Part 2 – West Ealing Broadway from Grosvenor Road to Dean Gardens
You’ll find no checkpoint at the border between Hanwell and West Ealing, where the Uxbridge Road meets Grosvenor Road. But you might find subtle indications that you have moved from one community to another. The street signs now say W13 instead of W7. The Uxbridge Road has left Hanwell Broadway far behind and now calls itself West Ealing Broadway (or the Broadway) for the next half a mile or so.
In some respects little changes; the same red buses pulse back and forth along this artery as on Hanwell Broadway, but the vibe is different. It’s busier here and feels more mainstream – the coffee shops and fast food joints in this section are more likely to be major branded chain outlets.
But West Ealing does have some hidden gems, like Cozy Unique Ride. I’ve no idea what it is, something to do with cars perhaps? I just like the name.
Almost next door is Grosvenor House, which has been a surgery for nearly 100 years. Wounded soldiers and civilians were treated here in both World Wars.
Just before KwikFit on the corner is the Broadway Café. These premises were once home to the Pamela Howard Dancing School. Pamela Howard passed away in 2021 and the school has moved elsewhere. I don’t know if the two events are connected but I do know the school was highly thought of.
Over the road, there’s an art deco school uniform shop on the corner that used to be Arnolds Leisure, purveyors of sportswear, camping gear and the like.
Lounge 142/Diamond Hotel looks like it was once a fine big pub, and in fact it was. The Half-Way House (as you can see at the top of the building), formerly the Old Hat, was a London–Oxford mail coach stop until the arrival of the railways.
A little further along are a couple of pubs that changed names not so long ago. Hennessey’s became the Leather Saddle…
…and one of our favourites, Flynn’s, was once the Old Hat too, then the Walsingham Arms and is now the Old Hat again. Old names never die, they just move around a bit.
On the opposite side of the road, behind the shops, is St James’s Church, which has had an uncertain time in recent decades. Built in 1903, it faced demolition in the 1980s because of falling attendances and indeed was closed from 1984 to 1990.
It closed again in 2018 and nervously awaits its fate. We hope it will be left intact and perhaps used as a community centre.
Further along the Broadway, Chignell Terrace is a short side road I’ve always been curious to explore, as there always seems to be lots going on. People hanging out, chatting, cars coming and going. A stone carving high-up states that it’s on the site of Old Chignell House. I wonder what that ever was.
This stretch of the road has a feeling of impermanence. The pawnbrokers, and the pop-up and mayfly shops that sadly close not long after opening – hopes, dreams and expensive signs, dismantled so soon. You often forget what a shop was once its signage is removed, identity stripped.
The Butcher’s Club is a new shop selling Halal meat. It’ll be easy to remember for it has a neon sign inside saying ‘Pleased to meet you, meat to please you.’
On the opposite side of the road, behind the shops, among the new builds, is the new West London Islamic Centre on Singapore Road. It’s impressive, particularly the intricate patterning of the great window above the entrance.
An almost hidden Holiday Inn lurks (unless you happen to look up in the direction of the sky) on the corner of Melbourne Avenue by the flower stall and Greggs – this pedestrian-only zone seems to be a sort of focal point in West Ealing.
The nearby Sainsbury’s opposite the library has a frieze above the exit I hadn’t seen before the pandemic. I only noticed it while waiting for my partner in the days of solo-only shopping. It features some trees and kids, two of whom appear to be caught in a pigeon poo shower, due to the unfortunate positioning of two floodlight perches just above them.
Between Sainsbury’s trolley stand and the Broadway is a familiar sad back-street scene. Large bins on wheels are overfull with packaging from yesterday’s treats. Cardboard is strewn about by the wind, pigeons nodding and picking through it all. Beyond, discarded old shopping trolleys lie stranded and a couple of crouching street drinkers share a can and look on, seemingly also stranded. The dirt behind the shopfront daydream.
Yes, times change and I’ve only lived here 15 years, but I do miss Woolworths and its magnificent art deco façade, the old artists’ materials shop, even BHS. These ones stick in the memory.
There’s a lot of info about the history of West Ealing on www.westealingneighbours.org.uk a fascinating website with a website address that makes me want to say ‘stop stealing neighbours’.
Many of West Ealing’s new residential blocks aren’t popular with locals, and getting planning permission can be problematic. Developers are sometimes accused of storey creep, whereby they get planning permission for a certain number of storeys, then apply for permission to add further storeys once building work has started. But to be fair, many of the new residences are SO Resi shared ownership flats, perhaps for the young caught in the Crossrail property trap.
However, they do tower over the surrounding buildings on the Broadway. Big windows and small balconies loom uneasily over the streets down below, where those on hard times of one sort or another bustle outside half-way homes of hope, while all of us try to steer clear of sleep-walking jay walkers and sweet-talking street drinkers. A juxtaposition of professionals and precarity. There but for the grace of fortune…
On the Broadway you’ll also find a handy range of shops, Wilkos especially so. There’s a post office too, and a cheerful choice of cheapos, charities and more pawnbrokers. Yet back in the 1960s there were more shops of all sorts than now, a wider range, as was also the case in Hanwell.
On Saturdays, Leeland Road hosts a small but delightful Farmers Market in Leeland Road. At the bottom of the road is the Salvation Army Hall, a handsome red-brick affair with white stuccoed bits, built in 1909.
Back on the Broadway there’s a piece of graffiti high up that reads ‘ICKY IS AN ANOMALY’, followed by what looks like the Extinction Rebellion symbol. It’s been there a while and I’ve no idea what it means. I’m guessing it’s not a cryptic crossword clue.
On the left, on the site of what is now Iceland, was once another major coaching inn, the Green Man.
Once you’ve negotiated the piles of rubbish and bags of donations outside the charity shop, the walk up Green Man Passage to Waitrose is a pleasant one, with a variety of high back-garden fences on the right and the church and nursery on the left.
Along the road from Waitrose a fascinating building dominates the corner of Drayton Green Road. Wilton House is a former warehouse built 120 years ago. Twenty years ago it was converted into residential apartments.
Up the road from here is the Drayton Green Hotel. Bizarrely, Ho Chi Minh worked in its kitchen in 1914. Exactly 100 years later, my wife and I got married there (but not in the kitchen).
A stroll back down Drayton Green Road takes you back to the Broadway by Dean Gardens. The bus stop says the Lido, which isn’t a swimming pool – though it was once a cinema, then a bingo hall, then a snooker hall and finally a cinema again. Now it’s offices and flats.
If you were to venture south, down Northfield Avenue, you’d pass by the wonderful Northfields Allotments, London’s oldest. It’s a visual treat from the upper deck of an E3 bus.
East of Dean Gardens there are restaurants and pubs, a topic for another time maybe. Soon after, the Broadway becomes the Uxbridge Road again, flowing into Ealing Broadway and all points towards the towers of London.
If you’d like to find out more about Hanwell and West Ealing, local historian David Blackwell has a fascinating collection of books, maps and photos, old and new, of Hanwell and neighbouring areas. They are on display at Hanwell Library on the first Saturday of each month from 10am to 3pm.
Around Hanwell and up the allotment 
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