Origins and Medieval Bedfont Excavations before the building of
Heathrow's Terminal 5 site ( north-west) found evidence of settlement during the
Bronze Age,
Iron Age and Roman periods, suggesting there may have been people living in and around the Bedfont area during these periods. However much of the parish soil was unworkable by the till, a large stony heath after which Hatton is named,
Hounslow Heath, some turned into Bedfont Powder Mills by the 19th century in North Feltham and later industry/storage buildings. The obsolete locality name of West Bedfont mainly lies around Long Lane in the parish (area) of neighbouring
Stanwell. It once had a small chapel. Its casting off from the rest of the parish and new allegiance to Stanwell church occurred at some point in its descent of the manor in the 12th century. Larger East Bedfont, on the Greater London side of the boundary, has fallen again a little in size and developed into modern-day Bedfont: in the early 20th century some land was given over to
Ashford. Later a swathe of Hatton's extent (its manor and its devolved estates) became
North Feltham and a similar swathe the east of Heathrow airport. Hatton remains part of Bedfont in the Anglican community The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin is on the edge of the village green and is the oldest surviving church in the
borough dating from around 1150. Its Norman chancel, chancel arch and south doorway have survived the centuries, as have medieval wall paintings from the mid 13th century, which were uncovered in 1865.
Manors The Domesday Book has an entry stating that the manors of Bedfont, Hatton and Stanwell were all held by William Fitz Other. From the early 14th century the Manor of East Bedfont was held by the Trinitarian Priory of Hounslow, before being taken by the Crown during the reformation. The Berkeley family of Cranford then held the manor before selling it to the
Earl of Northumberland in 1656. Pates Manor, architecturally a Grade II
listed building also in Bedfont, was held by the Page family, a branch of the Pages of
Harrow on the Hill.
Col. John Page, a member of the family, became a wealthy
Virginia merchant who served on the colonial council.
The growth of the town and industrialisation from Bedfont Powder Mills
Charles I licensed the Hounslow Sword Mill in 1630 on the banks of the
Duke of Northumberland's River. The sword smiths, who came from
Solingen in
Germany, produced one thousand swords a month, which have become collector's items and an impressive collection of these can be seen at the Gunnersbury Park Museum. There is also one on display at Warwick University. The
Longford River, which also flows through Bedfont, also dates from the reign of Charles I. During the
English Civil War, when both the
Royalist and
Parliamentary armies passed through Bedfont, the mill was taken by Parliamentary forces, and was converted to a
gunpowder mill in 1654. This converted mill was supplemented by new mills closer to Baber Bridge, in the area now known as Donkey Woods. The manufacture of gunpowder was a dangerous occupation and workers were killed or maimed in many explosions down the years, with the mills being demolished and rebuilt a number of times. The water-powered gunpowder mills continued to be used until 1926 when they were closed by the then owners,
Imperial Chemical Industries. After the railway heyday the twentieth century saw motor cars take en masse to the old arterial coaching route and so prompted the Great South West Road in 1925 skirting the bulk of Bedfont south of today's airport and much of Hounslow in a decade when the
Bath Road, which branches off, was also improved.
Postwar development and the construction of Heathrow By 1946 another form of transport began to impact on the village when
Heathrow Airport opened and became the largest employer in the area, with the effect of increasing the demand for local housing. The
village of Heathrow was lost, as was some of the hamlet of
Hatton. This sits beneath the airport's flight path, but The Green Man public house survives from around the 16th century together with a few period properties near the pub and
London Underground station on the edge of the airport. In the late 1950s, the
National Physical Laboratory commenced the construction of a new ship testing tank in Faggs Lane, to augment the existing facilities at Teddington. The new facility was opened by
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on 13th October 1959. The site was sold off after 1985 and the buildings demolished, to be replaced by a supermarket. ==Buildings of interest==