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LONGFORD VILLAGE GUIDE
This guide to Longford is
taken (with kind permission of the author) from "History and Guide -
Harlington and Harmondsworth" by our local historian, Philip Sherwood.
Map of
Longford
1. King’s Bridge 2.
Old Chapel 3. Longford Guest House 4.
“King’s Arms”
5. Weekly House 6.
Ash Tree Cottage 7. “White Horse” 8.
The Barracks
From whatever
direction the approach to Longford is unappealing with airport hotels and
car parks dominating the scene. It therefore comes as a welcome surprise
to find the village preserves so many attractive features although only
the deaf can appreciate it fully. It owes its comparative seclusion to the
construction of the Colnbrook By-pass in 1928 which meant that little
through traffic passed through the village on the Old Bath Road. Even
today the traffic is light for the area and the one-way street system
means that it can only be approached by car from the west. However, the
main northern runway of Heathrow is no more than 400 yards from the Bath
Road to which it runs approximately parallel.
The tour starts at the King’s
Bridge (1 on the map and Fig. 1) which takes the road over the
Longford river an artificial channel which takes water from the Colne just
to the north of the bridge to supply water to Hampton Court. The river is
Crown property as is the bridge – hence its name.
King’s Bridge is by far the most interesting of the bridges
in Longford and is a listed structure. Both the bridge and the river have
been known by other names at one time or another, so there has been some
confusion about their history. However, the date on the present bridge,
plus drawings and documents in the Public Record Office, leave no doubt
about the building of the bridge and the parties responsible for it.
The cast iron parapets of the bridge, with their
rectangular lattice work panels, are its most conspicuous ironwork
feature, and the sluice gate can also be quite easily seen. Hidden from
view are the inverted T-girders which carry the roadway, and the
subsidiary cast-iron plates which support the two footpaths. The middle of
the bridge on three of its sides has a plaque with the monogram “W R 1834"
underneath the royal crown. There was a fourth plaque on the remaining
side until it was stolen in the 1970s but it has since been replaced with
a replica.
Fig. 1. The King’s
Bridge, Bath Road, Longford
Just to the east of the bridge is
576 Bath Road (2) the extension on the side of this, but much altered,
was at one time Longford Baptist Chapel the plaque on the front of
the building giving the name of the chapel can still be seen. Further east
at the junction of the Bath Road with Heathrow
Close at 550 Bath Road is the Longford Guest House (3) a
pleasant redbrick building dating from the 18th Century. Across
the road is the “Kings Arms” public
house (4) which dates from the mid 19th Century and has
recently been refurbished. Between the “King’s Arms” and “Weekly House” (5
and Fig. 2) is a fine old barn (Weekly Barn) that faces an uncertain
future.
Fig. 2. Weekly House, Longford
Weekly House, so named after the family that owned
it, has now been converted into office accommodation. Despite its Georgian
appearance it dates from the early 17th Century. It once formed
the western part of the farmyard of H. J. Wild and Sons with the farmhouse
standing on the other side of the yard. All other traces of the farm have
disappeared to be replaced by yet more offices.
On the other side of the road is an attractive thatched
cottage known as “Ash Tree Cottage”
(6 and Fig. 3). This is an 18th Century building that may
well, when it was built, have been thatched but the present thatched roof
is relatively recent as part of an excellent refurbishment.
Fig. 3 Ash Tree
Cottage, Longford
Ash Tree Cottage backs on to the
“White Horse” (7 and Fig. 4) the oldest
public house in the village.
Fig. 4. The “White Horse”, Longford in 1980.
At this time Ash Tree Cottage, seen on the left, had a tiled roof
The “White Horse” is a simple two-storey
timber-framed building which dates from the 17th Century. Three
of its seven windows at the front have been bricked-up recalling the
window tax that was introduced in 1696 and not repealed until 1851.
The “White Horse” stands in the part of Longford known as “The
Square”. It stands at an angle to the road as does the row of
attractive cottages (8 and Fig. 5) that run in line from the “White
Horse”. This
is probably as a result of the continual flooding at Longford (it is not
known as Longford for nothing) and reflects the way in which traffic had
to divert from the main road to avoid the floods
The cottages are known as “The Barracks” and. they possibly get their name
from the fact that troops were billeted there during the Civil War. The
cottages were later used to billet troops who were protecting the highway
from robbers who frequented the Bath Road during the stage-coach era.
The narrow road past the Barracks leads to the
“Island” so named because it is surrounded on all sides by the River
Colne. All the development here is modern but there had once been a
paper-mill on the site and the sluice is still to be seen.
On the opposite side of the road from the White
Horse is the timber-framed house known Yeomans (9
and Fig. 6). This probably dates from the 16th C and is in good condition,
although much restored.
Some way further east is Longford
Bridge (10) where the road crosses the Duke of Northumberland’s River.
The straightness of the river as it flows
south from the bridge suggests that it is either man-made or has been
canalised.
Fig. 5. “The Barracks”, Longford
Fig. 6. Yeomans, Longford
Further along to the east on the north side of the road is
a group of what appears to be mock-Tudor buildings.
Two of them are quite modern but the third, known as the “Stables” (11 and
Fig. 7), is of more interest. In fact it incorporates what was once the
“King’s Head” an old coaching inn that by the mid 19th Century
had become better known as the “Peggy Bedford” named after a one-time
licensee who ran the inn for more than 50 years until the time of her
death in 1859. It closed when the new inn (since demolished) opened in
1930 at the junction of the Bath Road and the Colnbrook By-pass. Soon
after the front part of the old inn, which was T-shaped, was destroyed by
fire but the stem of the “T” survived A new front was added to the stem
and modernised to become the “Stables”. One of the bricks on the old part
bears the inscription “TMA 1691”. Immediately next to the “Stables” is
“Phoenix Cottage” the name recalling the fire that destroyed the front
part of the old “Peggy Bedford.
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Fig. 7.
“The Stables” (left) and “Phoenix Cottage” (right), Longford
On the other side of the road and
standing well-back is a half-timbered house that started life in 1676 as a
Quaker Meeting House (12 and Fig. 8). It has been well-restored and is now
a private residence.
Fig. 8. Former Quaker Meeting House
Further east from here the road becomes progressively more
depressing and it is as well to terminate the tour at this point. However,
a last link with the past is the Pump (13) which stands
about 100 yards further along outside the grim “Heathrow Park Hotel”. It
is one of two survivors of a number erected by the Colnbrook Turnpike
Trust in the early 19th Century to lay the dust along the
length of its section of the Bath Road.
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THIS
IS LONGFORD