Hangar Lane


Post to the north Alperton
Post to the west Brentham




Bispham Road
Road of houses, probably late 1930s. The end of the road has flats, probably 1970s or 1980s. One block of flats appears be called Mountrath and this must be a reference to the previous building here, with that name, run as an animal hospital by vet W.T.G.Hodgin.  By the 1950s this had been supplemented with a piggery.

Brumwill Road
This now appears to be Quill Street

Brunswick Road
Junction box - green electricity cabinets.  This is near the junction with Brunswick Gardens. It is in cast iron and installed in the 1930s. Still in use

Chatsworth Road,
Also Ashbourne Road, The Ridings, Heathcroft and Connell Crescent
Haymills Estate. Estate built in 1928 with buildings in concentric crescents.  - One side semi circular. Built by Haymills with Welch Cachemialle Day and Lander as architects. Definitive inter war superior suburbia, if boring, with no discernible community or service buildings. The underground station was part of the same design.  This was previously part of the grounds of Hangar Hill House, laid out as Hangar Hill Golf Course from 1901-1930, after which the site was sold and developed as the estate.
Hangar Hill Golf Club.  This was founded in 1901. It was an 18-hole course designed by Tom Dunn, with also a 9-hole course for ladies. The mansion was the club house. Membership fell during and after the Great War.   It was reported in 1926 that the lease on the Hangar Hill course had been sold. It was understood that the land would be used for housing.  The club however appears to have continued

Clarendon Road
Central grass strip. Water pipes running between Fox Reservoir to the River Brent are marked by the strip. It also marks a public footpath which ran in 1911 from the Great Western Railway station at Brentham Halt to the top of Hanger Hill.

Connell Crescent
Sewage Pumping Station .Alley way next to no.11 leads to a Sewage Pumping Station built by Ealing Council. It is now owned by Thames Water and discharges clean water into Twyford Abbey ditch

Coronation Road
Although this road no longer appears to be marked as such it present as a footpath. It once ran as a road up to Twyford Abbey Road alongside the recreation ground to meet Western Avenue and an underpass. IT had been built to provide access to the Royal Agricultural Showground which here – in the square to the east.
Coronation Gardens. This is a strip of land which lies o the east of the railway line and in the London Borough of Brent.  It is shown on old maps as a playground and then as Coronation Gardens. It is not listed as a park in ether Brent or Ealing.  The Guinness Sports Ground lay on the east side of Coronation Road (in the square to the east) and it is now an office complex and grounds owned by Diagio and it may be that they own this strip of parkland.  It is now considered an area of wildlife life importance and ‘former shrubberies .... have been allowed to naturalise’.  The playground still apparently exists but may be closed.

Fox Lane
It was named after Edwin G Fox, Chairman of the Grand Junction Waterworks Company. This footpath runs north through the park as far as Greystoke Cottages and then on to Sandall Road.
Hangar Hill Park.  Ealing Town Council purchased the land for this park in 1905 as part of an agreement on a sewage works. The park was completed by 1907 with railings, entrance gates, paths, seats and shrubberies and children’s’ play grounds. There are also springs.   Undulating ground near Hanger Lane is thought to have been a Second World War trench air-raid shelter.
Oak woodland. This is in the west part of the park. There is leylandia as well as horse chestnut and oaks and ornamental shrubs, there is a hexagonal wooden shelter.
Nature Reserve. This is on the west side of Fox Lane and ancient woodland once part Fox Reservoir. When the reservoir was in use the site was closed to the public and the woodland grew undisturbed. After the reservoir was closed and filled in the site was a flower- meadow but was later used as playing fields in 1982. From 1983 the London Wildlife Trust manages Fox Wood and the meadow and it was declared a Local Nature Reserve in 1991. It is an important amenity space, which lies just behind the Brunswick area.
Fox Reservoir. This was built in 1888 for the Grand Junction Waterworks with a capacity of 50m gallons. It was on the site of Mount Castle. It was taken over by the Metropolitan Water Board, when that was set up in 1902. It was drained in 1943 to prevent it being used for navigation by the Luftwaffe, and in 1949 the land was bought as open space by Ealing Council.  The remaining basin was filled in 1969-72.
Mount Castle, This is said to have been an Elizabethan watch tower also calls Hanger Hill Tower. it was a viewing point for the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790), which linked the Royal Greenwich Observatory with the Paris Observatory via a chain of trigonometric readings, led by General William Roy. Hanger Hill Tower was its northernmost observation point, and from it sightings were made to the Greenwich Observatory itself
Greystoke cottages. Large semi -detached cottages in red brick set in green space in Hanger Hill Park Golf course. They were probably tied housing for the 'Grand Junction Waterworks' staff.
Hangar Hill Park Golf Club. A beautiful undulating parkland golf course with a brook running through the middle of the course. From the highest point you can see Wembley Stadium.

Greystoke Gardens
Flats built post-Second World War in the gardens of Greystoke Lodge

Hanger Hill
Shown and named his on a map of 1710 and shown in 1822, as former wood called ‘Le Hangrewode’ – a ‘hanging wood’ is a wood on a steep slope.

Hanger Lane
This was once a country lane extending northward from Ealing Common it now forms part of the North Circular Road south of the gyratory. North of the gyratory it turns North West and the North Circular turns north eastwards.
69 Fwanees. Lebanese restaurant set up in 2010.  They appear to have added the roof extension and external stars around 2018.
Pioneer Works. Wolf Electrical Tools. Wolf Tools was founded by S. Wolf in 1900, opening their Pioneer Works in 1935.  They first produced large cast woodworking power tools and achieved a Royal Warrant. They produced their first DIY electric drill, in 1949. In 1978, they employed 850 people, some disabled.  In the 1980s they were bought out by Kango Tools Ltd and the Wolf name disappeared in due course. Imitations of their products were also made under license by a firm in India. The site is now an American fast food retailer.
Virol factory. Virol was produced experimentally in 1899 by Bovril and became a separate company in 1900. Production ended during the Second World War and in 1971 Bovril itself was taken over. It was dark and thick, Virol Bone Marrow” contained bone marrow from ox rib and calf bones, whole eggs with the shells, malt extract and lemon syrup. It claimed to strengthen the body and should be taken by children and invalids.
Fox & Goose. This is now a hotel and is a Fullers house. The origins of the pub go back as far as 1680 and the front bar dates from 1790. The building has been extended several times, the latest being the addition of the hotel block. It remains a traditional hotel with a large pretty patio garden and is a typical English pub. . It has a history of music gigs - . The Who played here as The Detours, and in the 1950s, every Friday night. Was Ealing Jazz Club run by Steve Lane with the Southern Stompers
Coronation cottages.  These were on the corner with Brentham Park. They were built by Ealing Town Council, for the coronation of George VI as almshouses...
Twyford Abbey Halt. This opened in 1904 between Perivale Halt and Park Royal stations by the Great Western Railway. It was west Hangar Lane near to what is now Hangar Lane Station. It closed in 1911 closed. It had a short timber platform, corrugated iron ‘pagoda’ hut, oil lamps, name board and no staff.
Greystoke House. Greystoke House was built on Hanger Lane for John Carve JP towards the end of the 19th. The land belonging to the house was sold in the early 1930s probably to Percy Bilton, a local developer and construction began in what is now known as the Brunswick area. But it is said that in the grounds of Greystoke House and the pastures of Greystoke Farm a “superior suburbia” had been created. The Greystoke name survives in Hangar Lane in various blocks of flats and side turnings
Hanger Hill House. Built in 1790 this was the home of the Wood family until 1874 when it was let out. It became a golf club house in the early 20th.  Woodland on the east side of Hanger Lane north and south of Chatsworth Road may be a vestige of its grounds.

Hangar Lane Gyratory
This is the world-famous Hanger Lane Gyratory System, where main roads meet and where the London Underground's Central Line Station is in the middle. It has been reconstructed twice but is still prone to congestion. Until the early 20th Hanger Lane was a road through countryside and simply crossed the railway on a bridge. In 1928 it was joined by the new Western Avenue with a simple crossroads while Hangar Lane itself was upgraded.  In 1936 it was joined by the new North Circular which created a five-way junction in which the railway bridge stood between three major roads all set to be widened. A scheme opened in 1963 providing an underpass to take Western Avenue underneath the junction. IN the late 1970s the roundabout, was installed and it took its present shape.  However for large parts of the day it is unable to handle the quantity of traffic in 2007 it was voted Britain's scariest road junction
Western Avenue. This is now the A40 main arterial road. It was a new major arterial route from White City to Uxbridge built in the early 1920s providing a bypass to the then A40 Uxbridge Road. It was numbered to A40 between 1939 and the new road was routed alongside the railway and crossed Hanger Lane at a crossroads to the south of the line. In the early 1960s it was taken on two lanes in a tunnel under Hangar Lane and slip roads were built.
Hangar Lane. After Western Avenue was built here, in the late 1920s, the part of Hanger Lane north of the railway was upgraded into an arterial road as a link from Western Avenue to the Harrow Road. Then in the 1930s the section of Hanger Lane to the south of the junction became part of the North Circular Road. Before 1936 it had reached Western Avenue at Hanger Lane. It connected to Western Avenue north of the railway bridge, forming a difficult five-way junction in which the railway bridge was a critical link between three major arterial roads.
Hanger Lane station. Opened in 1903 it lies between Perivale and North Acton on the Central Line. The Great Western Railway had opened Twyford Abbey Halt east of this station in 1904 which closed in 1911 and then Brentham station was opened to the west and that finally closed in 1947. In 1947 the Central Line came from North Acton going to Ruislip as part f the New Works Programme. This station was opened as "Hanger Lane" for the Central Line trains.  It had been designed by Brian Lewis in 1938 but held up by the Second World War.  At first a temporary station was built and Lewis' design only opened in 1949. The ticket hall is in an area in the centre of the gyratory system. It is reached by subways under the gyratory but the station is actually above ground. Planned tower was never built to save money.
Nature reserve – in the centre of the roundabout along with the station

Norbreck Gardens
This terrace fronts directly onto Western Avenue

Quill Street
This was previously Brumwill Road. It is the main road on a small trading estate
Kiwi Factory. This is the brand name of an Australian shoe polish made since 1906. In the UK, Kiwi was for many years made in Burwell Road. They manufactured and sold to much of Europe and the Middle East. In the mid-1970s the factory was closed with production switched to France

Ritz Parade
This was previously Cinema Parade
Premier Inn .On the site of the cinema
Ritz was built and designed by Major W.J. King for London and District Cinemas Ltd. It was the centre of a parade of shops and had a brick tower with glass tiles lit from within and had lantern light at the top.  Facilities included a cafe. It was taken over by Odeon Theatres in 1944 and re-named Odeon in 1946. It was sold to Classic in 1967 and re-named Classic Cinema. It was later the Vogue Bingo Club with films at weekends. From 1972, it was the Tatler Cinema Club screening adult pictures but by 1974 it was the Paradise Cinema showing Asian films. It closed in 1980 and demolished in 1983. It was replaced by offices called Orbit House later converted into a Premier Inn

Royal Parade
Big parade of shops built before the gyratory

Twyford Abbey Road
Playground which stood at top of coronation gardens. May or may not be closed

Westgate
Was Bentham Halt Road
Westgate House. Office block being converted to flats/
Manhattan Business Park
Brentham and North Ealing Station. Brentham for North Ealing and Greystoke Park Station. This was built by the Great Western Railway on their main line.  It closed in 1947 when it was made redundant when the Central line was extended to West Ruislip and Hangar Lane station was available.. Built as a halt for the Brentham Gardens Co-ownership Estate which had been set up by Vivian.  It was opened when Twyford Abbey Halt was closed.

Sources
Cinema Treasures Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Field . Place names of London 
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Kiwi Polish. Web site
London Borough of Brent Web site
London Borough of Ealing. Web site
London Encyclopedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
Middlesex Churches 
Progress is fine. Blog site
SABRE. Web site
Stevenson. Middlesex
Walford. Village London
Wikipedia. Web site. As appropriate

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