GREENFORD
The ancient parish of Greenford lay to the northwest of Ealing. (fn. 1) It covered approximately 2½ miles
from north to south, and 1½ from east to west, and in
the 1860's comprised an area of 2,078 acres north
and west of the River Brent, which formed part of
the southern and western boundaries. Elsewhere the
boundaries crossed former open-field country and
were defined only by artificial boundary marks. (fn. 2) In
1775 a detached area of Northolt lay inside the parish,
in a rectangle of 46½ acres immediately north of
the Ruislip Road and west of Oldfield Lane. (fn. 3) It
had become part of Greenford by 1871. (fn. 4) Another
detached area of Northolt in the parish in the 1860's
lay along the southern field boundary. (fn. 5) This was
called Mill Field in 1775 and was owned by Daniel
Larrimore of Greenford, but the tithes were being
claimed by Northolt. (fn. 6) This 2½-acre piece of land
remained detached at least until the end of the 19th
century. (fn. 7) There were no detached areas of Greenford parish. In 1894, when the urban district was set
up, the civil parish of Greenford covered 2,127 acres, (fn. 8)
which remained unaltered until 1926, when the
parish was dissolved and became part of the municipal borough and civil parish of Ealing. (fn. 9)
The country is undulating, the highest point
being 278 feet above sea-level at Horsenden Hill.
From the hill the land drops sharply to the Grand
Union Canal which runs approximately along the
100-foot contour through the middle of the parish.
The land rises again to over 100 feet in the southwest corner. The Brent flows along, or slightly
south of, the 50-foot contour. The southern part of
the parish is hilly, but the northern half is much
flatter. (fn. 10) The soil is predominantly London clay, but
a strip of alluvium skirts the river and extends
northwards in a narrow band as far as the canal.
West of the river there is a certain amount of Taplow
gravel, and a belt of flood-plain gravel runs west from
Perivale to Coston's Lane. Claygate beds and pebble
crown Horsenden Hill. (fn. 11)
The earliest areas of settlement are uncertain. The
vill called 'Grenan forda' is first mentioned in 845, (fn. 12)
and by the end of the 13th century there were at
least two areas of settlement in the parish: Greenford
and Stickleton. (fn. 13) It seems probable that Greenford
itself lay near or around the church, approximately
in the centre of the parish where the buildings of the
manor farm, and probably of the manor, were also
situated. Stickleton, the name of which means a
village on a steep hill, (fn. 14) most probably lay on the
Ruislip Road near the Brent, as the lands of the lord
of Stickleton manor in 1775 lay in inclosures and
open fields in that area. (fn. 15) There was also probably
some settlement at Horsenden from the late 12th
century, as there was at least one family who took their
name from the place. (fn. 16) By 1754 the main areas of
settlement were around the crossing of Ruislip Road
and Oldfield Lane, and in the north of the parish at
Greenford Green, with a few houses round the
church and at Brabsden Green, by Horsenden
Wood. (fn. 17) By 1959, apart from the late-18th-century
schoolhouse, (fn. 18) the only building in the parish to
survive from before the 19th century was the Greenford Community Centre, which is of 18th-century
origin. There was an ale-house in Greenford before
1692 when its licence was suppressed. (fn. 19) The 'Red
Lion' on the Ruislip Road and the 'Black Horse' at
Greenford Green were both in existence in 1726. (fn. 20)
The present inn buildings, however, are modern.
The 'Ballot Box' was in existence by 1862. (fn. 21)
In the early 19th century Greenford was described
as being 'pleasantly situated' (fn. 22) and 'very secluded'. (fn. 23)
Until the 20th century there were no main roads
through the parish at all. In 1754 the main village lay
on a north-pointing triangle of roads, the southern
line of which was the Ruislip Road running from
east to west across the parish. The eastern side
of the triangle was formed by Coston's Lane and
the western side by Oldfield Lane, which extended
north-west through the parish skirting the common
to Harrow. A track also continued Oldfield Lane
southwards to Norwood, and a lane, Love Lane,
branched off Oldfield Lane before Greenford Green
and ran northwards out of the parish. Another lane
ran past Horsenden wood to Perivale. There were also
other minor lanes. (fn. 24) The basic outline remained
unchanged until the inclosure in 1816, when Love
Lane and two others vanished. (fn. 25) The roads then
remained unaltered until after the First World War. (fn. 26)
There seem to have been at least two bridges by
1293. (fn. 27) The position of Stickleton Bridge is a matter
of conjecture. It may have been situated on a line
drawn from Cow Lane (now Cowgate Road) in
Greenford to Cuckoo Lane in Hanwell, or, more
probably, at the end of what in 1959 was a footpath
continuing from High Lane in Hanwell. This would
have crossed the Brent near the Ruislip Road, and
continued up Coston's Lane. In 1339 it was said to
join the Westminster Abbey estates in Greenford
with those in Hanwell, and to have been especially
for those using Hanwell windmill. (fn. 28) No bridges in
the parish are mentioned again until the mid-16th
century when bridges called Pope's Bridge (fn. 29) and
New Street Bridge were both in existence, as well as
Stickleton Bridge. (fn. 30) Greenford Bridge itself is first
mentioned in 1614. (fn. 31) In 1651 the manor court asked
for Stickleton Bridge to be moved and set up on the
straight way to Northolt or Ruislip, (fn. 32) where it may
have replaced Greenford Bridge, since Rocque's
map of 1754 and a survey of the manor made in 1775
both show only one bridge. (fn. 33) In the eastern corner
of the parish there was also Perivale Bridge.
In 1775 there were fourteen open fields in the
parish, covering only 580 acres between them. It is
likely that some of them represented remnants of
much larger fields which had existed earlier. The
two largest, Upper and Lower Town Fields, comprising 252 acres, lay south of the Ruislip Road
together with Hanwell Mead and Elm Hook, both
adjoining the Brent. Old Field lay on the east side of
Oldfield Lane between Greenford and Greenford
Green, and, together with Black Lands and How
Croft adjoining it on the east side, amounted to 81
acres. Opposite Old Field on the west side of the lane
lay the 9 acres of Stourton Field. Five open fields lay
slightly north and west of Stourton Field. The largest
of these were Garroway Field, lying along the
western boundary, West Mead adjoining it on the
south, and Skeggs Field, lying along Oldfield Lane.
Skeggs was joined to Garroway Field by Riceham
Field and Groshet Corner. Altogether the five
amounted to 127 acres. The 53-acre Ridding Field
lay along part of the north-east boundary of the
parish, immediately north of Horsenden Wood.
Arable farming was principally carried on in the
Town Fields, and in Garroway, Skeggs, Old, and
Ridding Fields. West Mead, Hanwell Mead, How
Croft, and Groshet Corner all seem to have been
meadow-land. The common lay east of the Harrow
Road and north-east from Greenford Green, and
amounted to about 45 acres. The remainder of the
parish was almost entirely covered by inclosed lands.
Horsenden Wood, which belonged to the lord of the
manor, lay on the northern slope of Horsenden Hill,
and Braddish (later Perivale) Wood lay south-west
of the hill, on the western boundary of the parish.
There were five other small areas of woodland in the
north of the parish, lying on the north-eastern and
north-western boundaries. (fn. 34)
Between 1775 and the inclosure in 1816 there was
one major change in the topography of the parish.
In 1801 the Paddington branch of the Grand
Junction Canal was opened, which ran through the
northern half of the parish just south of Greenford
Green. Greenford was said in 1811 to have been a
popular halt for day excursionists who could then
visit Harrow to view the scenery. (fn. 35) The open area
had altered very little by 1816, when the open fields
amounted to 548 acres. Hanwell Mead and Elm
Hook had been absorbed into Lower Town Field,
but the other fields remained the same as in 1775. (fn. 36)
After 1816 there was very little change in the
appearance of the parish during the 19th century.
The amount of arable land declined until by 1871
the land was described as being almost exclusively
pasture and grass-land. (fn. 37) Land drainage was becoming an urgent problem and there were frequent complaints that the manorial estate needed draining. (fn. 38) A
survey of 1843 remarked that parts of the parish
were waterlogged in winter and cracked in summer. (fn. 39)
As late as 1957 there were repeated complaints about
the flooding of the Brent and the subsequent blocking of the Ruislip Road. (fn. 40) The population and the
number of houses increased very slowly and the
chemical factory by the bridge over the canal on
Oldfield Lane was the only large building erected.
There were several fairly large houses, and as early
as 1826 the village was 'the residence of many
genteel families'. (fn. 41) By the 1860's there were six
large houses marked on the map, apart from the
Rectory, which were all still standing in the early
20th century. (fn. 42) During the 20th century the appearance and nature of the parish was completely
altered. In 1903 the Great Western Railway opened
a suburban service from Marylebone to High
Wycombe with a loop line running south from
Greenford to the main line between Hanwell and
West Ealing. (fn. 43) Two stations were erected, Greenford,
and South Greenford at the north-east corner of
Perivale Park. London Transport extended the
Central London line from North Acton to Greenford in 1947. The line, which ran above ground,
replaced the old G.W.R. steam railway, and was
built jointly by the G.W.R. and London Transport. (fn. 44)
It was extended to West Ruislip from Greenford in
1948. (fn. 45) In 1958 a diesel-train service was started
between Greenford and Ealing. (fn. 46) Despite the coming
of the railway residential development was only just
beginning before the First World War. There was
some building at the southern end of Oldfield Lane
on two small roads, and the roads immediately north
of Ravenor Park were laid out, but not built up.
North of Horsenden Wood a nursery garden and
glass-houses were laid out, and a rifle range lay
across the Brent north of Perivale Bridge. (fn. 47) During
and after the war several factories were established
in the parish, (fn. 48) and after the war residential development began in earnest.
In 1924 the Greenford Road, an arterial road
running north-south through the centre of the parish,
was constructed. (fn. 49) By 1932 the roads south and west
of Greenford Park Cemetery had been built up. In
1934 Western Avenue, the London-Oxford arterial
road, was opened, running from east to west across
the centre of the parish, (fn. 50) and before 1935 Whitton
Avenue was constructed across the Greenford Road
in the north of the parish. (fn. 51) This network of arterial
roads led to the rapid industrial and residential
development of Greenford in the thirties. Nearly
all the building at this time was speculative. No
housing schemes were actually carried out by the
Greenford Urban District Council. The council
planned the Windmill Lane estate, but it was built
by Ealing Borough Council in 1927. Between 1927
and 1939 Ealing built 409 houses, most of which lay
in the Windmill Lane and Cowgate estates. The
latter was built about 1933. (fn. 52) Other areas developed
before 1935 lay north of the canal and south of
Whitton Avenue; north and east of Horsenden Wood;
around Greenford Station; on the west side of
Perivale Park, where the other roads were only laid
out; and the entire area south of the Ruislip Road.
By 1939 the development of the remainder of the
parish had been virtually completed. (fn. 53) Comparatively little building was done after 1945. Ealing
Borough Council built the Ravenor Park estate and
other houses, amounting to 251, but before 1959 the
council considered that the area had been sufficiently
developed and did not intend to build any more. (fn. 54)
Several open spaces were preserved by the borough
and county councils. In 1932 the borough council
acquired Marnham's Field as an open space. By
1938 the county council had already acquired
Horsenden Hill as part of its 'green belt' scheme,
and in 1942 they acquired some charity land to be
added to the Horsenden open space. (fn. 55) In 1959 the
open land here included as much on the west side of
the road, in Brabsden Green, as in the old area of
Horsenden on the east. Other open spaces include
Ravenor Park and Perivale Park.
Few well-known people have lived in or been
connected with Greenford. Two of the rectors were
notable, John Feckenham and Edward Terry; (fn. 56) and
the chemist, W. H. Perkin (1838-1907), opened his
first dye-factory in the parish. (fn. 57)