Heathrow timeline


This is an event timeline and minor geographical information about Heathrow hamlet.

Founding and early history

A sizeable Neolithic settlement is believed to have been in the Heathrow area. Many artefacts have been found in the gravel around what is now the airport, and the Colne Valley. 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.
Until about 1930, there was only one building on the north side of Bath Road between The Magpies, and Longford; other buildings were built afterwards there before World War II, including three factories. By 1944, there were no buildings on the south side of Bath Road between The Magpies and Longford.
Heathrow was away from 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 competitions, which needed land which was under stubble after harvest.
The ford where High Tree Lane crossed the Duke of Northumberland's River was a scenic spot used sometimes for picnics and courting couples. There was a footpath along beside the river from the ford to Longford.

Development

Agriculture became the main source of income for residents in the hamlet, as the brickearth soil in the area made farming ideal, so Heathrow became part of the west Middlesex market gardening industry. Many residents grew fruit, vegetables, and flowers, which they would travel with into London to sell, on the return journey collecting manure for farming. As the coming of motor vehicles made urban horse manure much less, they started instead using sewage sludge from the Perry Oaks sewage works as fertiliser.
The Middlesex Agricultural and Growers' Association held annual ploughing matches in Heathrow, until the last, the 99th, was held on 28 September 1937; the 100th match 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. Notable buildings included Heathrow Hall, a late 18th-century farmhouse, which was on Heathrow Road, and Perry Oaks farm, which was Elizabethan.
In the 19th century much brickearth-type land in west Middlesex, including in Heathrow, was used for orchards of fruit trees, often several sorts mixed in one orchard. Much was grown, often in the orchards under the fruit trees. Sometimes vegetables, or flowers for cutting, were grown under the fruit trees. An author in 1907 reported "thousands and thousands" of plum, cherry, apple, pear, and damson trees, and innumerable currant and gooseberry bushes, round Harmondsworth and Sipson and Harlington and Heathrow. 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.
Produce was taken to Covent Garden market, or by smaller growers to Brentford market, which was nearer but less profitable. From the Three Magpies lane junction near Heathrow to Covent Garden is 14 miles by road, which was about 6 hours at laden horse-and-wagon speed, so goods to market had to set off at 10 pm the day before to reach the market when it opened at 4 am, until motor trucks came. Lighter produce such as strawberries where freshness was important could reach Covent Garden Market in an hour and a half in a light vehicle behind a light fast horse.
An 11.93-acre field fronting on the south side of the Bath Road, about 600 yards east of Heathrow Road, was shown as allotment gardens on a map dated 1935, and it appears to be allotment gardens in the 1940 Luftwaffe air survey.
In the 1930s Heathrow Hall and Perry Oaks were mixed farms with wheat and cattle and sheep and pigs, and the other farms were largely market gardening and fruit growing. Photographs from early in the 20th century show milk cattle at Cain's Farm and the yearly horse ploughing competition held along Cain's Lane, in the southeast of Heathrow; later photographs show ploughing competitions in the north near Tithe Barn Lane on land belonging to Heathrow Hall. Sipson Farm at the north end of Sipson may have owned land in Heathrow.

Timeline

13th century

Heathrow Road

Starting at the north end:
Starting at the north end: