River Brent - Hanwell

River Brent
The Brent flows south eastwards and is joined by, and becomes, the Grand Union Canal

Post to the north Hanwell
Post to the south Wyke Green

Boston Road
St. Thomas the Apostle Church. As the town grew with the railway and trams so there was a need for a new parish. St Thomas was at first iron mission church but Money was raised by selling St. Thomas in near Portman Square and the new parish church opened in 1934. The architect was Edward Maufe and the building has a tall square bell tower with a green copper cap. The exterior is simple of engineering bricks; said to have come from Wales. A carving of the Calvary by Eric Gill is part of the east window which Gill carved in situ. There is also a carved keystone by Vernon Hill. Inside it is plain with a high fan vaulted ceiling with vaults of reinforced concrete. The main windows are all of clear handmade leaded glass. The motif of St. Thomas, a fan of three spears and a builder's square is a recurrent theme throughout, including on the rain heads and the gateway
16 JKMotor Car Sales. The Methodist Church used this in 1882 as a rented lecture hall while their church was being built
62 Prince of Wales. For a while this was called McCanns, dates from the 1870s.
149 First Choice Tool Hire. This was the Red Lion pub
Ambulance Station, The garden wins awards for the best kept garden prize in the London Ambulance service. It is a memorial to ambulance man Bill Dunn, who died in 1983. The station was built in 1956 by the Middlesex Ambulance Service, in their house style. It is now part of the London Ambulance Service and deals with up to 100 emergency calls
66 Royal Victoria, the pub dates from the 1860s

Cambridge Yard
This is the area now covered by Jasper Avenue. Cambridge Yard was a light industry and trading area from 1919.

Elthorne Park
In the 1907 20th Hanwell Urban District Council approached Lord Jersey, owner of Osterley Park about the need for a park to meet the needs of their growing population. He offered the Council this area for £4,500.  The opening date was postponed because the King Edward the day before the ceremony and it was opened in 1910 by Lady Jersey and Lord Villiers. The original bandstand remains together with a drinking fountain, and railings, with iron gates and brick gate piers. There are lime and horse chestnut and at the main entrance is a circular floral display. The south of the park adjoins the Brent River Park and there is now a waterside nature conservation area,
Sarsen Stone. This glacial erratic was found in 1899 in a gravel pit on the site of an ancient river bed at what is now Townholme Crescent. It was excavated and moved here near the gates of the park. It was once much larger but some of it has been removed. It is of similar age, origin and composition to the Sarsens of Stonehenge.  There have been various speculations about it.

Grand Union Canal
Shortly below Osterley Lock the canal is joined by the River Brent from the north east and the two are thenceforth combined.
Lock cottage. Built in 1826 at the end of the flight of locks.
Ontario Bridge – over the river and the canal from Trumpers Way
"Kerr Cup Pile Driving Competition Prize Length of Piling 1959" sign
The footpath from Hanwell to the Brent outfall is called Fitzherbert Path after Luke Fitzherbert, founder of Brent River and canal society

Green Lane
Green Lane is a common name for a path used by cattle drovers.
Mount Oliver Court. On the site of Queen Victoria hospital.
Queen Victoria Hospital.  The Hanwell Cottage Hospital opened in 1900 paid for by public subscription to commemorate the Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. In 1923 it also became a War Memorial Hospital in memory of the dead of the Great War. In 1948 it joined the NHS and closed in 1979 when the new Ealing Hospital opened. The Hospital has been demolished and the site is now housing
62 Short break care home. This was once called Brent Hill Hostel and has a noise monitoring station on its roof.
The Fox. 19th pub
Billet’s Hart – this is now allotments. This land belongs to Hobbayne Trust and used to be the Hanwell common meadow. Cattle used to cross the Brent at a shallow point to avoid paying the toll over Brent Bridge.
Curtis Dye Works and Dye Works Cottages

Lower Boston Road
Traces of a hamlet with some mid c19 cottages around a small green
St Mark's Church Schools, established here in 1855, with some subsequent extensions. Hobbayne's Charity had set up a school in Halfacre Road and in 1817 it became a National Society for all the poor children of the parish. In 1852 the rector gave a part of the glebe on the corner of Lower Boston Road and Green Lane, and the school was thus built here in 1855. Children’s meals were subsidised by the parish.  It was enlarged with an iron building in 1901 and then taken over by the County Council. They enlarged it in 1905 and renamed it St. Mark’s and it subsequently became a primary school. School grounds were acquired when adjoining market gardens closed in the 1960s.
St Mark's Court. This was St Mark's church, built in 1879 by William White in Coloured brick with decorated stone detail. It has become independent in 1919 when part of the parish of St. Mellitus's was assigned to it. It was declared redundant in 1980 and has now been converted to flats
13 The Inn on the Green. This is a pub recently renamed from The Dolphin – it was however originally The White Hart dating from the mid-19th.
William Hobbayne Day Centre for the Elderly. Hanwell Methodist Church originated from a Wesleyan Society class set up in 1881. In 1882 they purchased land for a chapel on the corner with St Dunstan’s Road and this opened in 1884. A gallery was added but in early 1897 they were looking for another new chapel and eventually moved out. The chapel was sold by auction to the Salvation Army. It has now been refurbished as a Day Centre

Oaklands Road
Fifth and sixth century graves discovered on site.
Oaklands Primary School, opened in 1906 by Middlesex County Council

St. Mark’s Road
King George's Playground. Poor's Piece – later called King George's Field - was set aside for the poor under the enclosure act of 1816. as compensation for loss of commons rights. It was owned by Hobbayne's Charity, and the Trustees could not sell for private use. It was purchased by Ealing Council in 1951 and laid out as a recreation ground with £300 from the King George's Fields Foundation. The gate piers have the heraldic stone plaques commemorating this.  A small garden has been created at one end and the rest of the park is grass with a curved path leading to a playground, with trees.

Trumper's Way
Trumper's Crossing Halt.  This opened in 1904 and had been built by the Great Western Railway on a footpath between Windmill Lane and the canal towpath. Called ‘Trumpers  Crossing’  (for Osterley Park) Halte’.  It was supposed to be a halt for Wyke Green Golf Club but Mr.Trumper owned local, Warren Farm, and objected strongly to the railway. In 1915-1920 it was closed and in 1926 closed finally. All that remained were a few struts hidden amongst the undergrowth. It had pagoda-roofed huts added and it is said that these were transferred to South Greenford where they survived until the 1970s.
Viglen. Company was formed in 1975 by Vigen Boyadjian and acquired by Amstrad 1994. Viglen is now Alan Sugar's sole IT establishment. It focuses on the education and public sectors, selling desktop and servers. In 2005, they relocated to Colney Street

Westlea Road
Elthorne Sports Centre
Elthorne Park High School. The school opened in 1998

Sources
Elthorne Park High School.
London Gardens Online. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Megalithic Portal. Web site
Middlesex County History. Hanwell. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. North West London
St. Thomas the Apostle. Web site.
Welcome to Hanwell. Web site

Comments

Vanessa said…
This is cool!

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