The place-name Harlington is recorded in Anglo-Saxon as Hygereding tun: "Hygered's people's farmstead".[1]
History
The earliest surviving mention of Harlington appears to be in a 9th-century charter in which land at Botwell in Hayes was said to be bounded on the west by "Hygeredington" and "Lullinges" tree. The first of these must be Harlington; the second has not been identified.
The boundary between Hayes and Harlington, which may thus have been defined by the date of this charter, was later marked by North Hyde Road and Dawley Road, but Dawley Road may not have followed the boundary before the 18th century.[2]
Administrative history
By 1834 the select vestry (informally known simply as the vestry) employed a paid assistant overseer. In 1824 a surgeon for the poor of Cranford and Harlington was appointed by the vestries of both. Their later co-operation saw the establishment of Harlington's National School jointly with in 1848, and its cottage hospital jointly with Cranford and Harmondsworth in 1884.
In 1924 the civil parish council (CPC) asked Staines Rural District Council (RDC) to light the village street and this was done a year later. The cemetery in Cherry Lane was opened in 1936 by the UDC and the CPC started its first allotments in 1895, but they rejected proposals to acquire a recreation ground or parish hall.
See the entry for Hayes for the later detailed local history.[2]
Sanitation
The chief task from 1872 for local government was the making of sewers in villages beyond a handful of homes such as this. Sewerage had been discussed in the vestry as long ago as 1864. The increase of population in the 20th century, growing preference for flush toilets and prohibitions on ground water contamination made the need for proper sanitation more urgent. In 1912, for instance, there were said to have been eleven cases of typhoid near the 'White Hart', and there was an outbreak of diphtheria in 1916.
During the 1920s the RDC made plans for constructing sewers, and the relative cost of their scheme and of schemes proposed by Hayes Urban District Council largely influenced the parish council's views on local government reorganisation. In the end the council seem to have acquiesced peacefully in the amalgamation with Hayes that took place in 1930, only on the grounds that this seemed to provide the best and cheapest chance of sewers being constructed soon. A sewerage scheme for the parish was completed by Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council in 1934.[2]
Present day
Harlington Library[4] is towards the north of the village/district.
The village contains six public houses: Captain Morgans', The Great Western, The Pheasant, The Red Lion, The Wheatsheaf, and The White Hart. There are two churches, a Baptist church and a Church of England church, St Peter & St Paul's. Schools include Harlington School.
The Grand Junction Canal runs through the Dawley land, east to west: it was constructed c. 1794–1800.[8]In the late 1830s the main line of the Great Western Railway was also built across the former Dawley Park (by then Dawley Wall Farm). However, Hayes & Harlington railway station (just outside the parish) was not opened until 1864. Before then there was a choice of the stations at West Drayton and Southall, or of the daily omnibus and weekly carrier to London.[9]
A road going south-east towards Hatton was removed because of Heathrow's construction. The road along with Harlington High Street were formerly designated A312 until the 1950s.
Former cottage hospital
The Harlington, Harmondsworth and Cranford Cottage Hospital, in Sipson Lane, opened in 1884, demolished and closed in 1977. Its site hosts a branch of the Sant Nirankari Satsang Bhawan.
Listed buildings
Former listed buildings in the parish
Manor Farm was demolished between 1930 and 1940 and pre-dated the possibility of statutory listing. It is the site of shops in Manor Parade and adjoining residential roads.
Notable people
John Derby Allcroft, glove manufacturer and philanthropist. Lived at Harlington Lodge;
Politician and philosopher, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751),[15] of Dawley House. Alexander Pope describes his friend Bolingbroke, the noble farmer who had engaged a painter for £200 to give the correct agricultural air to his country hall by ornamenting it with trophies of spades, rakes, and prongs.[16] Bolingbroke bought Dawley for £22,000 in 1724, moved there in 1725. With help from Charles Bridgeman he worked on the 400 acres of park and 20 acres of garden, making a ferme ornée, while James Gibbs beautified the house.[17] He sold it in 1737, or 1738, for £26,0000 to Edward Stephenson (1691–1768), MP for Sudbury 1734–41, and for two days Governor of Fort William, 1728,[18] who passed it on again soon after 1748;[14]
Dame Lettice Poyntz (died c. 1610), aka Laetitia FitzGerald, niece of the fair Geraldine and sister of Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Kildare, first wife Sir Ambrose Coppinger, of Dawley, (c. 1546 – 1604), MP for Ludgershall in 1586. She married secondly John Morice, MP, (1568–1618), aka Sir John Poyntz. She left £100 to the village, eighty pounds of which was later used to purchase six acres of land the income from which was to support good causes in the parish;,[19][20]
Founder of Tattersalls, Richard Tattersall (1724–1795), c. 1779 began a stud farm at Dawley (aka Dawley House) which was called Dawley Wall Farm.[21] In the 1830s this was described as '13 miles from London, 3 from Uxbridge, 1 from Hayes and 2 from Cranford Bridge'.[22] Coincidentally, in 1779 Tattersall bought for £2500, for the purpose of breeding, 2nd Lord Bolingbroke's unbeaten Highflyer. Operations at Dawley were continued after his death by various other Tattersalls including his son George I (1792–1853), and perhaps grandson George II (1817–1849):[23] thoroughbred stallion Glencoe (1831–1857) stood at stud there in 1835. Middleton, the 1825 Derby winner, was there in 1832.[24] Sire Sir Hercules was sent there in 1833 and The Colonel in c. 1837.[22]
Sports impresario Simon Clegg was born in Harlington;
Former professional footballer and football manager Paul Goddard was born in Harlington;
Rev. Count Henry Jerome de Salis, DD, FRS, third son of the Jerome, 2nd Count de Salis, was appointed by his parents Game keeper of and for their said manor of Dally otherwise Dawley, near Hayes, Middlesex, from 13 June 1775;[26] His mother, the Hon. Mary Fane, later Madame de Salis, and then Countess de Salis (died 1785), had lived for a while in central Harlington in c. 1770, and then his parents seem to have purchased the Dawley Wall estate (now approximately Stockley Park and more), including Dawley House or its remains, from the heirs of Lord Uxbridge in 1772. Henry Jerome, his daughter, wife, parents, one brother, and nephew were all buried in the family vault in Harlington's churchyard.[27]Peter de Salis (1738-1807) acquired the site of Dawley House in 1797. In 1841 members of the de Salis family (Peter Fane de Salis (1799-1870) and his step-mother and half-brothers) owned together 533 acres in the parish. Most of this lay in the north, in or near the former park, but it also included Dawley Manor Farm, in the High Street,[20] The Gramophone Company (then Electric and Musical Industries Ltd.) acquired the site of Dawley House from Cecil Fane de Salis for an extension to their works across the road in 1929;[14]
William Roper (c. 1496 – 1578), husband of Margaret Roper, thus son-in-law of Sir and Saint Thomas More; with his second son, Anthony, Lords of the manor, 1551–83;[14]
Rev. Dr. Joseph Trapp, (1679–1747), rector of Harlington, 1733–48, (also an academic, poet and pamphleteer);[28]
Ovine scientist Eric Underwood (1905–1980) was born in Harlington;
Wigot of Wallingford, Lord of the Manor at the time of Edward the Confessor.[14]
Political supporter of Bolingbroke, Sir William Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, married in Harlington church the Rt. Hon. Maria Catherina, Marchioness of Blandford, the daughter of Peter de Jong, a Burgomaster of Utrecht, on 1 June 1734;[20]
Chelsea (1970s until July 2005), Queens Park Rangers (2005-2023) and Wycombe Wanderers (from 2024-)[29] football clubs have used the Imperial College Sports Ground, (aka Harlington Sports Ground), just west of the village in Sipson Lane.
Sport
A greyhound racing track was opened during the 1930s, off the Bath Road. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) and was known as a flapping track, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.[30] In 1959 plans for two large hotels, The Skyways (Now Sheraton) and Ariel (Now Holiday Inn) were revealed to serve Heathrow, which resulted in the track having to be being demolished and the last meeting was on 22 January 1962. The track would have stood very near to where the Holiday Inn is today.[31]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harlington and Harlington, Harmondsworth and Cranford Cottage Hospital.
Harlington and Harmondsworth, by Philip Sherwood, Tempus, Stroud, 2002;
The History of Dawley (Middlesex), by B.T. White, Hayes and Harlington Local History Society, 2001;
Victorian Harlington, Hayes and Harlington Local History Society, 1985;
De Salis Family : English Branch, by Rachel E. Fane De Salis, Higgs & Co., Henley-on-Thames, UK, 1934.
Eight Hundred Years of Harlington Parish Church in the County of Middlesex, Herbert Wilson, MA, Rector, Uxbridge, 1909.
An Historical Account of Those Parishes in the County of Middlesex, Which Are Not Described in the Environs of London, by the Rev. Daniel Lysons, London, 1800, pp. 125–135.
References
^"Key to English Place-names".
^ a b c d eSusan Reynolds (ed.), A History of the County of Middlesex, vol. 3 (1962)
^History of Harlington: Units and Statistics A vision of Britain through time. The University of Portsmouth and others. Accessed 2015-08-31.
^Harlington Library
^"Hellenica Airways Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine." Hellenic Imperial Airways. Retrieved on 10 May 2011. "London / United Kingdom Hellenic Imperial Airways Axis House 242 Bath Road Harlington UB3 5AY"
^Eight Hundred Years of Harlington Parish Church in the County of Middlesex, Herbert Wilson, MA, Rector, Uxbridge, 1909.
^"Harlington: Churches." A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington. Ed. Susan Reynolds. London: Victoria County History, 1962. 270-273. British History Online. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
^A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington, Victoria County History, London, 1962.
^Engraved broadside, 1729, British Library.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558–1603, edited by P.W. Hasler, 1981.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604–1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660–1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983.
^ a b c d e fA History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Victoria County History (VCH), London, 1962.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002.
^Alexander Pope, by Leslie Stephen, 1880.
^The Alexander Pope Encyclopedia, by Pat Rogers, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715–1754, edited by Rodney Sedgwick, 1970.
^The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558–1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
^ a b c dAn Historical Account of Those Parishes in the County of Middlesex, Which Are Not Described in the Environs of London, by the Rev. Daniel Lysons, London, 1800, pp. 125–135.
^He now started a stud farm at Dawley in Middlesex, which, together with his reputation for integrity, became the cornerstone of his large fortune., Thomas Seccombe, DNB, 1898.
^ a bThe Racing Calendar for the year 1833, by Edward & Charles Weatherby, London, 1834, p. 561.
^O.D.N.B.
^The Racing Calendar for the year 1832, by Edward & Charles Weatherby, London, 1833, p. 559.
^The World of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magnates, by Mr John Harley, Ashgate, 2010, pp. 122, 123 & 218.
^Fane De Salis MSS.
^Just outside the parish of Harlington at Goulds Green there was a house which the De Salis renamed Dawley Court, and lived there from 1835 until 1929 when it was sold and then demolished.
^the clergy database
^Wanderers, Wycombe (10 June 2024). "Wycombe Wanderers secure Harlington training facilities". Wycombe Wanderers. Retrieved 18 June 2024.
^Barnes, Julia (1988). Daily Mirror Greyhound Fact File, page 419. Ringpress Books. ISBN 0-948955-15-5.
^"Harlington". Greyhound Racing Times. 10 February 2019.