to drive German Zeppelin airshipbombers away from London. It was mostly used, however, as a training school to prepare pilots for active service over the trenches in France. In 2014, Hounslow’s memorial to those lost during the First World War was unveiled by Johnson Beharry VC, on the forecourt of Hounslow’s Holy Trinity Church. Before this, Hounslow had been without a memorial, though both Heston and Isleworth have had them since the 1920’s.
After the First World War, the aerodrome became London’s first international airport. The first civil air service between London and Paris began operating from Hounslow Aerodrome, where the military camps of Cromwell and James II had once been. In 1919, the Australian Government offered a £10,000 prize for the first aircraft to fly from England to Australia – naming Hounslow Heath aerodrome as the official starting line!
The Agricultural and Urban Expansion Seven aircraft took off from the heath, but only the Vickers Vimy bomber aircraft of Captain Ross-Smith made the flight in the required time limit of under 30 days. Choosing a route that covered Europe via Italy, across to Cairo, Egypt, down to India and then through Asia to Australia, the crew of 4 made the journey in just 28 days! In 1994, a replica Vickers Vimy re-enacted the 1919 flight. The crew faced similar problems to those experienced by Smith and his team, but amazingly, the 1994 journey took 14 days longer than the flight of 1919! Today the 1919 bomber plane is in on display in Australia, the home of the 4-man crew.
In the twentieth century, there was a steady growth of allotments across Britain with most found in the southwest where the warmer climate provided the best growing conditions. During the First World War, the area of cultivated land was extended by 1¾ million acres! Many of Hounslow’s allotments were a result of this expansion – local councillors, looking for potential land suggested, in 1916, dividing up the Hounslow Recreation Grounds (now known as Inwood Park) and using the existing football grounds for allotments. It was thought that they were no longer needed because many of the young men that had once played football there were away fighting in the war. However, this suggestion was rebuked and instead land behind the recreation ground was decided on – now Inwood Road Allotments. Just south of these allotments, across the railway tracks are Hounslow Avenue Allotments – still very popular today!
Sagar Ladies The SAGAR ladies are a group of women who arrived in Hounslow in the 1970s. They originally came from India, Zanzibar, Kenya and Uganda. The SAGAR ladies were photographed and interviewed for the heritage project, sharing th transition from their home country to England, and how they have settled in Hounslow's community. Click the video below for the full interviews with the Sagar Ladies.
As part of a new heritage focused project in Hounslow, Night of Festivals explored the idea of ‘shared community heritage’. Using stories and experiences from families who migrated to Hounslow in the 60s and 70s, the project unearthed and shared the moments and memories that help turned the Borough into one of the most diverse communities in the country. Interviews from this project have been passed to London Borough of Hounslow local archive and fill an important gap in the department’s material. The full length videos will shortly be available directly from, or at, the local archive (Feltham & Chiswick Library).
The Allotment Group Sowing Seeds Allotment Project was set up in 2010 in collaboration with Groundwork and the Refugee Council. The land of the allotment was previously abandoned, but thanks to the Sowing Seeds Allotment Project, it is now flourishing. The group wrote wonderful poems for the heritage project which you can read below.
Colorful windmills, dream-catchers and scarecrows, and Molly Mop the hen hopping from plot to plot. Allotments are a heaven for all! A world apart from the bygone days, Of old men and string beans rows on rows, Now a quirky sharing space, Fruit, flowers, and stories of life in a faraway place. Fun social days, with joy for all Watching from a far, foxes and cubs, Birds tweeting, bbq smoke in the air, Swapping stories and vegetables, multicultural hubs. Allotments are a heaven for all, a haven for cultures to mix, and a haven for friendship. By Marion Firman and Joy Lunn (Plot 42, Hounslow Avenue Allotments)
The Allotment Group On the plot we do a lot watering is the name of the game and weeding is the same. Tasks that resemble my life, removing negative strife and replacing them with seeds of life. Hope and enjoyment far from concrete and cement, instead potatoes, leeks and thyme to celebrate. Coffee breaks and biscuit too, time to be social, to chat, listen and share a laugh or two. Allotment Life is reaping the positive seeds we sow, to grow and grow and grow. By Sowing Seeds Allotment Project (Plot 44, Hounslow Avenue Allotments)