Heathrow E-Book

Philip Sherwood

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 242

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Philip Sherwood's fully revised and updated history of Heathrow tells the extraordinary story of the district from the distant past to the present day. He describes how, in the sixty or so years since the Second World War, the isolated hamlet of Heathrow, which was surrounded by fields and market gardens, was transformed into the largest international airport in the world. The book recalls the earliest recorded human activity in the area over 2000 years ago. It uses maps, plans and an evocative selection of historic photographs to illustrate the slow development of this rural district from medieval times. The author shows how the landscape of farmhouses, cottages, fields and gardens in this quiet corner of Middlesex was obliterated by the airport's expansion. Hangars, runways, roads, hotels, warehouses and terminal buildings now cover the countryside, and this continuous development has had a lasting effect on the lives of the local people. Again the history of Heathrow is being drawn sharply back into focus with the further proposed growth and new terminal. Philip Sherwood's in-depth knowledge of the long history of Heathrow will make his new book fascinating reading for everyone who knows the airport, the nearby villages and the surrounding area. His book will also be of interest to all those who are concerned with the history of civil aviation and with the future of the English countryside.

Leseprobe

HEATHROW

2000 YEARS OF HISTORY

SECOND EDITION

The facilities which now exist of moving human bodies from place to place are among the curses of the country, the destroyers of industry and of morals and, of course, happiness.

William Cobbett, 1763–1835

HEATHROW

2000 YEARS OF HISTORY

SECOND EDITION

PHILIP SHERWOOD

Philip Sherwood is a retired chemist turned local historian who as a Principal Scientific Officer in the Scientific Civil Service has worked for the Transport (formerly Road) Research Laboratory and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, an active member of several amenity and environmental groups, the Publications Editor of the Hayes and Harlington Local History Society and represents the London Branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England on the CPRE Aviation Advisory Group. In addition to several technical publications and this edition he has compiled several previous publications in the ‘Britain in Old Photographs’ series.

First published in 1990 as The History of Heathrow

First published under this title in 1999

Reprinted in 2001

This edition first published in 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2011, 2012

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Philip Sherwood, 1990, 1999, 2001, 2011 2013

The right of Philip Sherwood to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUBISBN 978 0 7524 9986 4

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Foreword to the First Edition

Part One: Heathrow Before the Airport

Chapter One: The Geographical Background

Chapter Two: Pre-history

Chapter Three: General Roy and the Ordnance Survey

Chapter Four: Agriculture in the Heathrow Area

Chapter Five: The Perry Oaks Sludge Works

Chapter Six: Heathrow and Hatton – The Lost Hamlets

Chapter Seven: The Growth of Aviation

Early Days

Hounslow Heath Aerodrome

London Air Park, Hanworth

Heston Aerodrome

The Great West Aerodrome

Part Two: The Growth of Heathrow Airport

Chapter One: The Wartime Origins

Chapter Two: Development of the Airport 1944–1960

Chapter Three: Ancillary Developments

Chapter Four: The Airport’s Neighbours

Villages under threat

Chapter Five: The Search for Alternative Sites

Gatwick

Stansted

The Roskill Commission

Maplin

Other coastal sites

Chapter Six: Back to Heathrow and Developments 1960–1990

Part Three: The Pressures for Further Expansion

Chapter One: The Fifth Terminal

Chapter Two: Increasing Demands for a Third Main Runway

Chapter Three: The Pressures Continue

Chapter Four: The Final Solution?

Chapter Five: The Hidden Costs

Chapter Six: The Last Battle

Acknowledgements

Many of the photographs reproduced in the text come from my own private collection accumulated over many years. They include some that have always belonged to me and others given to me, from time to time, by people with their own reminiscences of pre-airport Heathrow. In particular mention should be made of members of old farming families, such as the Wilds, Philps and Heywards who farmed in the area and the late John Chinery who had an extensive collection of material relating to the Fairey Aviation Company. Other individuals who have donated valuable material include the late Josh Marshall, Ken Pearce, Douglas Rust, Graham Smeed and John Walters. Organisations whose material has been used with permission include The National Archives (TNA), Hillingdon Borough Libraries, the West Drayton Local History Society (WDLHS), the Hayes and Harlington Local History Society (HHLHS), the Uxbridge Gazette and BAA plc. Acknowledgements to these organisations for reproducing their photographs are given, where appropriate, within the text. In the case of living persons who have donated material, their contribution is also acknowledged in the appropriate place. Copies of the maps originating from The National Archives are based on Crown copyright material and are reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Apologies are offered to anyone whose material has been inadvertently used without acknowledgement.

Foreword

In the eleven years that have elapsed since I wrote the foreword to the first edition, which is reproduced below, all the gloomy predictions that were then made about the further development of Heathrow have proven to be all too true. Permission to construct a Fifth Terminal at Heathrow was granted subject to certain conditions that were soon relaxed. So not surprisingly, and despite all assurances made at the time of the T5 Inquiry, pressure has since grown for the construction of a third E-W runway accompanied by a sixth terminal. Nor has it stopped there as British Airways is already talking about a fourth runway and a seventh terminal to be constructed by 2030!

The first edition is therefore so badly out-dated that it was considered opportune to prepare a new edition to take accounts of developments that have occurred since it was published and to consider what may happen in the years that lay ahead. That part of the first edition that dealt with the history of the area before 1944 is reproduced virtually unchanged with only minor editorial amendments. The same is substantially true of the accounts that describe how the airport was conceived and its development up to 1990. However, so much has happened since then and so much is predicted to occur in the foreseeable future that an entirely new section has been written to take account of this. The Foreword to the first edition concluded with the view that ‘as a Society we will need to pay a higher price for air travel to offset the unacceptable disturbance that is caused by the civil aviation industry. Until such time is reached it will never prove possible to write a history of Heathrow that will remain up-to-date for very long.’

This remains the case but events outside the influence of the aviation industry may well mean that it will be impossible for the growth of aviation to continue at the pace that has occurred in the past 50 years. Not least is the growing concern about the effects of climate change and the increasing contribution of aviation to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. All informed scientific opinion takes the view that the dramatic increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is almost certainly the cause of global warming and it would be incredibly foolish not to act accordingly. However, it would seem that the aviation industry is more concerned to increase its profits rather than to worry about an environmental catastrophe in the years to come. The views of the industry on this subject can be likened to that of the tobacco industry which for long denied that there was any link between smoking and health and went so far as to fund research to ‘prove’ that smoking was not a health hazard.

P.T. Sherwood Harlington 2009

Foreword to the First Edition

There are many accounts of Heathrow, mostly written by civil aviation enthusiasts. These, together with the self-congratulatory propaganda of BAA and British Airways, mean that the civil aviation aspect of Heathrow is well-covered and yet another book on this subject would be superfluous. Less well known is the long history of the Heathrow area which is quite separate from the airport. Nor is the effect that the growth of the airport has had on the once pleasant and peaceful countryside of West Middlesex, which has been destroyed in less than 50 years, ever considered. The book therefore concentrates on these aspects. The change from a relatively prosperous, largely agricultural, area to the world’s busiest international airport is often referred to as progress – a word which the dictionary defines as, ‘an advance to something better or later in development’. Anybody who can remember what the Heathrow area was like before the advent of the airport will surely agree that progress is hardly the appropriate word.

The development of the airport has totally changed the social structure of the communities living around it. Many of these now depend on the airport for their economic well-being and resent any criticism of it. However, as relative newcomers they should accept that there are those who are even more resentful of the manner in which the airport came about. They are, in any case, outnumbered by those who live within earshot of Heathrow who derive no benefit from it but are reminded every minute of the day of its presence. Ever since the airport was established the rights of people have been subordinated to the interests of civil aviation to the point where one could say of Heathrow as Goldsmith wrote in his poem ‘The Deserted Village’ – ‘Ill fares the land to hast’ning ills a prey, where wealth accumulates and men decay.’

The fact that Heathrow plays a vital role in the national economy cannot be questioned, but the major British airport would be bound to play such a role wherever it was situated. The argument against Heathrow as the site for the major airport is that it was singularly ill-chosen and the development should not have taken place by what was little short of fraud. The claim has always been made that Heathrow was developed as a result of an urgent war-time need for the RAF to have a bomber base in the London area. Research among the Air Ministry files in the Public Record Office shows that there was never such a need and the airfield was developed from the start as a civil airport for London. The War Cabinet was deceived into giving approval for the development, even although it meant diverting resources away from the war-effort when preparations were being made for the Normandy landings. The Defence of the Realm Act 1939 was used by the Air Ministry to requisition the land and to circumvent the public inquiry that would otherwise have had to be held. The book describes the results of the examination of the files that show the true story behind the development.

* Elated with its success of establishing the airport by ‘fraudulent’ means during the latter part of WWII the civil aviation lobby has continued ever since to seek to expand the airport boundaries. The attempt to build a fifth terminal is only the latest of these plans. Each proposed expansion is claimed at the time to be the last but once permission is given it inevitably leads to further demands. The fourth terminal, which BAA claimed to be its last ever demand, was followed within three years of its opening by an application to build a fifth terminal! No doubt, if this were to be permitted, it would inevitably be followed by a demand for additional runway capacity which in turn would be followed by proposals for a sixth terminal.

The philosophy of ‘predict and provide’ has belatedly been abandoned in road building as it has become increasingly apparent that the predictions are largely self-fulfilling – traffic grows to fill the space available. The same is equally true of air transport and it is to be hoped that it will eventually be realised that we cannot simply go on extrapolating ever-rising forecasts of growth in air traffic indefinitely into the future without unacceptable environmental consequences. In the words of Michael Heseltine, when Secretary of State for the Environment (1992), ‘We have now reached the point where we cannot always respond to demands for either development or transport infrastructure simply because those demands exist.’

As a Society we will need to pay a higher price for air travel to offset the unacceptable disturbance that is caused by the civil aviation industry. Until such time is reached it will never prove possible to write a history of Heathrow that will remain up-to-date for very long.

* Subsequent events have shown that these predictions proved to be all too true!

PART ONE

Heathrow Before the Airport

Chapter One

The Geographical Background

The Landscape

South Middlesex consists of a series of flat gravel terraces – the Flood Plain Terrace gravel roughly 25 feet above sea level, the Taplow Terrace at roughly 50 feet and the Boyn Hill at roughly 100 feet. The gravel of the last is rather coarse and apt to be sterile but the other two usually have a covering of brickearth.

Heathrow is in a part of the Thames valley in which over the course of several million years the Thames has gradually moved southwards. During periods of glaciation followed by subsequent thaw the river must have been flowing at such a speed that it was able to carry gravels from the glaciers and icefields to the north and west. Fast flowing water can carry clay and silt much more easily than gravel so that when the flow rate decreased, as the river approached the sea, the gravel would have been deposited first. As the sea level rose with the melting of the ice the flow rate decreased still further and allowed the clay and silt to settle out on top of the gravel previously deposited. This layer dried out as the river retreated to give the brickearth deposits which overlie the gravel in many parts of the Thames valley. The fact that the gravel and the overlaying soils were deposited under water means that the land is flat and level in character with a general slope of no more than ten feet per mile

The general flatness of the area, which can be seen in the previous photograph, is its most notable characteristic leading to unkind references not altogether deserved. For example the ‘Beauties of England and Wales,’ published in the early 19th century, describes the area thus ‘The whole of the (Harmondsworth) parochial district has an undesirable flatness of surface and is intersected by small rivers or streams which creep in dull obscurity without imparting to any spot an attractive portion of the picturesque.’

Geography

Historically the Heathrow area occupies the south-east corner of Harmondsworth parish with the Bath Road forming a convenient boundary between it and the rest of the parish. The villages to the north pre-date the Bath Road and when established their centres would have been surrounded on all four sides by their open fields on the fertile brickearth with their common land to the south of the brickearth and on the less fertile Taplow Terrace gravels On the geological map the Bath Road which was established long after the villages can thus be seen to follow the boundary between these two geological formations. This does not mean that there is an abrupt change at this boundary but the thickness of the brickearth overlaying the gravel (which can be many feet in thickness to the north of the Bath Road) becomes gradually reduced in a southerly and easterly direction. Towards the extreme south-east of the parish the soil covering is very thin and was part of Hounslow Heath, which had a soil described by Cobbett in his ‘Rural Rides’ (1830) as ‘a nasty strong dirt upon a bed of gravel and is a sample of all that is bad and villainous in look.’ For good measure Cobbett considered that the labouring people of this area ‘looked to be about half Saint Giles’s, dirty and had every appearance of drinking gin.’

The Twin Rivers

Two rivers skirt the western and southern boundaries of the airport, both are man-made. One was constructed to supply water to the mills at Isleworth, the other to provide water to Hampton Court. Since both of these places are situated on the River Thames it may seem strange that so much trouble should have been taken to divert water from the River Colne several mile to the west but the Thames although nearby could not be diverted to flow up-hill. The presence of both rivers at Heathrow caused problems with the original construction of the airport and later for airport extensions. Consequently both rivers have had to be diverted on more than one occasion to allow first for the construction of the airport and then for later expansion.

Rocque’s Map of Middlesex, 1754. This is the earliest known large-scale (2 miles to the inch) map of the area. The Bath Road runs east-west across the middle of the map with Harmondsworth, Sipson and Harlington to its north and Heathrow to the south. Rocque gives the name as Heath Row but nearly all other sources of information, before and since, give it as one word. Heathrow is shown as being on the edge of Hounslow Heath forming part of the common land of Harmondsworth Parish and to the west of Heathrow Road is Heathrow Field, one of the pre-Inclosure open arable fields of Harmondsworth Parish. Comparison of Rocque’s map with the Harmondsworth Inclosure map shows that, apart from the Bath Road and Heathrow Road, most of the roads in the area were re-aligned at the time of the Inclosure. In the otherwise flat landscape, Rocque defines two areas close to the Harmondsworth/Harlington parish boundary as Shasbury Hill and Fern Hill.

Harmondsworth Parish before Inclosure (From VCH Middlesex Vol.4). This map combines the information in Rocque’s map and the Harmondsworth Inclosure map of 1819. It shows the open fields and common land of the parish and the roads as re-aligned by the Inclosure Commissioners. The southern boundary of the parish follows the course of the Duke of Northumberland’s River which is marked on the map as the Isleworth Mill River. The south-east corner of the parish formed part of Hounslow Heath and was the common land of the parish. For a map of the parish after the inclosure see page 21.

Heathrow, 1935 (From 2.5 inches – 1 mile OS Map). A comparison of this map with the Harrmondsworth Inclosure Map on page 13 shows that comparatively few changes had occurred between the Inclosure of 1819 and 1935. The road layout is identical, the field pattern is still recognisable although some consolidation of the holdings has occurred and a little additional building has taken place. The major change is the presence of the Fairey aerodrome but even that had little impact on the landscape (see page 21). On this map the area of Shasbury/Schapsbury Hill is marked as ‘Earthwork’ in Gothic letters.

Aerial view of Heathrow area, 1940. This photograph is one of a series taken on 27 September 1940 by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Unfortunately the photograph immediately to the south which was taken on the same occasion is badly obscured by clouds. In this photograph Heathrow lies to the south of the Bath Road which crosses the photograph diagonally at the bottom left-hand corner. Towards the top right-hand extremity is the uncompleted alignment of the Parkway at Cranford, work on which had started in 1939 as part of the proposed extensions to Heston aerodrome (see page 60). The Luftwaffe archives are the most complete aerial cover of Britain up to 1940. They were captured at the end of the war and are now in the US National Archives in Washington which supplied this photograph.

The Duke of Northumberland’s River

This is the older of the two and is marked as the ‘Old River’ in Rocque’s map of 1754, the ‘Isleworth Mill River’ in the Harmondsworth Inclosure Map of 1819 and now known as the ‘Duke of Northumberland’s River’ (after the owners of Syon House at Isleworth since the 17th century). It was probably constructed in the 15th or 16th centuries to run from the Colne just to the north of Harmondsworth by way of Longford, Heathrow and Bedfont to join the Crane for a short distance at Baber Bridge before proceeding on its own course to Isleworth for the purpose of originally providing power to the manorial water mill at Isleworth on the Thames. It is probable that the river followed the line of a natural water-course to some degree because in the Heathrow area it formed the boundary between the parishes of Harmondsworth and Stanwell which would have been established long before the river was formed. The route of its former channel continued to mark the southern boundary of Harmondsworth parish and hence of the Borough of Hillingdon until the boundary changes in 1994.

The course of the river was changed in the 1947 as a result of the construction of Heathrow Airport so that at one point it went underground and shared a channel with the Longford River. The course of the river has been altered again to allow for the construction of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5. In a project known as the ‘Twin Rivers Diversion Scheme’, both the Longford River and the Duke of Northumberland’s River have been put in adjoining channels running around the western perimeter of the site at ground level, no longer having to pass under the airport.

Preparation of new course for the twin rivers, 1949. During the construction of the airport both rivers were diverted to follow a more southerly course and for a short distance they now flow side-by-side in twin channels alongside Bedfont Road, Stanwell.

Twin Rivers at Stanwell, 2007. This photograph was taken from approximately the same vantage point is the earlier one. The large house on the left is common to both photographs although in the intervening years its walls have been whitened. The view is to the west with the Duke of Northumberland’s River on the right and the Longford River on the left.

Marker blocks recording the former courses of the Twin Rivers. These were placed at intervals ‘in order that a permanent record of the old beds could be maintained.’ Those marking the course of the D.O.N’s River soon disappeared but some of those marking the course of the Longford River survived up to the time of the construction of the Fifth Terminal.

Duke of Northumberland’s River, Syon Park. The river still flows serenely through the grounds of Syon House unaffected by the depredations further upstream. The lake shown here was created from the river by Capability Brown in the mid 18th century.

The Long Water, Hampton Court. The Longford River provides all the water features in the grounds of Hampton Court and the adjoining Bushey Park.

The Longford River

This was dug on the orders of Charles I who, in 1638, commissioned an inquiry into ‘how the waters of the Colne could be brought over Hounslow Heath into the Park’ so as to improve the water supply of Hampton Court. The name it was known by in the early 19th century ‘The Hampton Court Canal’ made clear its purpose, but by 1834 it had been re-named the King’s River, and on the first large-scale edition of the Ordnance Survey map (published in 1868) it was called ‘The Queen’s or Cardinal’s River’. As its name suggests it leaves the Colne at Longford just to the north of the point where the King’s Bridge carries the Bath Road over the river. This bridge like the remainder of the river is still maintained by the Crown Commisioners whose consent had to be obtained before the river could be diverted.

Chapter Two

Pre-History

Heathrow appears to have been the last of the post-Roman settlements to be formed in Harmondsworth Parish. Harmondsworth itself is in the north-west of the parish and the name is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 780 AD when land in a place called Hermonds was granted by Offa, King of Mercia to his servant Aeldred. By the time of Domesday the name had become Hermondesworde. Sipson, now the second largest settlement in the parish, is first referred to as Subeston in a custumal of the manor of Harmondsworth dating from 1110, Longford is first mentioned in 1337 and the first known reference to Heathrow is in 1453. All the names are of Anglo-Saxon origin and in all cases must have existed long before their first recorded references.

However, long before Saxon times there were settlements in the area. No written record exists but there is plenty of archaeological evidence for human occupation (1). The most significant in the Heathrow area was the discovery during the construction of the airport of an extensive iron-age settlement.

The appearance of the area labelled either as Shasbury Hill, Schapsbury Hill or Camp on old maps such as Rocque’s map of middlesex published in 1754 (see page 13) shows that it must have been a significant feature in the flat landscape. Pre-war Ordnance Survey maps show a rectangular area, either labelled ‘Earthwork’ as in Figure 2 or ‘Camp’, on the Harmondsworth side of the Harmondsworth-Harlington parish boundary and about ¼-mile south of the Bath Road. The earliest recorded reference to the site is in Camden’s ‘Britanniae’ 1586 which says ‘on the north edge of (Hounslow) Heath towards King’s Arbour is a Roman camp; a simple work and not large.’ It is mentioned again in the map of the Hundred of Isleworth drawn by Moses Glover in 1635. It is just beyond the boundary of Glover’s map but, near to the River Crane, he records ‘In this Heathe (i.e. Hounslow Heath) hath many camps bin pitched . . . whereof the forme of two yet in parte remaineth not far beyond this rive. By the name of Shakesbury Hilles.’ Rocque’s map of 1754 records the two ‘camps’, mentioned by Glover, under the names of Shasbury Hill and Fern Hill. A suggested derivation of ‘Shakesbury’ is that it could mean ‘robber’s camp’ and the numerous highwaymen operating on Hounslow Heath could well have used it as a hideout.

Both were featured again in 1784 in the map prepared for General Roy showing the position of his baseline across Hounslow Heath. The maps of Rocque and Roy depict the ‘camps’ as rectangular enclosures of approximately equal size. Roy, while retaining the name of Fern Hill used by Rocque gives the name of the other camp as ‘Schapsbury Hill’.

The Harmondsworth Inclosure map of 1819 records ‘Schapsbury Hill’ under the same name used by Roy but does not record Fern Hill. Cotton (2) suggests that, as its name indicates, Fern Hill had, by then, become overgrown and therefore difficult to locate on the ground. The maps indicate that both Fern Hill and Schapsbury Hill were distinctive features which must have been particularly prominent in the otherwise flat terrain.

Schapsbury Hill (Caesar’s Camp)

The site of Schapsbury Hill was examined by Stukeley in 1723 who believed it to be a Roman encampment. He said it was nearly perfect and sixty paces square, but he did not say why he recognised it as a Roman site or why he called it ‘Caesar’s Camp’. Stukeley’s drawing of the site is shown below.

Lysons, writing at the end of the 18th century also mentions the earthwork, stating that it consisted of a single trench about three hundred feet square. It is also mentioned in an account written soon after the Inclosure (1819) (3) which says: ‘Heathrow is situated to the south of the Bath Road on the margin of Hounslow Heath. At a short distance from this place towards the east, were, until recently, the remains of an ancient camp supposed to be Roman. The vestiges were about 300 feet square and the embankment was defended by a single trench only. The parish of Harmondsworth has recently been enclosed by Act of Parliament and the plough has thrown into furrows the castramentation raised by the Romans in pride of military art.’

However, enough survived for it to have been mentioned in the Victoria County History (4) which recorded that ‘three quarters of a mile north-east of Heathrow, immediately south of the Bath Road, a small square camp about 380 feet square was extant until the autumn of 1906. It is now ploughed perfectly flat, leaving no trace.’ This last statement must have been an exaggeration since it was still significant enough for it to be marked on maps up to the time of its obliteration by the airport. The full significance of the site became apparent in 1944, when hurried excavations by Grimes (5) prior to the construction of the main runway at Heathrow revealed the true significance of the earthwork. The datable evidence showed that the enclosure went back to the dawn of the British Early Iron Age i.e. about 500 BC.

Caesar’s Camp on Hounslow Heath, 1723. The site of Schapsbury Hill as recorded in 1723 by Stukeley who believed it to be a Roman encampment. The drawing shows how well preserved the earthwork when this part of Hounslow Heath was yet to be enclosed.

SW Portion of the Harmondsworth Inclosure Map, 1819