Borough in London, England
Hounslow
Hounslow is where Britain's maps began, where the world's first daily international air service took off in 1919, and where the Bees now play in the top flight.
Key information
- County
- Greater London (west London)
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 288,000, 2021 Census
- Area
- roughly 56 square kilometres
- Known for
- Heathrow's flight paths, Hounslow Heath, Syon House, Chiswick House, the Great West Road factories
- Famous people
- William Hogarth, Lord Burlington, General William Roy, Dick Turpin (by legend)
- Football clubs
- Brentford (the Bees)
About Hounslow
The heath where Britain's map was pinned down
In 1784, General William Roy and his team laid out a precise baseline across Hounslow Heath, measuring it with glass rods and steel chains. It was the starting point for the Principal Triangulation of Britain, the survey that led to the Ordnance Survey. The ends of the line were marked with old cannon, set into the ground. Surviving cannon markers can still be seen at Roy Grove in Hampton and beside Heathrow's Northern Perimeter Road, quiet reminders that every OS map you have ever folded started with this line. The heath had a darker reputation too. It was a wide, open, lonely stretch beside the busy Bath Road, which made it a favourite haunt of highwaymen. Dick Turpin is the name everyone attaches to it, and local legend has him lurking in the gorse.
A coaching town that learned to fly
Hounslow grew up as a stop on the road west. Stagecoaches changed horses here on the way to Bath and Bristol, and the high street was once lined with inns and stables. Cavalry barracks added to the bustle. Then the heath became a runway. A military flying ground opened there in 1914, and on 25 August 1919 an aircraft set off from Hounslow for Paris, the first daily international scheduled air service in the world. Heathrow later took over the job on a vastly bigger scale. Today the planes passing low overhead are part of Hounslow life. Locals barely look up, but visitors often stop mid-sentence.
Palaces, villas and a Palladian showpiece
Hounslow's grandest buildings are tucked beside suburban streets. Syon House, home of the Dukes of Northumberland, has interiors by Robert Adam that count among the finest of the 18th century. Osterley Park, also remodelled by Adam, is another country-house surprise in the suburbs. Chiswick House is the showstopper. Lord Burlington designed it in the 1720s as a Palladian villa inspired by his travels in Italy, and it kicked off a fashion for classical architecture across Britain. Its gardens are often described as an early birthplace of the English landscape garden. Nearby, the painter William Hogarth had his country retreat. His house on Hogarth Lane, now a museum, still has the mulberry tree in the garden.
The Golden Mile and the smell of hops
In the 1920s and 30s the Great West Road became a showcase of modern industry. Art deco factories lined the route, making everything from razor blades to tyres, and it earned the nickname the Golden Mile. Gillette Corner is the best-known landmark of that era, and its name still stands even as buildings have changed around it. Chiswick is also home to Fuller's Griffin Brewery, where beer has been brewed on the riverside site for centuries. The Fuller's name is on pub signs across London. Brentford adds an older layer of industry and war. Edmund Ironside fought Cnut here in 1016, and Royalist and Parliamentary troops clashed in the town in 1642.
Bees, bhangra and a multicultural high street
Brentford FC, the Bees, spent decades in the lower leagues before winning promotion to the Premier League through the play-off final at Wembley in 2021. Their stadium, which opened in 2020, sits beside the railway and the M4, with the Brentford Lock canal junction close by. Hounslow itself has one of the largest Punjabi Sikh communities in the country. Gurdwaras, sweet shops, Punjabi restaurants and bhangra clubs give the high street its character, and the smell of frying samosas and jalebi drifts around Hounslow West. For food, head for karahi dishes, tandoori grills and pakoras, followed by a sticky Indian sweet. Pubs on the Thames at Brentford and Chiswick offer a very different, riverside menu.