River Pinn Brunel University
River Pinn
The Pinn flows southwards
TQ 06025 82683
Area to the east of Uxbridge with University, hospital, schools and other useful institutions
Post to the west Cowley
Post to the north RAF Uxbridge
Post to the south Pield Heath
Church Road
Robbie Bell Bridge over the Pinn. Robbie Bell was a young boy killed by a car near here in the 1990s. A plaque on the bridge read: “COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. TAKE NOTICE that this bridge (which is a county bridge) is insufficient to carry weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the district and that owners and persons in charge of locomotive traction engines and heavily laden carriages are warned against using the bridge for the passage of any such engines or carriages. Richard Nicholson. Clerk of the Peace. It is said that this plaque has been removed before it is stolen.
Colham Road
1 Merchison House. A local authority behavioural and day opportunity assessment service run by the Positive Behaviour Support Team in Hayes.
3 a purpose built residential building managed by the London Borough of Hillingdon
Coney Green
Bought by the council in 1926. An ancient and unidentified earthwork was uncovered here which lie near the eastern boundary of churchyard cross. The site may have been a rabbit warren in the 16th. It was part of a large parcel of land owned by the Bishops of Worcester and gradually surrendered until the Rectory house, the last item, was sold in the early 20th.
Hillingdon Manor Cricket Club
Hillingdon Hill
This is the Oxford Road which divided the parish in two – most of the farms and cultivated land were south of it.
Vine Inn. Built in 1933 and with some original features
Hillingdon and Uxbridge Cemetery. This opened in 1856 which is an early date for a municipal cemetery. The main entrance is on Hillingdon Hill with the original gatehouse and entrance arch. There are two Early English style chapels, Church of England and Non-conformist, by Benjamin Ferrey. The cemetery has fine trees, including ornamental conifers, Wellingtonias, cypresses, cedars and araucaria. As well as an old oak pollard from the pre-cemetery use.
Ivybridge Close
Housing on the site of St. John’s Hospital, built by Berkeley Homes in 1991.
Kingston Lane
Isolation hospital. St John's Hospital. Uxbridge Isolation Hospital opened in 1894 with a single ward. Later more ward blocks were built so that patients with different illnesses could be nursed separately. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS and was renamed St John's Hospital. Some of the older ward blocks were then used as offices and by 1950 were used for elderly chronically sick women and eventually day rooms were added for them. At the same time the hospital also took infectious cases. In 1974 it became a long-stay hospital together with the headquarters of the District Health Authority. It closed in 1986. The buildings have been demolished and the site is now all housing but some old walls may remain.
Brunel University. Established here in 1967 having been originally founded as Brunel College of Advanced Technology, It is named from Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer responsible for the Great Western Railway which went through Acton. It moved to this area of former farmland in the 1960s, getting a charter as a University in 1966. It is made up of a number of other constituent bodies. One is Borough Road College originally Joseph Lancaster’s school in Southwark which moved to Osterley in 1889. Maria Grey College began in Bishopsgate as a teacher training college and moved to Twickenham in 1969. Shoreditch College of Education had moved to Englefield Green in 1951. Acton Technical College was founded in 1910 and in 1957
became Brunel College of Technology. Brunel College moved to a 170-acre plot in Uxbridge, which had previously been the Lowe and Shawyer nursery and market garden plus much of the old railway line which run into Vine Street. The first students move to what was then Brunel University in 1967. By 1980 the other colleges had become part of the University on other campuses and had been joined by a Research Centre at Hillingdon Hospital and a Science Park was set up at Uxbridge. By 2006 departments on other campuses had moved to Uxbridge. It is now had eight constituent academic schools and 10 research institutes. The original Uxbridge campus buildings are by Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, Architects with a basic brutalist design. It is currently ranked 44 in the world list of top university
Laboratory Buildings. This includes the Physics, Mathematical Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Engineering Buildings by Stillman and Eastwick-Fields, 1969-71. They form a massive square with projecting upper floors, open to a central courtyard around which is an L-shaped group with four towers cantilevered out over lower buildings all in shuttered concrete
Corner beams cutting into the building, simply arranged
Library by Richard Sheppard, 1966-8, a simply arranged building with horizontal concrete panels
Brunel University Indoor Athletics Centre. The shape of the centre is defined by the volumetric needs of the sport. The roof is an arch on wishbone steels halving the foundations needed. It was designed by David Morley in 2006.
Brunel University Playing fields and sports centre.
The Barn. 19th farm building now used as a hall available for parties and events.
Uxbridge Pentecostal Church. Part of the Assembly of God and the Evangelical Alliance
Uxbridge Mortuary and Coroner’s Office
Pield Heath Road
Hillingdon Garden Centre. This was previously Hutchings Nurseries run by Milton Hutchings and specialising in seasonal bedding and vegetables.
Hillingdon Workhouse. In 1744, the Hillingdon Vestry resolved to 'pull down the Parish Houses next to St. John's Churchyard; to use the materials to build a Workhouse’. This was ready by 1747, the new building with 9 rooms, a kitchen, hospital room, brewhouse and other buildings and in 1758 it was, contracted out. By 1768, room for spinning had been set up and by 1810, a schoolroom had been added. Uxbridge Poor Law Union was set up in 1836 with an elected Board of 20 Guardians. They bought the Hillingdon parish workhouse site for and built a new workhouse designed by William Thorold. Part of the old workhouse was converted into an infirmary and a chapel was added in 1875. In 1930, control of the workhouse passed to Middlesex County Council who began to develop it as Hillingdon County Hospital and Infirmary.
Hillingdon Hospital. In 1838 the Uxbridge Poor Law Union built a new workhouse on the site of the existing Hillingdon workhouse, and added an infirmity In 1929 the workhouse and its infirmary came under the control of the Middlesex County Council who began to develop it as a county hospital and this included beds for the chronically sick and acutely ill mental patients. The casual wards were still in use and all patients were admitted on the direction of the Relieving Officer. There was no Out-Patients Department and, there were no laboratory or pathology staff. The floor of the operating theatre was of uncovered floorboards, which could not support a modern operating table. Gradually improved facilities were provided including in 1931 a portable X-ray apparatus. Accommodation for nurses was limited and rooms had to be rented outside. The Second World War stalled plans for a new hospital. In 1940 temporary hutted wards had been built on the south side of Pield Heath Road - - near The Furze while coping with both military and civilian casualties. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS. It then consisted of two parts, divided by a busy road and approval was given by the Ministry of Health for the Hospital to be rebuilt on The Furze. Gradually things began to change and throughout the 1950s and 1960s the hospital grew and modernised and stage one of a new hospital opened in 1966. However the project then stalled although in the early 1970s the old workhouse buildings were demolished and the site sold although the water tower and boiler house remain. New buildings and extensions continued to open an in 2011 the Hospital became an independent NHS Foundation Trust and the hospital continues to change and expand. The Trust is planning to replace all the buildings, including those dating from the 1960s, and create a 21st century hospital.
Chantry Park private housing on the site of old hospital buildings
Kings Place private housing on the site of old hospital buildings
The Furze. Early 19th country house with a cement front used as nurses home, and other uses.
Pield Heath House School. Roman Catholic school for special needs pupils. The school was founded by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus of Mary. All Souls School opened in 1902 as a residential school for mentally defective girls. By 1963 basic education and domestic training were being given. The school is based around Pield Heath House which is a late 19th house. There is also an 18th stable building of painted brick. There is also an attached Convent, a Nursing home and a church
Robinwood Grove
The Grove. This is a triangular-shaped reserve with ponds and mixed woodland. It was once part of the grounds of Hillingdon Grove, demolished in the 1970s. It is managed by The Hillingdon Group of the London Wildlife Trust. There are both native and exotic trees - false acacia and horse chestnut occur alongside oaks, ash and silver birch. Remnants of the old grounds include yew and holly hedges with rhododendron and cherry laurel. The grasses include meadow foxtail and false oat together with lady's bedstraw, St John's wort and meadowsweet. There are ponds with two ponds with a continuous trickle of running water yellow flag irises, rushes and sedges and a marsh area... the site is good for dead-wood resulting in a variety of beetles including Stag beetles. All three species of woodpeckers have been present
Royal Lane
St. John the Baptist. This is the parish church of Hillingdon built of flint and on the hill top. The earliest reference to church here is 1100. The earliest part of the present building however is the chancel arch, from 1270. The tower was built in 1629 and replaces an earlier one. It is embattled with an oak cupola plus ten bells and a weather vane. In the 1840s George Gilbert Scott, was asked to recommend works to expand the church and as a result an extension was built 1848-49. More work has been undertaken since. There is a war manorial dedicating the Lady Chapel and saying TO THE GLORY OF GOD/ THE LADY CHAPEL WAS RESTORED IN MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THIS PARISH WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918. The church has a number of brasses, including the Le Strange Brass, from 1509.
Churchyard. The churchyard has been expanded several times and has been closed for burials since 1948.
Red Lion Inn. This has a 16th core and is said to have been visited by Charles I in 1646 when he fled Oxford. It is timber-framed and refronted around 1800. There is a stable extension at the back.
A W Smith & Sons, monumental mason. The site also once included a cafe. 16th building with 18th and 19th front and extension.
The Red Lion Hotel. This was the Cottage Hotel, and is divided from the pub by a monumental mason’s works. It is a 16th building
K6 Telephone box outside the Red Lion
Elm Tree Cottage. Large 19th house.
National School for Girls was opened here in 1903. It later became used as a church hall. The site has now been sold for housing.
Bishopshalt School. Grammar School. Bishopshalt opened in 1907 when Middlesex County Council established Uxbridge County School here. The school occupies the site and grounds of a 19th house and its name was taken from the Rectory house owned by the Bishops of Worcester and where they rested while making trips to and from London. It was the last remaining part of what had been substantial land holdings by the Bishops since the middle ages. The school dates from 1907, when it was set up Uxbridge County School in the Greenway Middlesex Education Committee bought the present site in 1925 and moved the school there and it was officially opened by John Reith, Director-General of the BBC. The school name was changed to Bishophalt School in 1930. The original house is now the north wing built in 1858 as a red brick Tudor style building with extensions. Inside is a stained glass window with the initials of the owner, Stephen Martin, of Day and Martin's blacking warehouse."
Grove Lodge. Lodge to Hillingdon Grove, mansion which once stood in this area
Sources
Bishopshalt School. Web site
Bishopshalt School. Wikipedia. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Brunel University. Web site
Clunn. Face of London
Hillingdon Garden Centre. Web site
London Borough of Hillingdon. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Gardens Online. Web site.
London Wildlife Trust. Wildlife sites
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Middlesex Churches
Middlesex County Council. History of Middlesex
Pield Heath School. Web site
Smyth. Citywildspace
Stevenson. Middlesex
St. John the Baptist. Web site
Uxbridge High School. Web site
Walford. Village London
Workhouses. Web site
The Pinn flows southwards
TQ 06025 82683
Area to the east of Uxbridge with University, hospital, schools and other useful institutions
Post to the west Cowley
Post to the north RAF Uxbridge
Post to the south Pield Heath
Church Road
Robbie Bell Bridge over the Pinn. Robbie Bell was a young boy killed by a car near here in the 1990s. A plaque on the bridge read: “COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX. TAKE NOTICE that this bridge (which is a county bridge) is insufficient to carry weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the district and that owners and persons in charge of locomotive traction engines and heavily laden carriages are warned against using the bridge for the passage of any such engines or carriages. Richard Nicholson. Clerk of the Peace. It is said that this plaque has been removed before it is stolen.
Colham Road
1 Merchison House. A local authority behavioural and day opportunity assessment service run by the Positive Behaviour Support Team in Hayes.
3 a purpose built residential building managed by the London Borough of Hillingdon
Coney Green
Bought by the council in 1926. An ancient and unidentified earthwork was uncovered here which lie near the eastern boundary of churchyard cross. The site may have been a rabbit warren in the 16th. It was part of a large parcel of land owned by the Bishops of Worcester and gradually surrendered until the Rectory house, the last item, was sold in the early 20th.
Hillingdon Manor Cricket Club
Hillingdon Hill
This is the Oxford Road which divided the parish in two – most of the farms and cultivated land were south of it.
Vine Inn. Built in 1933 and with some original features
Hillingdon and Uxbridge Cemetery. This opened in 1856 which is an early date for a municipal cemetery. The main entrance is on Hillingdon Hill with the original gatehouse and entrance arch. There are two Early English style chapels, Church of England and Non-conformist, by Benjamin Ferrey. The cemetery has fine trees, including ornamental conifers, Wellingtonias, cypresses, cedars and araucaria. As well as an old oak pollard from the pre-cemetery use.
Ivybridge Close
Housing on the site of St. John’s Hospital, built by Berkeley Homes in 1991.
Kingston Lane
Isolation hospital. St John's Hospital. Uxbridge Isolation Hospital opened in 1894 with a single ward. Later more ward blocks were built so that patients with different illnesses could be nursed separately. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS and was renamed St John's Hospital. Some of the older ward blocks were then used as offices and by 1950 were used for elderly chronically sick women and eventually day rooms were added for them. At the same time the hospital also took infectious cases. In 1974 it became a long-stay hospital together with the headquarters of the District Health Authority. It closed in 1986. The buildings have been demolished and the site is now all housing but some old walls may remain.
Brunel University. Established here in 1967 having been originally founded as Brunel College of Advanced Technology, It is named from Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer responsible for the Great Western Railway which went through Acton. It moved to this area of former farmland in the 1960s, getting a charter as a University in 1966. It is made up of a number of other constituent bodies. One is Borough Road College originally Joseph Lancaster’s school in Southwark which moved to Osterley in 1889. Maria Grey College began in Bishopsgate as a teacher training college and moved to Twickenham in 1969. Shoreditch College of Education had moved to Englefield Green in 1951. Acton Technical College was founded in 1910 and in 1957
became Brunel College of Technology. Brunel College moved to a 170-acre plot in Uxbridge, which had previously been the Lowe and Shawyer nursery and market garden plus much of the old railway line which run into Vine Street. The first students move to what was then Brunel University in 1967. By 1980 the other colleges had become part of the University on other campuses and had been joined by a Research Centre at Hillingdon Hospital and a Science Park was set up at Uxbridge. By 2006 departments on other campuses had moved to Uxbridge. It is now had eight constituent academic schools and 10 research institutes. The original Uxbridge campus buildings are by Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, Architects with a basic brutalist design. It is currently ranked 44 in the world list of top university
Laboratory Buildings. This includes the Physics, Mathematical Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Engineering Buildings by Stillman and Eastwick-Fields, 1969-71. They form a massive square with projecting upper floors, open to a central courtyard around which is an L-shaped group with four towers cantilevered out over lower buildings all in shuttered concrete
Corner beams cutting into the building, simply arranged
Library by Richard Sheppard, 1966-8, a simply arranged building with horizontal concrete panels
Brunel University Indoor Athletics Centre. The shape of the centre is defined by the volumetric needs of the sport. The roof is an arch on wishbone steels halving the foundations needed. It was designed by David Morley in 2006.
Brunel University Playing fields and sports centre.
The Barn. 19th farm building now used as a hall available for parties and events.
Uxbridge Pentecostal Church. Part of the Assembly of God and the Evangelical Alliance
Uxbridge Mortuary and Coroner’s Office
Pield Heath Road
Hillingdon Garden Centre. This was previously Hutchings Nurseries run by Milton Hutchings and specialising in seasonal bedding and vegetables.
Hillingdon Workhouse. In 1744, the Hillingdon Vestry resolved to 'pull down the Parish Houses next to St. John's Churchyard; to use the materials to build a Workhouse’. This was ready by 1747, the new building with 9 rooms, a kitchen, hospital room, brewhouse and other buildings and in 1758 it was, contracted out. By 1768, room for spinning had been set up and by 1810, a schoolroom had been added. Uxbridge Poor Law Union was set up in 1836 with an elected Board of 20 Guardians. They bought the Hillingdon parish workhouse site for and built a new workhouse designed by William Thorold. Part of the old workhouse was converted into an infirmary and a chapel was added in 1875. In 1930, control of the workhouse passed to Middlesex County Council who began to develop it as Hillingdon County Hospital and Infirmary.
Hillingdon Hospital. In 1838 the Uxbridge Poor Law Union built a new workhouse on the site of the existing Hillingdon workhouse, and added an infirmity In 1929 the workhouse and its infirmary came under the control of the Middlesex County Council who began to develop it as a county hospital and this included beds for the chronically sick and acutely ill mental patients. The casual wards were still in use and all patients were admitted on the direction of the Relieving Officer. There was no Out-Patients Department and, there were no laboratory or pathology staff. The floor of the operating theatre was of uncovered floorboards, which could not support a modern operating table. Gradually improved facilities were provided including in 1931 a portable X-ray apparatus. Accommodation for nurses was limited and rooms had to be rented outside. The Second World War stalled plans for a new hospital. In 1940 temporary hutted wards had been built on the south side of Pield Heath Road - - near The Furze while coping with both military and civilian casualties. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS. It then consisted of two parts, divided by a busy road and approval was given by the Ministry of Health for the Hospital to be rebuilt on The Furze. Gradually things began to change and throughout the 1950s and 1960s the hospital grew and modernised and stage one of a new hospital opened in 1966. However the project then stalled although in the early 1970s the old workhouse buildings were demolished and the site sold although the water tower and boiler house remain. New buildings and extensions continued to open an in 2011 the Hospital became an independent NHS Foundation Trust and the hospital continues to change and expand. The Trust is planning to replace all the buildings, including those dating from the 1960s, and create a 21st century hospital.
Chantry Park private housing on the site of old hospital buildings
Kings Place private housing on the site of old hospital buildings
The Furze. Early 19th country house with a cement front used as nurses home, and other uses.
Pield Heath House School. Roman Catholic school for special needs pupils. The school was founded by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus of Mary. All Souls School opened in 1902 as a residential school for mentally defective girls. By 1963 basic education and domestic training were being given. The school is based around Pield Heath House which is a late 19th house. There is also an 18th stable building of painted brick. There is also an attached Convent, a Nursing home and a church
Robinwood Grove
The Grove. This is a triangular-shaped reserve with ponds and mixed woodland. It was once part of the grounds of Hillingdon Grove, demolished in the 1970s. It is managed by The Hillingdon Group of the London Wildlife Trust. There are both native and exotic trees - false acacia and horse chestnut occur alongside oaks, ash and silver birch. Remnants of the old grounds include yew and holly hedges with rhododendron and cherry laurel. The grasses include meadow foxtail and false oat together with lady's bedstraw, St John's wort and meadowsweet. There are ponds with two ponds with a continuous trickle of running water yellow flag irises, rushes and sedges and a marsh area... the site is good for dead-wood resulting in a variety of beetles including Stag beetles. All three species of woodpeckers have been present
Royal Lane
St. John the Baptist. This is the parish church of Hillingdon built of flint and on the hill top. The earliest reference to church here is 1100. The earliest part of the present building however is the chancel arch, from 1270. The tower was built in 1629 and replaces an earlier one. It is embattled with an oak cupola plus ten bells and a weather vane. In the 1840s George Gilbert Scott, was asked to recommend works to expand the church and as a result an extension was built 1848-49. More work has been undertaken since. There is a war manorial dedicating the Lady Chapel and saying TO THE GLORY OF GOD/ THE LADY CHAPEL WAS RESTORED IN MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THIS PARISH WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918. The church has a number of brasses, including the Le Strange Brass, from 1509.
Churchyard. The churchyard has been expanded several times and has been closed for burials since 1948.
Red Lion Inn. This has a 16th core and is said to have been visited by Charles I in 1646 when he fled Oxford. It is timber-framed and refronted around 1800. There is a stable extension at the back.
A W Smith & Sons, monumental mason. The site also once included a cafe. 16th building with 18th and 19th front and extension.
The Red Lion Hotel. This was the Cottage Hotel, and is divided from the pub by a monumental mason’s works. It is a 16th building
K6 Telephone box outside the Red Lion
Elm Tree Cottage. Large 19th house.
National School for Girls was opened here in 1903. It later became used as a church hall. The site has now been sold for housing.
Bishopshalt School. Grammar School. Bishopshalt opened in 1907 when Middlesex County Council established Uxbridge County School here. The school occupies the site and grounds of a 19th house and its name was taken from the Rectory house owned by the Bishops of Worcester and where they rested while making trips to and from London. It was the last remaining part of what had been substantial land holdings by the Bishops since the middle ages. The school dates from 1907, when it was set up Uxbridge County School in the Greenway Middlesex Education Committee bought the present site in 1925 and moved the school there and it was officially opened by John Reith, Director-General of the BBC. The school name was changed to Bishophalt School in 1930. The original house is now the north wing built in 1858 as a red brick Tudor style building with extensions. Inside is a stained glass window with the initials of the owner, Stephen Martin, of Day and Martin's blacking warehouse."
Grove Lodge. Lodge to Hillingdon Grove, mansion which once stood in this area
Sources
Bishopshalt School. Web site
Bishopshalt School. Wikipedia. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Brunel University. Web site
Clunn. Face of London
Hillingdon Garden Centre. Web site
London Borough of Hillingdon. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Gardens Online. Web site.
London Wildlife Trust. Wildlife sites
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Middlesex Churches
Middlesex County Council. History of Middlesex
Pield Heath School. Web site
Smyth. Citywildspace
Stevenson. Middlesex
St. John the Baptist. Web site
Uxbridge High School. Web site
Walford. Village London
Workhouses. Web site
Comments
The County Bridge Plaque.
It was damaged when a car demolished the bridge parapet and saved by a local resident when the debris was being removed. After repair, it was refitted to the rebuilt parapet. However, after an attempted theft, again thwarted by a local resident, it was removed and has now been replaced with an aluminium replica.