Yeading Brook - Bulls Bridge


Yeading Brook
The brook continues to flow south westwards
TQ 10026 79075

Industrial area mainly consisting of works originally located along the Grand Union Canal - but there are famous names here, like Nestles, and many others

Post to the east Southall Gas Works
Post to the south Cranford le Mote

Bilton Way
The road is part of a trading estate built in 1965 following an agreement with Hayes and Harlington Council with Percy Bilton to develop the site where the sewage works had been

Boeing Way
Part of International Trading Estate set up on the sites of Jam and food preserving factories and associated rail sidings.
5-6 Departure Gallery. Art Gallery.

Bulls Bridge Road
This follows the north bank of the Grand Union Canal and for much of this stretch is effectively the towpath and a footpath.

Bulls Bridge - Grand Union Canal
Here the Paddington Arm of Grand Union Canal meets its main line between the Midlands and Brentford.
Bulls Bridge – an arched painted brick bridge built in the late 18th or early 19th canal bridge in painted brick. There is some blue engineering brick repairs at the base. It is built over the Paddington arm entrance to the main line. The pair of stop gates underneath the bridge is one of several along the canal. They allow a short section of the canal to be sealed off for repairs or to prevent excessive loss of water should there be a breach.
Junction house, derelict but its grounds were used as wharfage by British Waterways
The Grand Union Canal Carrying Company, which after nationalisation in 1948 became part of British Waterways. This subsidiary of the canal company was set up in 1934, and at Bulls Bridge there was a fuel depot and repair shop where there were two covered slipways, offices, sail makers, and blacksmiths, carpenters shops and recreation for the boatmen as well as the traffic control office. There was also a recess in the bank for a lay-by so boats could lie up without blocking the channel. The traffic control office allocated loads to boat crews and tracked their locations.  At the depot there was also a five-bed maternity unit and a school.  The Bulls Bridge depot is now the site of a Tesco supermarket and car park, but one of the dry docks has been kept.
School – that has originally been at Rickmansworth in 1930 but later moved Bulls Bridge. It was on the barge Elsdale which could take 40 children. The boat was later brought ashore and the arrangement continued until the 1950s.
Canal Side Cottage. It is a former 19th toll house.  It became the offices of Colne Valley Passenger Boats.
Blue Anchor Inn. On the junction near the canal bridge 1880s

Grand Union Canal
The Grand Junction Canal built in 1792 by William Jessop and by 1794 open from Bulls Bridge to Uxbridge. The Paddington Arm from Bulls Bridge opened in 1820
Railway Bridge. The railway bridge is the main line out of Paddington to the West of England and Wales, and was built in 1839. There used to be a footpath across the bridge, but it is closed for safety reasons.

Minet Drive
Hayes and Harlington sewage works. Undertaken from 1904 on works set up by the previous parish council.

Nestles Avenue
Nestles - Hayes Cocoa Company. This had been founded in a Georgian House by a circus strong man called Eugene Sandow. As a German national he had to lose the factory in the Great War and it was passed to Swiss Kohler who changed the name to Hayes Cocoa Company.  The Hal Williams practice designed the factory in 1914. Truscon built extensions around the original house and Wallis Gilbert were involved. Nestles, who took over the works in 1929,  made this their head office and a grand drive to the road was added. Chocolate was made here until 2004.
234 Air Ministry Offices. Second World War

North Hyde Gardens
Bulls Bridge Power Station was a gas turbine power station on the west side of the canal at Bull's Bridge.  It was built, owned and operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board in the mid-1970s but was soon mothballed. It re-opened in the 1980s. It was on a 25-acre site on either side of the brook south of the railway north of the canal. On privatisation it was owned and run by Powergen but was closed in 1993.  It has since been demolished.  The site is partly covered by the British Airways engineering centre.
British Airways Engineering
North Hyde Electriciy Sub Station. The existing 6.6./11kV switch house and 4 transformer bays were built in the early 1950's. The switch house is single storey with a flat roof

Parkway
Hayes by pass. Formally opened 1992

Pasadena Close
Trading and industrial area on old sewage works site
Provident Industrial Estate

Pump Lane
Hayes Working Mens Club. Founded 1918
3 Hayes Muslim Centre
Frank Annis. Haulier, who began with a scrap yard here in 1947
Scotts Jam Factory. Opened 1914 closed 1950 having been taken over by Callard and Bowser. By 1980 three quarters of British toffees were made there but it was demolished in the 1980s.

Railway Line
Great Western Railway. Opened between Paddington and Taplow 1838.
Creosoting works. This lay to the south of the rail line, initially between the river and the canal with sidings running off the railway eastwards and a narrow gauge internal rail system.  The works eventually took up most of the area in the triangle between the railway and two arms of the canal.  The works is said to date from 1935 but maps show a works there from the 19th. It was set up to supply sleepers to the line protected against rot. Sleepers were delivered via the canal, and were left to season in 40ft high stacks beside the canal. Creosoting of the prepared timber took place in cylinders in which a vacuum was created and the creosote then forced in. In the 1930s improvements meant that 500,000 sleepers could be handled annually

Silverdale Road
XChair factory opened in 1907 and closed in 1948
Aeolian Weber Piano and Pianola Company were an American concern which opened a factory here in 1909 making mechanical pianos.  A central tower was used to hang music rolls. They began to produce Vocalion records in 1922.   The company went out of business in 1932 and it was taken over by the Kraft cheese co.  Making Velveeta cheese from 1930, with 750 staff by 1939. It was later taken over by Walls Sausages. The original building is still in the road but the newer ones were demolished
Argent centre
Benlow Works. Below, based in the west end had this as their manufacturing base in the 1940s for smokers accessories.
Kandya Ltd. plastic, wood and metal kitchen and other chairs and caskets
Siemens House. Siemens Traffic Controls.

Sources
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Bulls Bridge Power Station. Wikipedia. Web site
Canal Walks,
Dr. Who locations. Web site
Field. Place names of London
GLIAS newsletter
Kingston Zodiac
London Borough of Ealing, web site
London Borough of Hillingdon. Web site
Osborne. Defending London
Pevsner and Cherry, London North West
Rolt. Brunel
Sherwood. Around Hayes and West Drayton
Skinner. Form and Fancy, Web site
Stevenson, Middlesex
Walford. Village London.

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