Editing Heathrow (hamlet) (section)

==History==
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| caption = The extent of [[Harmondsworth]] which as a parish from at least the Norman Conquest until the mid-20th century included Sipson, Longford and Heathrow.
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[[File:Heathrow 1948.jpg|thumb|245px|right|Map of Heathrow and around in 1948]]
[[File:General Roys Baseline.jpg|thumb|245px|The [[Hounslow Heath]] baseline and [[Heathrow Airport]]'s perimeter and 2 main runways superimposed on an [[Ordnance Survey]] map of 1935]]
''For a timeline of Heathrow events, see [[Heathrow timeline]].''

===Extent and development===
By the 1910s the amenities of Heathrow had grown little since the, at latest, 15th-century laying out of the lane.<ref>Diane K Bolton, H P F King, Gillian Wyld and D C Yaxley, 'Harmondsworth: Introduction', in the [[Victoria County History]] collaborative professional historian's series, ''A History of the County of Middlesex'' Volume 4 ed. T F T Baker, J S Cockburn and R B Pugh (London, 1971), pp. 1-7. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol4/pp1-7</ref>

It spanned, north–south, from Kings Arbour orchard to Perry Oaks farm (which sat at the junction of the lane and another).<ref name=os25inch>[http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=51.4743&lon=-0.4582&layers=168&b=1 Ordnance Survey 25 Inch (to mile) Map of Middlesex Sheet XIX.8] 1892-1914 series, revised 1912, published 1914</ref> An agricultural cluster of buildings and great house Heathrow Hall were slightly toward the north of the lane. All the homes and farms clung to this 90° turning lane, a turn staggered by two bends. Detailed 1910s maps show its unusual continuing agricultural focus so close to London; about half of the buildings and homes were at the two farms.<ref name=os25inch/> The northern was Heathrow Hall, 500 metres south of the area of Harmondsworth that was from the 16th century until the mid 20th century known as The Magpies,{{Refn|group=n|name=desc}} a mix of terraces and houses on and off of the [[Bath Road]], the west of which was a set of 18 densely packed houses, Belch's Row and the east of which was Sipson Green, further orchard-backed homes along the Bath Road in the same parish.<ref name=os25inch/> Heathrow itself had no terraces, instead small cottages and a few larger houses in large grounds.<ref name=os25inch/> Two offshoot lanes broke away, Cain's Lane southeast to [[Bedfont|New Bedfont]] and High Tree Lane south to West Bedfont (long part of [[Stanwell]]); at the start of Cain's Lane was in the 1910s an Anglican Mission room in the heart of the orchards and fields of Perrotts Farm, the other main cluster of buildings of Heathrow.<ref name=os25inch/> The [[Diocese of London]] was keen to give all people a convenient place of worship. By the end of the 19th century The Magpies had a mission church, on the north side of the Bath Road.<ref name=os25inch/> Sipson Green is covered in the text on the hamlet-turned-village of [[Sipson]]. Both remain intrinsic parts of the ecclesiastical parish of Harmondsworth, whose parish priest is as at {{CURRENTYEAR}} {{Abbreviation|Ven.|The Venerable}} Amatu Onundu Christian-Iwuagwu in a church with elements surviving from initial 1067 construction.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15741/|title = St Mary Harmondsworth}}</ref> It will be re-sited or see elements curated in a museum if a third runway for Heathrow Airport receives final planning permission and all appeals are dismissed.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://stmarysharmondsworth.com/|title = St Mary's Harmondsworth}} </ref>

===Founding and early history===
A sizeable [[Neolithic]] settlement is believed to have been in the Heathrow area.  Many [[artifact (archaeology)|artefact]]s have been found in the gravel around what is now the airport, and the [[Colne Valley regional park]].<ref>Cotton, Mills & Clegg 1986, p. 34</ref> Waste pits filled with struck [[flint]], arrowheads and fragments of pottery were also found in the area, indicating a settlement, though none other remains of such a settlement.<ref>Cotton, Mills & Clegg 1986, p. 36</ref>

Heathrow was one of the last settlements formed in the parish of [[Harmondsworth]].<ref name="ps1993">{{cite book |last1=Sherwood |first1=P. T. |title=The History of Heathrow |date=1993 |publisher=Hillingdon Libraries |location=Uxbridge |isbn=0-907869-27-0 |edition=Rev.}}</ref>{{rp|16}}<ref name="ps2009">{{cite book |last1=Sherwood |first1=P. T. |title=Heathrow : 2000 years of history |date=1999 |publisher=Sutton |location=Stroud |isbn=978-0750921329 |edition=[New]}}</ref>{{rp|19}}<ref name=BBC>{{cite news |title=The Lost Villages Around Heathrow |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7831231.stm |newspaper=BBC News |date=15 January 2009 |access-date=18 January 2009}}. The page includes an image of a [[half-timbered]] cottage in Heathrow village.</ref> Its name was rendered in various orthographies which reflect approximately the same pronunciation as today ''La Hetherewe'' (about year 1410, first known mention), ''Hithero'', ''Hetherow'', ''Hetherowfeyld'', ''Hitherowe'', and ''Heath Row/Heathrow'', [[Middle English]] spellings of "heath row" (simply a row (impliedly of houses) on or by a [[heath (habitat)|heath]]). Old maps show Heathrow as a row of houses along the northwest sides of the curve of a lane occasionally named Heathrow Road or Lane, which faced land until 1819 part of a great set of [[common land]]s belonging to neighbouring parishes — [[Hounslow Heath]]. The first orthography as "Heathrow" dates to 1453.<ref name="ps2009"/><ref name="ps1993"/>

====Sipson Green earthworks====
Certain [[Ordnance Survey]] maps before the Second World War, closer to Sipson Green and the adjoining Harlington Corner (localities of the Bath Road), show an earthwork, 300 metres due south of where New Road, Harlington meets the [[Bath Road]], that had been excavated in 1723 by order of William Stukeley. He believed it to have been a Roman settlement, and named it "Caesar's Camp".<ref>Cotton, Mills & Clegg 1986, p. 12</ref><ref name=os25inch/>

===General Roy's western baseline===
{{main|Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790)}}
In 1784 General [[William Roy]] chose the orchard of King's Arbour to be one end of first base line of the [[Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790)]] trigonometrical survey for the first triangles of a triangulation grid reaching across the [[English Channel]].  He chose Hounslow Heath for his lines as it was near-flat, near barracks and about 15 miles from the [[Royal Observatory, Greenwich|Royal Observatory]].  The east/south end was the [[Poor House]] in [[Hampton, Middlesex|Hampton]]. The ends were originally marked by vertical wooden pipes (which could support flagstaffs), but in the resurvey of 1791 they were found to be rotting and were replaced by upright [[cannon]] heads which are still to be seen.<ref>For full information and references see [[Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790)]]</ref>

The marker and landmarks on the Bath Road enables visitors and historians to picture features on old maps when visiting today's airport, without the use of grid references.<ref>[[:File:Heathrow Before World War II Map.jpg#Road names]]</ref>

===Great West Aerodrome===
{{main|History of Heathrow Airport}}
In 1929, [[Fairey Aviation]] bought {{convert|71|acres}} of land just southeast of Heathrow hamlet, to establish an airfield for flight testing; later purchases gradually enlarged the aerodrome to about {{convert|240|acres}}. It came to be called the [[Great West Aerodrome]], which in 1944 was greatly enlarged to become London Airport, which was later renamed as Heathrow Airport.

===Development===
Agriculture became the main source of income for residents in the hamlet, as the [[brickearth]] just as the underlying gravel in soils in the area made for reliable farming for fruit trees and bushes, vegetables, and flowers as it held manure well and markets were in easy reach of these perishable cash crops. Clay soil in other parts of England favoured potatoes and chalk favoured grains. Most residents and seasonal labourers joined in the large west Middlesex [[market gardening]] industry. Many residents grew which they would travel with into London to sell, on the return journey collecting manure for farming.<ref name="ps2009"/>{{rp|32}}<ref name="ps1993"/>{{rp|18}}<ref name=BBC/> As motor vehicles made urban horse manure (from stables and cleaned off roads) much less, local farm workers started instead using [[sewage sludge]] (up to {{convert|50|long ton/acre}} annually) from the [[Perry Oaks sewage works]], opened in 1936, as fertiliser.

The farms and buildings across most of south-east Harmondsworth greatly changed in the early 20th century; mostly a web of rural roads and lanes. An illustration being that until about 1930, only one building stood on the north side of Bath Road between Belches Row at The Magpies{{Refn|group=n|name=desc|The Magpies was a neighbourhood with its own Mission Church in Harmondsworth parish around the narrowed and closed-off lane once Heathrow Road, next to The Old Magpies (of the 16th century to 1950s) and the circa 18th century Three Magpies pub, both west of today's north exit of the Northern Perimeter Road}} on the two kilometres to the demolished Kings Head west of the preserved Longford Pump, [[Longford, London|Longford]].{{refn|group=n|The remote building was a small building and outbuilding, together part of Bath Road Farm; today by the modernist, tinted-glass office building Heathrow Boulevard where its large brick sign holder exists today}}  Three factories: [[Technicolor]] and [[Penguin Books]] and [[Black & Decker]] were founded in those fields before 1939.<ref>Sherwood, Philip 2012, p.77</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/3/Contaminated_Land_Strategy.pdf|title=Environmental Protection Unit Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy|website=Hillingdon.gov.uk|access-date=18 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120830022655/http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/3/Contaminated_Land_Strategy.pdf|archive-date=30 August 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> No buildings equally stood on the south side of this major thoroughfare.{{refn|group=n|Except Fairview Farm, Longford today the site of a large airport car park}}

Other than a few homes and gardens, six farms held land which became the airport in the 1930s, as documented in principal feature maps.<ref>{{cite web|last=Sherwood|first=Phillip|title=Heathrow – The Lost Hamlet|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/57482167/Heathrow-The-Lost-Hamlet|via=Scribd|access-date=21 March 2012}} {{Dead link|date=June 2022}}</ref>

Heathrow was away from [[Trunk Road|main roads]] and further away from railways; that kept it secluded and quiet although near London. As Middlesex changed to [[market gardening]] and fruit growing to supply expanding London, parts of Heathrow held on to old-type [[mixed farming]], and thus was chosen for Middlesex area horse-drawn [[ploughing competition]]s, which needed land which was under [[Crop residue|stubble]] after harvest.

The ford where High Tree Lane crossed the [[Duke of Northumberland's River]] was a scenic spot used sometimes for [[picnic]]s and courting couples. There was a footpath along beside the river from the ford to [[Longford, London|Longford]].

The Middlesex Agricultural and Growers' Association held annual ploughing matches in Heathrow, until the last, the 99th, was held on 28 September 1937;<ref name="ps1993"/>{{rp|20}}<ref name="ps2009"/>{{rp|33}} the 100th match (in 1938) was postponed to 1939 due to severe drought, and in 1939 it was cancelled because [[World War II]] had started.

The Royal Commission on Historic Monuments listed 28 historically significant buildings in the parish of Harmondsworth, a third of which were in Heathrow.<ref name="ps1993"/>{{rp|33}} Notable buildings included Heathrow Hall, a late 18th-century farmhouse, which was on Heathrow Road,<ref name="Sherwood 2006, p.14">Sherwood 2006, p.14</ref> and Perry Oaks farm, which was [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]].

In the 19th century much brickearth-type land in west Middlesex, including in Heathrow, was used for [[orchard]]s of fruit trees, often several sorts mixed in one orchard. Much [[wikt:soft fruit|soft fruit]] was grown, often in the orchards under the fruit trees. Sometimes vegetables, or [[cut flowers|flowers for cutting]], were grown under the fruit trees. An author in 1907<ref>Stephen Springall, ''Country Rambles round [[Uxbridge]]'', 1907</ref> reported "thousands and thousands" of plum, cherry, apple, pear, and [[damson]] trees, and innumerable currant and gooseberry bushes, round [[Harmondsworth]] and [[Sipson]] and [[Harlington, London|Harlington]] and Heathrow.<ref name="ps2009"/>{{rp|31}} After World War I the amount of fruit growing in the area decreased due to competition from imports and demand for more market-gardening land, and by 1939 less than 10% of the orchard area was left.

[[File:Three Magpies, Sipson, TW6 (9465393203).jpg|thumb|The Three Magpies pub on Bath Road is the only surviving building of the former locality known as The Magpies.]]
Produce was taken to [[Covent Garden#Covent Garden market|Covent Garden market]], or by smaller growers to [[Brentford]] market, which was nearer but less profitable. From the Three Magpies, the lane's northern end – much reduced and curtailed today – to Covent Garden is {{convert|14|mi}} which was about 6 hours at laden horse-and-[[wagon]] speed; goods had to set off before 10&nbsp;pm the day before to reach the market when it opened at 4&nbsp;am,<ref name="ps2009"/>{{rp|33}} until motor trucks came. Lighter produce such as [[strawberries]] where freshness brought highest prices could reach Covent Garden Market in an hour and a half in a light vehicle behind a light fast horse.

An {{convert|11.93|acre|adj=on}} field south of the Bath Road, about {{convert|600|yd}} east of the lane, was, between 1912 and 1935, [[allotment garden]]s (shown on a map dated 1935) and in the 1940 [[Luftwaffe]] air survey.<ref name="ps2009"/>{{rp|14}}<ref>Old 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey maps, reproduced at about 15 inches = 1 mile, publ. Alan Godfrey Maps:-	
* Heathrow, 1934, Middlesex sheet 19.08, {{ISBN|978-1-84784-112-4}}	
* Hatton, 1935, Middlesex sheet 20.05, {{ISBN|978-1-84784-279-4}}
* [[Sipson]], 1935, Middlesex sheet 19.04, {{ISBN|978-1-84784-120-9}}</ref>

In the 1930s Heathrow Hall and Perry Oaks were [[mixed farm]]s with wheat, cattle, sheep and pigs, and the other farms were largely [[market garden]]ing and fruit growing. Photographs from early in the 20th century show to the southeast, at Cain's Farm facing modest Heathrow House, milk cattle (about 22 in the photograph) and the yearly horse-drawn ploughing competition on Cain's Lane.  Later examples show such competitions in the far north-east near Tithe Barn Lane on Heathrow Hall land. In the 1910s a small gravel pit of just under an acre was on the east side of Tithe Barn Lane at the far west of what could be loosely, based mainly on Heathrow Hall's ownership be considered part of Heathrow and a similar marsh then pond to the north, all where today's Compass Centre stands.{{Refn|group=n|name=desc}}