OTHER ESTATES.
In 1086 one of the villeins
mentioned in Domesday Book held 2 hides of land, (fn. 8)
and there is later evidence of two considerable freeholds in the manor during the Middle Ages. The
first of these was an estate called the Brome or
Broomland which consisted of a house, 2 virgates,
and 2 acres of meadow. It was held in the early 13th
century by Robert of Barking, who had acquired it
from Stephen de Brome. In 1254 Robert's daughter
and her husband conveyed it to Westminster Abbey.
The estate was described as containing 80 acres of
land and one of meadow in 1293. (fn. 9) It may be identifiable with the copyhold estate held by Sir Thomas
Gresham's widow in 1592, which included lands
called the Broom Closes. (fn. 10) This descended with
Gresham's adjoining Osterley estate to the earls of
Jersey. It was said to comprise 80 acres in 1649, (fn. 11)
and in 1816 consisted of 90 acres of inclosures and
21 acres of allotments. (fn. 12) The inclosed land was called
Park farm and lay in a solid block around the farmhouse between Boston Road and the Brent. Parts
were sold at different times during the late 19th and
early 20th century and about 10½ acres now form
Elthorne Park. (fn. 13)
The land which Stephen de Brome conveyed to
Robert of Barking was bordered on the south by
land belonging to Simon de Crokeshull, who held 2
virgates freely of Greenford manor in the early 13th
century. (fn. 14) Later there were only about 43 acres to
the south of Park farm within Hanwell proper, since
the boundary between Hanwell and Boston manor
(or New Brentford chapelry) lay nearby. These 43
acres belonged in 1816 to James Clitherow, the lord
of Boston manor, (fn. 15) whose predecessor had held
almost the same amount of land in Hanwell in 1649. (fn. 16)
The identity of this with part of Simon de Crokeshull's land is made more probable by the fact that
in 1660 the owner of Boston manor held about 60
acres of copyhold in Hanwell manor of which part
was called Croxhill Grove. (fn. 17) The rest, which was
named Farnell's Half-hide, cannot be traced. It is
perhaps noteworthy that both of these medieval
freeholds were afterwards converted to copyhold.
No villein tenements have been traced through the
Middle Ages. In the 18th century a large copyhold
estate belonged to Charles Gostling (d. c. 1766), who
owned Hanwell Park and about 286 acres. (fn. 18) His
property was accumulated from various sources:
28 acres had belonged to Henry Hodges, (fn. 19) whose
house had eight hearths in 1664 and fifteen a few
years later. (fn. 20) Another part, of over 100 acres, had
belonged to John Wilkin, and was perhaps the same
as the 108 acres held by Henry Wilkin's heirs in
1649. (fn. 21) Gostling left his property to two brothers,
Henry and William Berners. (fn. 22) Henry seems to
have lived at Hanwell Park until his death in 1782, (fn. 23)
and the estate was afterwards broken up. (fn. 24) The
house was occupied for some years about the turn
of the century by Sir Archibald Macdonald, Chief
Baron of the Exchequer, (fn. 25) and had passed by 1816
to Thomas Willan of Twyford Park. Willan held
with it all the land east of Cuckoo Lane (c. 198 a.),
which had probably belonged to Gostling, and
received 36 acres of allotments at the inclosure. He
also held 22 acres in the detached part of the parish
adjoining his estate at Twyford. (fn. 26) This last area
remained in the hands of his heirs when his Hanwell
estate (287 a.) was sold after his death to one Turner
in 1828. (fn. 27) Charles Turner owned and occupied the
house in 1837 and John Turner sold it, with 89 acres,
to Benjamin Sharpe in 1848. (fn. 28) Cuckoo farm (171 a.)
was separated from the estate at this time. (fn. 29) In 1856
it became the site of the Central London District
Schools and in the 1930's of a housing estate erected
by the London County Council, to whom the school
and land had descended. (fn. 30) Hanwell Park was enfranchised in 1880 and passed on Sharpe's death in
1883 to his son, Sir Montagu Sharpe. (fn. 31) He sold it in
1884 and its extent was thereafter diminished by
building. The house was bought in 1897 by J. C.
Johnstone, (fn. 32) and had been pulled down by 1913. (fn. 33)
In 1649 there were nearly a dozen estates of
between 20 and 50 acres, as well as Park farm (80 a.),
and the lands of the lessee of the manor (95 a.) and of
the owner of Boston manor (45 a.). (fn. 34) The growth of
the Hanwell Park estate absorbed some of these
small properties, but at least two of them, both
copyhold, were detached from the estate after Henry
Berners's death in 1782. The first of these was Brent
End or Brent End Farm, later Brent Lodge, which
was conveyed to the rector, G. H. Glasse, in 1795 as
part of an estate he acquired for himself around the
church. (fn. 35) Brent Lodge had 36 acres around it in
1837. (fn. 36) It later belonged to Sir Montagu Sharpe.
He lived there from 1884 until he sold it to the
borough council, who demolished it in the 1930's. (fn. 37)
The second estate was the house later called Hanwell
Grove or the Grove, to which 29 acres were attached
in 1837. It was enfranchised in 1860. (fn. 38) Most of the
other small estates of the early 19th century consisted of pleasure-grounds attached to the larger
houses, (fn. 39) and may have borne little relation to the
17th-century properties. The exceptions to this were
the glebe (about 24 a.) and the Hobbayne's charity
lands (about 25 a.), which are discussed elsewhere. (fn. 40)