local history – Around Hanwell and up the allotment

A Hanwell walk 6 – down Boston Road to the tube station

William picked up his bundle of tools and left the new manor house at Sudhale. He trudged eastward along the Oxford Road, barely noticing the woods and common on either side, for his back ached terribly after a hard day’s wood carving. Approaching Hanewelle, he splashed through the shallow river, wishing the lord of the manor would repair the collapsed bridge. Then up the lonely hill to the corner of the path to Brentford. On this corner stood a huddle of small cottages. Some called this corner Tickill, William called it home…

Stand by the clock tower and reflect that this part of Hanwell was called Tickill on a map of 1680. Tickill Clock Tower. Has a certain ring to it. This is one of the busiest spots in Hanwell – the junction where Boston Road meets the Uxbridge Road. These days, shops and cafés are packed together here in busy density.

Boston Road is a one-way street. On the left-hand side, looking south, all is a hot spot of bustle and confusion. Until recently, in the now closed Fade To Black corner café, locals chatted and cappuccino steamed under the mini minaret. If you turned the corner too fast on leaving you risked colliding into the kid riding a bright red pedal car outside the Expresso kebab shop, for want of anywhere else to play. Or being jostled by those struggling to catch an E8 or 195 at Jessamine Road bus stop.

Fade to Black has re-opened, as Momentum. So you can get your fix of top-notch coffee once again, while perhaps catching up with the movement hoping to transform Labour…

Exploring the little yard just after the bus stop takes seconds – a cosy motor repair shop. Next up, Jessamine Road is dead-ended by the high brick wall of Lidl – its aspect less cosy. Maunder Road is a narrow meander; it looks dead-end, but isn’t.

Things are busy on the right-hand side, too, but the vibe is a bit calmer, the pavement wider. Mleczko on the corner and its endearing sign (Have you ever visit butchers downstairs?) used to be a branch of J Sainsbury 100 years ago. Big Bites is back. Hanwell Kebabs is still the best!

On this first stretch of the walk, these shops and businesses, and the flats above them, are a mix of mid-20th century and Victorian/Edwardian terraced buildings. They are now punctuated by the latest wave of new buildings, inspired by Crossrail, which will enable travel to and directly through London.

The vibe isn’t always calmer on this side though, you sometimes find an individual looking anxiously up at the flats above the parade of shops – sometimes shouting. First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait. There are some interesting little side-streets to slip down when the waiting’s over; the nearest being Wilmot Place. The disused phone box opposite is alos popular in this regard.

A good mix of the usual suspects can be found on this part of Boston Road: kebab shops and cafés, newsagents, hairdressers, dry cleaners, a florist and solicitors. But there are some eclectic and unusual premises, too: security and electronics businesses, a posh flooring shop and the Olive Orchard Boutique. Another shop has closed down since I last walked by a few days ago. All signage has been removed and already I can’t remember what kind of shop it used to be.

Next up, Seasons Close is gated housing, the entrance flanked by the Golden Chip fish and chip shop on one side and the Little Wonder bakery on the other. Both are run by the same family and both are marvellous. Good quality and friendly staff.

Londis near the bottom of this stretch used to be Costcutter. What it was before that, I don’t know, but the brand was originally known as London & District Stores. Lovely name. Ghost signs on the wall, above the buddeleia next to the wonderful Provender Mews, offer fading reminders of how things used to be, and how they change over time.

Next door is an arch leading to a lovely mews – Queen’s Terrace Cottages. Further down we have George Bone Tattoos, accountants, solicitors, the Dodo micropub, and a café-cum-florists called W7 Emporium.

Cottages opposite Provender Mews, with Hanwell Square in the background

Hanwell Square is a massive new residential development on the site of the old Wickes. The building looks like it’s nearly finished and residents will soon be moving in. High-earning young professionals will spend their golden handshakes on rooftop sundowners while enjoying the bullet point benefits of state-of-the-art apartments, shops and cafés, landscaped courtyard, charming locals and prime access to Crossrail/Heathrow/M4. They probably won’t worry about possible new-build scope creep tactics… This might be the third main wave of building expansion over the centuries, but this time it’s on land previously built on.

Perhaps the new residents will try out the two old-boy pubs nearby on the fork of Boston Road and Lower Boston Road: the Prince of Wales (which used to be the Pig) and the Village Inn (which used to be the Royal Victoria). They won’t know about the wonderful Horseshoe Café that used to be next door, now a crammed in new build/conversion. Maybe they’ll hang out at Ben Scooters, everyone else seems to.

Ben Scooters. Usually busier than the adjacent pubs

They will likely enjoy the Hanwell Hootie, which takes place every year in pubs and other venues all over Hanwell, and especially here on Boston and Lower Boston Roads.

A map of 1786 shows Boston Road as a lane to Brentford with very few buildings (Park Farm perhaps, which was occupied as early as the 13th century). By 1816, there were a few cottages at the junction with Lower Boston Road, and by now all remaining land to the north of Park Farm had been enclosed.

The catalyst for the first main wave of building expansion in Hanwell was the development of rail travel, when the Great Western Railway opened in 1838, crossing the Brent valley on Wharncliffe Viaduct. In the 1870s and 1880s, large-scale building began and by 1894 the area between the railway and Studley Grange Road was dense housing and not a lot else.

This area is known (especially by estate agents) as Olde Hanwell and also extends up the Lower Boston Road and down to the Fox, where the River Brent meets the Grand Union Canal. The whole length of Boston Road, by now two-way, is generally flat, though most of the side streets on the right slope gently down to the canal.

On Boston Road itself, Nissan Westway is making way for yet more third-wave residential new builds – the young lad in me used to like seeing the big car transporters. Next on the left is the ambulance station; handy for Ealing Hospital. After that an Access self storage place. For some reason I really like these, even though the hedge in front of this one reeks heavily of fox.

Can you see Osterley Park from here? I can’t

Meanwhile, on the right-hand side as you continue south, you pass the tops of Rosebank Road, Osterley Park View Road (which has a view, but not of Osterley Park as far as I can tell) and Studley Grange Road. Late 19th century terraced houses, I’d say. These side roads are narrow, or maybe the cars these days are wide – in places they nudge up onto the pavement. Until about 20 years ago this area was dotted with small factories. A map of 1865, 27 years after the railway arrived, shows Boston Road built-up as far down as here, with gravel pits and Park Farm further down. By 1920, there were allotments in between the gravel pits.

Back on the other side of the road, Tools4Trade used to be the Red Lion pub, and a tricky little mini roundabout by the junction of Cambridge Road, leads to the Royal Mail Sorting Office and one of Hanwell’s dismantled but still operational LTNs.

Then the shop on the corner that still (I think) occasionally distributes groceries to those who can’t afford regular shops, and used to be an antiques shop called Studio something. A few doors down, Iverson’s Tyres/MOTs is now Halfords.

At this point, moving south away from Hanwell Broadway, the architecture of the houses changes from Victorian/Edwardian to a more modern style. For in the 1930s, the second main wave of building expansion started with Humes Avenue and continued all the way down the Boston Road. Indeed, most of the south of Hanwell was covered with streets and houses by 1932. Humes Avenue is home to the wonderful Humes Avenue Garage that does a great job and doesn’t rip you off. The area bounded by Studley Grange Road, Boston Road and Townholm Crescent was once gravel pits, all the way down to the canal. Indeed, Humes Avenue is named after Thomas Hume, physician to the Duke of Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars. He later lived nearby and built a wharf to load gravel onto barges bound for London.

At the top of Humes Avenue is South Hanwell Baptist Church and the wooden scout hut of a church hall adjacent. Then a tile shop with a tatty flat atop – the shop was once a petrol station. Behind these is an estate of flats – Lambourne Close.

We pass the top of the delightful Trumpers Way. Not always easy as we dodge the frequent sudden appearance of Getir scooters trying to get-there. As we hope to as well in a future post. Well worth exploring.

Then Boston Hotel used to include an Indian restaurant that’s now Kone Japanese restaurant. We’ve been in once and have also ordered a good few takeaways – highly recommended. A few more shops, a multi-cuisine takeaway and a couple of hairdressers. Opposite, across the zebra crossing you have a shop, another hairdressers and a petrol station that’s handy for the late-for-workers and the live fast/die young brigade, who find it impossible to observe the 20mph speed limit. I guess we all do at times.

More thirties semis on the right, including Townholm Crescent which, like Humes Avenue have the solid look of old council houses and are set on wider roads than Olde Hanwell. Just don’t let anyone hear you call it Molde Hanwell.

Halfway houses, their denizens and a paint shop haunt the left before the turning into Oaklands Road. In 1886, the remains of sixth century Saxon warriors were found on the site of what is now Oaklands Primary School. After the turning is Hanwell House, a residential care home next to the Cumberland Road bus stop.

In the 19th century a glacial erratic, or Sarsen stone, was found in the area of what is now Townholm Crescent, in a place where you wouldn’t normally expect to find a large flat boulder about five feet long. It was deposited at the end of the last Ice Age as the ice melted and retreated. There it stayed until house-building started on Townholm Crescent, when it was moved by builders. It now resides just by the main gates of Elthorne Park.

To think that 12,000 years ago this area was all covered by a thick sheet of ice. In more modern times it was all heathland, then farmland. Until a couple of hundred years ago, Boston Road was a lonely lane connecting Brentford to Hanwell. There were very few buildings of any sort.

Elthorne Park was opened in 1910. It has a bandstand, joggers and dog walkers, and people who do Tai Chi in the early morning. The Hanwell Carnival float parade ends here, and the many participants and onlookers wander among the stalls and rides, no doubt waiting to see which pooch would steal the dog show. And talking of winners, the school next door was attended by Lioness Chloe Kelly.

According to Eric Leach, the first known evidence of human occupation in Hanwell is Paleaolithic flints discovered in gravel pits opposite Elthorne Avenue in 1910. This means the first Hanwellites settled here any time between about 500,000 years ago and about 11,000 years ago.

Nearby, St Thomas church hall sometimes shows films. The front porch sags in the middle. Or maybe it’s meant to look like that. The church next door is imposing, but I can never decide if it’s handsome, too. It does have a flagpole, and a flag of St George (usually).

The house on the corner must be proud of its collection of street furniture

At this point on the walk south, the almost-semis start getting larger, and more spaced out on both sides of the now-tree-lined road. Few of them have front lawns, most are paved.

The Royal Harvester. No silver service, but it’s OK you know

Otherwise, there’s not much to distract, on a stretch that always goes on further than you expect it to. Until you get to the Royal, that is. The Royal Harvester is one of our locals and used to be called the Royal Hotel.

The Royal Hotel. I’d guess in the mid-1930s?

Back in the day, it had a restaurant offering silver service. Nowadays, it’s Harvester Fayre, including a cheeky little mac’n’cheese.

The old off licence behind the Royal is now a plant and flower shop.

Opposite is the grassy southern entrance to Elthorne Park leading to the top of the wooded lane that goes down to the canal.

Back on the left, we have the Royal pub garden (squint and pretend you’re on your holidays).

Then, some 60s/70s maisonettes…

and last but not least, a shopping parade of miscellany a bit further down, including the lovely Nepal, Sainsbury’s, a café-cum-post office, a coffee shop, takeaways and the inevitable hairdressers. Somewhere near here, as if anticipating the tube station, the road name changes from Boston Road to Boston Manor Road. I don’t know exactly where, nor why.

Across the road, you have a car repair station that has an art deco feel to it. A little further down, opposite the tube station, there’s a small office block. 1970s I’d guess. It’s called Boundary House and is home to a branch of Airivo serviced offices – your space your way.

Bet there’s a great view of the railway tracks from the top

And if you peep round the back, you get a wonderful view of the back end of Northfields Underground Depot with its massed ranks of trains parallel to the Piccadilly Line. From the top of the office block you could imagine a sort of steel bouquet: the train tracks behind the fence as flower stalks and the row of train fronts as red-bottomed flower heads.

Boston Manor station is a portal to escape – the Piccadilly line runs south west from central London down to Heathrow. It was first opened in 1883 as Boston Road station.

Boston Road station

The current station building opened in 1934, coinciding with the second wave of building expansion. It was designed by Charles Holden, and is more eye-catching than most of the work he did for London Transport. You may know the pub by Collier’s Wood tube station that’s named after him.

The station front semi-circular concession still features the Cup of Joe Coffee Shop signage, but the shop itself is long closed. A forlorn hand-written note in the window says ‘face masks for sale inside’.

I’d read about the Hanwell Gospel Oak that was supposed to be near here, and a couple of years ago spent a lockdown exercise hour in search of it. It’s just as well social distancing prevented me asking anyone for directions. It turns out said oak lay beside the road just to the north of where the tube station is now until around 1928. Instead, we now have what I call the nettle pit, a gap down the side of the tube station, also just to the north. For most of the year, it’s full of what must be very tall nettles. Perhaps in years gone by the local magistrate might have punished minor transgressions by ordering the miscreant to be ‘Cast into the Nettle Pit!’

So the walk packs more in than you might have thought, for such a short stretch of average suburban London street. All compressed in time when you consider millions of years ago when it was molten rock, then sea, swamp and glacier, and more recently woodland, heath and river. And now it’s on its way to becoming beige, a clean brushed-brick Crossrail new-build beige.

If you’d like to find out more about Hanwell, 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. On the third Saturday of each month the display is more about Ealing in general.

You might be interested in these other blog posts about Hanwell…

Walk out to winter (on parallel paths)

Hanwell during lockdown

LTN boxes and bollards

Introduction of LTNs during lockdown

Hanwell Square! Oh yeah!

The new development

From heaven’s gate to prison gate

A walk down High Lane, Hanwell

Hanwell’s rubbish

Litter and fly-tipping

Hanwell Hootie – what a beauty!

The local music festival

Brunel in Hanwell – Wharncliffe Viaduct

A special place

A Hanwell walk – 1

From Hanwell Broadway to West Ealing

A Hanwell walk – 2

More of a West Ealing walk, really

A Hanwell walk 4 – heading east through West Ealing

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.

‘KwikFit on the corner when the lights are going down and I’ll be there, I promise I’ll be there… ’

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.

J. Sanders Depositary and Furniture Storage

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.

Northfields Allotments from the upper deck

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.

A Hanwell walk 2 – Hanwell Broadway heading east

The Clock Tower and the café of the same name just behind

If Hanwell has a proper centre it must be Hanwell Clock Tower, built in 1937 to mark the coronation of King George VI. Though modest as clock towers go, it has a certain appeal. It’s also popular – messages and tokens of sympathy and encouragement are occasionally found here, though sometimes it seems the clock tower itself could do with a bit of TLC.

Hanwell Clock Tower stands on a wide stretch of pavement by the crossroads, a nodal point where Boston Road and Cherington Road meet Hanwell Broadway. Beyond the clock tower is an imposing façade behind which Domino’s Pizza once kneaded and baked, but is now boarded up. I believe it was once a branch of Barclays bank. Next door is the ever-popular Clocktower Café, a nice spot on a sunny day.

Cherington Road starts with a few shops, one of which is Plaza Pianos, for all things piano, a nod to Hanwell’s musical heritage. A little further along is Hanwell Library, which re-opened in June 2021 as a volunteer-led initiative after Ealing Council passed over its day-to-day running to the local community in 2019. The exterior was used as the police station in the film Carry On Constable in 1960. Funny really, because there is/was a real police station just around the corner.

The route east from here comprises three sections of the Uxbridge Road (aka the A4020): Hanwell Broadway, then what some call Cemetery Stretch, and finally West Ealing Broadway. In the Middle Ages, the route we now call the Uxbridge Road was one of the two main ones running west from London, and used to be known as the Oxford Road turnpike. The other, more southerly route, followed an old Roman road that ran in part along what is now Brentford High Street.

Hanwell Broadway

Hanwell Broadway isn’t particularly broad and its way isn’t long, a couple of hundred yards perhaps, but it does pack a lot in. In the heyday of the horse, it boasted two coaching inns where horses, drivers and passengers could rest and get refreshment. The Kings Arms (originally the Spencer Arms) was rebuilt in 1930, and around the same time so was the nearby Duke of York. For some years the latter was in decline. The signage outside had been reduced to a mere –KE of –O– and street drinkers occupied the benches nearby. It’s great to see that under the new management the sign has been restored to its former glory and the street drinkers have moved elsewhere. Might be worth a visit to see what’s now on offer inside.

Signage now restored to its previous grandeur

Many will know that in 1960 Jim Marshall, a drummer and drum teacher, opened a shop in Hanwell in what is now Tony’s Barbers. This is commemorated by a plaque on the pavement outside. Jim started off selling drums, and then included guitars. Several customers, including The Who’s Pete Townshend, said they were looking for a guitar amp that was louder than the UK models available at the time, but not as expensive as the more powerful American imports.

So, in 1962, Jim set up Marshall Amplification. With the help of Dudley Craven and Ken Bran, he built the box of tricks that produced the world-famous Marshall sound: a distorted wail with a distinctive crunch. Hanwell became the Home of Loud.

In 1963, the Makers of Loud moved across the road to bigger premises and from then on business boomed. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton (who went to school with my aunt, doncha know), Jimmy Page and Ronnie Wood were soon using Marshall gear. And the ultimate accolade – yes, it’s a Marshall amp that gets turned up to 11 in This Is Spinal Tap.

The move across the road is marked by a blue plaque above Hanwell Halal Meat & Groceries, on the corner of Cherington Road, which was a once a branch of Taplin’s Ladieswear shops. The need for yet bigger premises led Marshall to reluctantly move out of Hanwell in 1967, though some of their famous rock musician clients may well have returned to look at luxury motors when Hanwells Bentley and Rolls-Royce specialists opened in 1975.

Jim Marshall died in 2012. The following year the first Hanwell Hootie was held, and has been held each year since, though for the past couple of years it’s been affected by you-know-what. The Hootie is a one-day music festival in which live music events continue throughout the day in a host of small venues (mostly pubs).

Who remembers trolley-buses? This one’s just by Hanwell Bus Garage, in 1961

Behind the posh car emporium there’s a Lidl and Poundstretcher, with a handy car park adjacent. This was once Hanwell Bus Garage, that closed in 1993 – On The Buses no more.

You might notice other plaques on the pavements and litter bins featuring the Hanwell phoenix. Does anyone know the story behind this emblem?

Hanwell Broadway has a good selection of shops and eateries. There are no outstanding restaurants, but no chains or franchises either, that I’m aware of, which is no bad thing. On the north side of Hanwell Broadway, the stand out stores for me are Hanwell Fishmonger, the indie local gift shop and the Post Office. Further along you have Lavin’s Bar, which opens at 9am, and our local pharmacy.

On the south side corner with Boston Road, the Fade To Black corner café is a coffee specialist with a double hit of community feel and mini minaret (the latter on the top of the building). The Hong Kong Garden Chinese takeaway was a great favourite until it closed. I found it impossible not to quietly hum the Siouxsie & The Banshees song of the same name while waiting to collect my chicken chow mein and chop suey.

A few years ago there was a very good Indian restaurant on Hanwell Broadway called Bawarchi. The owner, Balbir, was a great guy. We miss him, and his delicious seafood mix starter. When he sold up, the premises became a Polish restaurant. In an inspired piece of repurposing the new owners kept all the furniture and signage, simply changing a few letters on the shop front so it reads Bawaro. Now there’s a new sign announcing Bistro U Kucharzy – European Cousine (sic). Must visit sometime.

Near the end of the southern stretch is Gold’s Gym. It has the usual facilities, plus a swimming pool, sauna and steam rooms, and a pleasant smell. At least, it did when I used to go there. The site was once home to J Alsfords, one of the busiest timber yards in west London. Sawn wood is another lovely smell.

On the corner of the Broadway and St George’s Road is Our Lady & St Joseph Church. It was originally built in 1864 for the hundreds of Irish navvies working on grand projects like Brunel’s Wharncliffe Viaduct, and the Windmill Bridge complex over towards Southall. Up till then the nearest Roman Catholic church was miles away, in Hammersmith, I believe. Said to have been a charming traditional Victorian structure, the original St Joseph’s was demolished in 1963 and eventually replaced by the current building, described by Nicholas Pevsner as ‘a horrible jagged outline of concrete dormers’. I quite like it.

Cemetery Stretch

The new-ish mini-roundabout at the eastern end of Hanwell Broadway announces a quieter stretch of the Uxbridge Road in terms of atmosphere, if not traffic volumes. It has a muted feel with its two cemeteries and its new and not-so-new houses and flats.

On the right (naturally) is the Conservative Club, a members-only social club with a bar, garden and small hall. It holds events such as bingo, darts, ukulele and quiz nights.

Next door is the first of the cemeteries, Hanwell Cemetery, which used to be called City of Westminster Cemetery. By the entrance is a lovely old lodge of stone, next to a yew tree, and there are many conifers among the graves, tombs and statues throughout.

The entrance to the second cemetery is a bit further along on the left-hand side, past Azalea Close and Aria Mews as you head east. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Cemetery also has an old stone lodge by the entrance, and a hedge-lined avenue draws you towards the chapel and the paths that weave around the memorial statues, tall trees and headstones.

The cemeteries are both fascinating and peaceful. All is still but there is much activity all the same. Mourners and gardeners go quietly about their business. Many graves have partially subsided and have leaning gravestones; a lot of work must go into maintaining them and the grounds around. The Hanwell cemeteries will be the subject of a future article.

Wish they’d let me in so I could find out what’s behind the tree door…

A little further along, one of the trees that line the pavement has what looks like a door. On the opposite side of the road Michael Gaynor Close/Barchester Close is a modern-ish estate of flats. Does anyone know who Michael Gaynor is/was? I can’t find any information about him. Does he live behind the tree door?

Next time – the walk continues into West Ealing…