Cuckoo Estate Hanwell

Post to the south Hanwell
Post to the west Greenwich Elthorne Heights
Post to the north Perivale


Bordars Road
St Christopher’s Church. The church began in a tent in 1937, when the Cuckoo Estate was built. Then a 'temporary' building, which lasted over sixty years was used and finally replaced in 2003, when North Hanwell YMCA was also built as part of the re-development

Brent Valley Golf Club
Golf Club. This is accessed by an apparently unnamed lane off Cuckoo Lane (in the square to the south)  This opened in 1910. The Council turned the area surrounding the golf course, which is still open to the public, into the Brent Valley Park in the 1930s. The club was founded in 1909 by Albert Toley . The course was designed by J.H.Taylor in the early 1900s. It reopened as a new public course was opened in 1938. The Clubhouse is believed to gave been The Grove, a local manor house, renamed Dublin house. In 1966 this was demolished by the council and the present one built and the course was remodelled to the present format. The course is now run by a private contractor Everyone Active

Chelsea Gardens
This is on the site of Argyle Manor School, itself built on land taken over from the Great Western Railway and used as a company sports field.
Argyle Manor School. This was built in 1971/2  by Ealing Council as a purpose built Childrens Reception, Observation, Assessment Centre for 32 residents and 8 day attendee. Chelsea Gardens housing appears to be on the site.

Copley Close
Copley Close. This estate was built, mainly in brick, by the Greater London Council and opened in 1979. It stretches across a narrow piece of land that follows the Greenford rail line into Paddington and at one point housing is on an ‘over bridge’ above the rail tunnel. In common with other social housing of the 1970s it has connecting walkways, underground parking and little amenity space. In 1979 when large scale public investment in municipal housing ended it was transferred from the GLC to London Borough of Ealing. Much of the land the estate is on is held on a 999 year lease from Network Rail and is built alongside a cut and cover slab over the railway line.
177 site of Old Bill Pub.this was built as part of the estate by the GLC and it was later let, by Ealing Council, to Trust Inns. Following a police raid and licensing review in 2006 the pub was closed, never to reopen.  It was later demolished.
185 Copley Hall Community Centre.  This is covered with bright and cheerful murals.
Castle Bar Park Station. This opened in 1906 and niw kies between South Greenford and Drayton Green on First Great Western Line on the old  Great Western Railway line between Westbourne Park and Southall. Halt , It originally was a halt with short timber platform, corrugated iron pagoda hut, oil lamps, name board and no staff. When it was built it could only be reached by a field path and is built at the point where the embankment becomes a cutting. It was rebuilt in the 1960 with red brick shelters, ticket offices with steel shutters and big padlocks. ‘Halt’ name removed from the name boards but GWR benches survived.

Cuckoo Avenue
This was originally part of the grounds of Hanwell Park – the house was in the square to the south and to the south west of this road.  This road leads down from the north and up what was called Cuckoo Hill where the Schools were later replace by the park and community centre.
The road is the main axis of the Cuckoo Estate. This was the drive leading to the schools. It is now a green centrepiece lined with mature trees,
North Hanwell Baptist Church. When the Cuckoo Estate was built, a plot of land was left empty for a second church.  This was originally Cuckoo Free Church re-named North Hanwell Baptist Church in 1938. It was originally a wooden hut apparently still used as the Worship Room but with a newer brick front to the main road.

Cuckoo Estate
Cuckoo Estate, This is a former London County Council cottage estate built in 1933 on the slopes of Cuckoo Hill and the site of the Hanwell Poor Law Schools. Many of its original features and its entire original layout are intact. Ir was designed in the local topography around an important historic building.  The estate was planned along the lines of a traditional garden suburb masterminded by Raymond Unwin .
Street corners feature overlapping hooped railings and grass strips in front of flats and terraces, these were installed by the LCC and continue to be maintained by Ealing Council

Cuckoo Hill
This is the central area of the Cuckoo Estate and the former site of the Poor Law Schools.
This was once thought to have been the site of a 6th battle between the Romano British and Saxons.  .
Drayton Bridge Road
The road was built in 1897 and Drayton Green station opened in 1905
Drayton Green Station.  this opened first in 1905 and now lies between Castle Bar Park and West Ealing Stations on the First Great Western Railway service between Westbourne Park and Southall.  It was rebuilt in the 1960s with red brick shelters, ticket offices with steel shutters and big padlocks. It is the ninth least used station in London.
Boundary stone. This is said to be in the shrubbery behind the fence on the south side of the road west of the railway bridge.
Adventists Meeting Hall. The Transforming Church. This lies on the west side of the line on what would have been a continuation of Coyle Close.

Dryden Avenue
Short road featuring maisonnettes

Great Western Sports Field Site
A portion of this complex area is in this square – the remainder in square to the east and north,
The Great Western Railway Athletic Football Club and Castle Bar Park. The Association was formed in 1900 and The Directors of the Company provided 17 acres if ground 17 north of West Ealing Station plus a Pavilion within the boundaries of the Castle Bar Park Ground. After the Secobnd World War the Company Directors agreed to ‘re-plan and refurbish the ground and some of the land was disposed of. Ealing Council acquired the land in the 1970’s and used part for building Gurnell Combined First and Middle School. The remaining railway owned land which continued southwards alongside the railway loop line as far as Drayton Bridge Road and was used as Allotment Gardens during the Second World War has been disposed of over the years to Ealing Council for the building of Argyle Manor Assessment Centre and Castle Bar and Compton Schools and to the GLC for part of the Copley Close Estate.

Greenford Avenue
Roads west of Greenford Avenue are part of the Elthorne Heights Estate built 1923/4 by the Great Western Land Company..
Roland House. Flats on the site of Cuckoo Farm gas works 1870s, This was on the site of the reservoir. It was a small works not used for public supply
Reservoir. This was built for the Hanwell Schools.
324 White Hart. Now closed ‘roughest pub in West London’.
Hobbayne Primary School

Grove Avenue
Seven Saxon graves were found on a field called Blood Croft, (in the square to the west) in 1886 and then thought to be buried warriors.

Hall Drive
Footpath entry point to the Cuckoo Estate from Cuckoo Lane and Greenford Avenue.

Hanwell Residential Schools
This site was once private Hanwell Park Estate, as was the Central District Schools site before it was bought in the 1850s.
Central London District Poor Law School. These opened in 1857 and were known locally as Cuckoo Schools. It was for children of destitute families and was set up by the City of London and the East London and St. Saviour Workhouse Unions in 1857, moving here from a site in Norwood which has become overcrowded. It was built on the land of Cuckoo Farm on Cuckoo Hill. An area was kept as a working farm to educate and feed the children. At first the school was renowned for its harsh discipline, severe conditions and epidemics. It was essentially a self-supporting community, and children were trained in a variety of skills. the boys were in marching bands that had engagements at local social functions. Charlie Chaplin was a pupil there by 1900 the 140-acre site had classrooms, residential blocks, infirmary and sewage and gas works – and many other facilities including some recreational. The school closed in 1933.
Park School West London District. This was originally the Ophthalmic Institute erected because of the high instance of eye disease among the children. This was open to patients from all childrens’ homes in London.
West London District. This dated from 1868 as the Poor Law Board from the parishes of St. George Hanover Square and Paddington, plus Fulham Union. They had a residential school at Ashford, Middlesex from 1872. In 1911 the they leased the Park School Buildings at Hanwell, previously the Ophthalmic Institute for 350 infants. However from 1914 it was changed to be occupied by wounded Belgian soldiers. It was empty again by the end of 1915 but was taken over by the Metropolitan Asylums Board until 1921.

Hathaway Gardens
Gurnell Middle School, This school opened in 1974 and closed in 1993
Woodlands “Academy”. This was Hathaway Primary School

Hillyard Road
11 The YMCA  West London launched in Ealing o 1870 aiming to improve the spiritual condition of young men’. They had a number of premises. In 2004 St Christopher’s supported housing project opened

Laurie Road
Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle : L’École de André Malraux. This was Brentside infants’ school. This Lycee is based in Kensington but has three primary school satellites, of which this is one - L’École de André Malraux. It is in what were the buildings of Brentside Infants School.

Westcott Crescent
Westcott Drive was created from a peripheral road that ran around the northern half of the school buildings
Cuckoo Park. one of the largest open green spaces in the Hanwell area and it surrounds the Community Centre. It is on the brow of the hill and extends down it with open grass spaces, tennis courts and a children’s playground. It is designated as a Village Green. A ridge remains from school structures forming a terrace by the tennis courts. Dense groups of trees are arranged throughout the park, and are clustered around the Community Centre and the adjacent “Garden of Rest”,
Statue of Charlie Chaplin
Hanwell Community Centre building, this building is on the crest of the hill and was once the administration block of the Poor Law school. It was was designed by Tress & Chambers and built in 1856. The main block is all that survives today. There is a clock tower rising from the attached wing at the rear  this was a water tower to which water was pumped by a basement steam engine from a well under the building.
London Welsh School moved into the building in 2015, The school was started in 1958 by a group of fathers who were sending their children to Welsh lessons. It later became a full time school

Sources
Brent Valley Golf Course. Web site
British History Online. Hanwell. Web site
CAMRA. Web site
Great Western Railway. History. Web site
London Borough of Ealing., Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. North West London
St. Christopher’s Church. Web site
The Workhouse. Web site
Walford .Village London
YMCA. Web site