Heathrow

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HEATHROW AIRPORT 

Heathrow village and houses are gone. The Airport is the site of New Barn Farm. Marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822 as ‘Heath Row’, earlier ‘La Hetherewe’ c.1410, ‘Hitherowe’ 1547, that is 'the row of houses on or near the heath', from Middle English ‘hethe’ and ‘rewe’. The reference is to the tract of heathland west of the River Crane that gave name at an earlier date to Hatton. The old settlement was swept away when the airport was built.

Heathrow Airport. At the end of World War II there was a need for a new location for Britain's major international airport, near to the centre of London and with enough land for future demand. Hounslow Heath had been used as an RAF transport depot since 1943, and was the site of the London end of the original London to Paris air service lies – thus buried under one of the runways. Heathrow was developed as a star-shaped pattern of runways based on those used by the RAF, with administration and passenger accommodation at the centre. In 1946 this was primitive in the extreme, with tents for passengers and caravans for airport administration. In 1950 the government commissioned Sir Frederick Gibberd to design the first permanent central terminal, which opened in 1955. Heathrow became the world's busiest international airport. It covers seven square miles, has 13 miles of perimeter road.  In 1972 47,000 workers. It is an Industrial slum. It has a terminal tunnel, impressive garden. The first departure was a British South American Airways plane to Buenos Aires in January 1946.

Warlike Mithras Temple on the ram.  Celtic temple and Iron Age pottery. Two ancient camps on the Ram - King Arthur's camp and Caesar camp.

Sir John Alcock, and Brown statue in Granite by William Macmillan. Both in flying kit. Installed in 1954 on the north side of the airport and then moved in 1966 to Terminal 3.  Now near the Central Tower. At the rear is a peace trident and dove. Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic in 1919 – the first to do so – in a Vickers Vimy.

Terminals 1, 2 & 3 built between 1955-1968

Tunnel linking to the cargo site

Cargo area

Chilling station

Chapel

Heathrow Station Terminals 1 2 3.  16th December 1977. Terminal of Piccadilly Line from Hatton Cross but also on a loop to Terminal 4 on the Heathrow Express. Built on the Piccadilly Line and Opened as Heathrow Central.  It is a reinforced concrete box below track level with a Bentonite walling system.  Ticket hall 20' below ground.  Staff accommodation on mezzanine floor, 11' lower, platforms 44’ down.  Two pairs of escalators.  There is a Travolator from ABA to terminal buildings.  It was opened by the Queen making Heathrow the first international airport in the world to be directly linked with a city centre by underground railway.  In 1986, the name was changed to Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3, and a four-mile loop was opened linking it to Heathrow Terminal 4, with Hatton Cross. This was opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales. In 1998 it was linked to the Heathrow Express from Paddington which then goes on to Terminal 4.  While this was being built in October 1994 disastrous subsidence set the programme back by six months.

Bus station

Queen's Building

Control tower by Owen Williams, bleakly grand

Perry Oaks,

Last wolf in England killed there

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