Old Isleworth
Historical

ISLEWORTH, a parish in the hundred of the same name, county Middlesex, 8 miles W. of Hyde Park corner, and 1 S.W. of Brentford. It is situated on the river Thames, and is a station on the South-Western railway. It contains Brentford End, Smallbury Green, Wyke Green, and parts of Hounslow and Whitton.
In Domesday survey it is written Gistelesworde. Prior to the Norman Conquest the manor belonged to Earl Algar, from whom it passed to Walter de St. Vallery, and subsequently to Richard, king of the Romans, who built a castle here. Simon de Montfort encamped here in 1266. It was anciently celebrated for a monastery called the Monastery of Sion, of the order of St. Bridget of Sweden, originally founded at Twickenham in 1414 by Henry V., but removed to this place in 1432, the revenue of which at the Dissolution was £1,944 119. 8d. The site was granted by Edward VI. to Edward Duke of Somerset, Lord. Protector, who erected the mansion of Sion House, but in the reign of Mary the convent was refounded for an abbess and nuns. In the following reign it was again suppressed, and continued vested in the crown till the reign of James I., when it was given to Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, and is now the property of the present duke. The custom of borough-English prevails in this manor. The village, which consists of one principal street, occupies a situation on the north side of the river Thames, and is lighted with gas, and paved. A considerable part of the parish is laid out in market gardens, which produce large quantities of strawberries, raspberries, and other fruit for the London market. There are an extensive brewery, cement works, and a corn-mill, believed to be one of the largest in England. The Brentford union workhouse is situated in this parish. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of London, value £681, in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. The church, dedicated to All Saints, was built from a design of Sir Christopher Wren, and has an ivy-mantled tower containing a peal of eight bells, belonging to a more ancient structure. In the interior are several monuments, two brasses (one to Chase, bearing date 1544), also effigies of Darcey and Devaux. There is also a district church at Woodlands, dedicated to St. John, the living of which is a perpetual curacy* in the patronage of the vicar. It was erected by subscription on a piece of land given by the Duke of Northumberland; and adjoining it are a parsonage, school, and twelve almshouses, all three built by the late John Farnell, Esq., and the two latter endowed by him. The charities produce £1,903 per annum, of which £551 goes to schools, £826 to almshouses-viz: Tolson's, Ingram's, Bell's, Sermon's, and Farnell's, £325 is dispensed by the Board of Feoffees, and the rest is appropriated to several small charities. There are chapels for Independents, Wesleyans, Quakers, and Roman Catholics, which last have also a school attached to the convent. There are five schools in this parish-viz, three endowed National schools for boys, girls, and infants, a greencoat school, and a new school at Brentford End. There are many seats in the neighbourhood, among which may be mentioned Sion House, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. It is situated in the midst of a park, through which there is a fine walk. The mansion was originally erected by the Protector Somerset on the site of the old monastery, but has been subsequently considerably altered and enlarged under the superintendence of Inigo Jones. It is a spacious quadrangular and embattled structure, with towers at the angles. There is a tradition of a subterranean passage under the bed of the river Thames communicating with Kew gardens. This seat was the place selected by the parliament for the residence of the children of Charles I., while under the care of the Countess of Northumberland. Gordon House, the residence of Judge Haliburton, the author of "Sam Slick," Isleworth House, Sion Hill, Wyke House, and Silver Hall, are the other principal seats. Keate, who wrote the account of the Pelew Islands, was a native of this place. Among the residents were Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland, the Countess of Sutherland, the "Sacharissa" of Waller, Talbot Duke of Shrewsbury, the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I., and Sheridan. A fair is held on the first Monday in July.

The Isleworth hundred

The manor of Isleworth is rubricated in Domesday Book as lying in the hundred of Hounslow. The geographical identity of the hundred and manor of Isleworth seems to have been responsible for a good deal of confusion about the ownership of the hundred.  the hundred belonged to Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. It had escheated to Henry III as lands of a Norman, Robert de Dreux, and subsequently Henry had granted the manor to his own brother, Richard of Cornwall: 1389 the servants of Queen Anne, who then held Isleworth, were being made to account for the hundred at the Exchequer, Henry V's grant of Isleworth to Syon Abbey in 1421 included hundreds and wapentakes among a list of many appurtenances, but there is no evidence that Syon ever held the hundred, which may indeed have already been worth very little. No references have been found to its court or its value after the 14th century. The abbey was, however, granted the right in 1492 to appoint a coroner for the 'manor, lordship and hundred' of Isleworth. No grants of the manor after the Dissolution included the hundred, and in the early 17th century it shared a bailiff with Spelthorne. Though, like the other hundreds, it survived as an administrative unit under its own constable until the 19th century, it was for some, mainly fiscal, purposes, grouped with Spelthorne and Elthorne.  Glover described Syon House as being 'honoured as the mansion of the hundred and the residence of the Earl of Northumberland' and referred to the bailiff of the manor as bailiff of the hundred.

Syon House

a three-storied structure of brick with some ashlar facings, square angle-turrets, and flat, lead-covered roofs surmounted by battlements, is built round a central, open courtyard about 80 feet square, and stands at an oblique angle to the Thames on the north of the village of Isleworth. Described in the 19th century as 'one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the county of Middlesex' and in the 20th as able to 'hold its own with the lesser palaces of the Continent', Syon came into the possession of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, on his marriage in 1594, and is the last of the great country houses in the environs of London to remain in the occupation of its ancestral owners.
The site was formerly occupied by the Abbey of the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, the English Bridgettines. The community obtained the royal licence to remove from the site in the old manorial park (later Twickenham Park) which had been granted it at its establishment in 1415 and the foundation stone was laid on 5 February 1426. By the foundation charter of 1415 the abbey was to be composed of an abbess and 59 nuns, with 25 religious men, of whom 13 were to be priests, 4 deacons, and 8 laymen.  The Bridgettines moved to Isleworth on 11 November 1431 In the absence of any adequate archaeological investigation or of the survival of any considerable documentary record, the layout of the abbey is not clearly known. The ancient boundary of the abbey grounds is recorded in a deed of composition of 1474, but no description is known to be extant of the buildings and little medieval work is incorporated in the present house. The west range contains two rooms, of two and three bays respectively, which formed part of the 15th-century undercroft of the abbey, and in dry weather foundations may be traced beneath the turf of the lawns to the east and south At the time of the reconstruction of the north range in 1824, a flight of stone steps and a passage were found beneath the basement floor between the servants' hall and the steward's room, while the thirteen enriched oak panels dating from c. 1530, one of which bears the initials H.P. and the Percy badges and motto, in the duke's study on the first floor of the east range, have clearly been brought from elsewhere.
Syon Abbey was suppressed in November 1539 and the buildings were allowed to fall into some decay, though they were used as a place of confinement for Queen Katherine Howard from 14 November 1541 to 10 February 1542. When the body of Henry VIII rested a night in the chapel on its way from Westminster to Windsor on 14 February 1547 special renovation was necessary. The Duke of Somerset, to whom Syon was granted in 1547, was responsible for the conversion of the monastic buildings into a Tudor mansion in substantially the form of the present house; the angle-turrets, with the exception of that at the north-west corner, are, though refaced externally, all of 16th-century brick and two very richly carved Gothic doorways were discovered between the first and second windows of each of the towers in the west range at the reconstruction of the house in 1824. Under Mary the Bridgettine community, though depleted by death and desertion during years of exile, re-formed at Syon and the rebuilding of two sides of the monastery, which had been pulled down, was undertaken at the expense of Sir Francis Englefield. One of the first Acts of Elizabeth's reign dissolved the few monastic houses which had been restored by Mary, and the house again returned to the Crown. It appears to have been little used until Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, secured the lease in 1594. Elizabeth I is known to have paid four brief visits to Syon between 1576 and 1594, but none of them lasted more than a few hours The court was the scene of two remarkable events in the first years of the reign of James I. These were the presentation of William Percy's 'The Faery Pastorall' on the occasion of the king's visit on 8 June 1603, when the earl spent some £364 19s. on a banquet, and the conversation between the earl and his confidential servant, Thomas Percy, on 4 November 1605, which was used as evidence of the earl's implication in the Gunpowder Treason.
The household accounts of the 9th Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632) survive almost intact and make it clear that he executed only minor repairs during the first decade of his occupation, but undertook a major reconstruction after James I had granted the freehold to him in 1604.  By 1613 the earl was able to claim that he had spent £9,000 on the estate and that 'the house itself, if it were to be pulled down and sold by view of workmen, would come to £8,000. If any man, the best husband in building, should raise such another in the same place, £20,000 would not do it'. (Footnote 11) Between 1604 and 1606 alone, the earl spent more than £3,000 on Syon House. Stone fireplaces were put in all the main rooms, windows renewed in many, the principal chambers fretted and wainscotted, and part of the brick buildings pulled down and rebuilt. A new brick wall to the west of the brickhouse (presumably the kitchen) was erected, which may be identified with the wall now dividing the west lawn from the stable-yard, and the two lodges in front of the west lawn were built (see plate facing p. 90). These lodges, recorded in 1872 as formerly occupied by the bailiff and gate-porter, have been refaced but retain some original two-light windows, and the north lodge has some original doors and panelling. A further £1,903 15s. 8d. was spent in the years 1607-13 to provide, in addition to minor works, a new suite of rooms for the countess including a bath-house which was fully equipped, a new set of stairs for the hall, and a number of outbuildings, including a coach-house, a brewhouse, and a laundry. In 1609 work was in hand on the battlementing of the house and on the paving of the courtyard, and in 1616-19 new stables were built at the north-west of the main house and an 'evidence house' fitted with wainscot presses was constructed to the north of the house. (Footnote 14) Some of the outbuildings to the north of the house contain work from about this period.
The extent of the 9th earl's work was such that for more than a century his successors as owners of Syon were able to dispense with major repairs and rebuilding. The colonnade at the base of the east front, reputedly the work of Inigo Jones, was added in the time of the 10th Earl of Northumberland (d. 1668), and the date formerly on the rain-heads of the house, 1659, indicates that he also carried out a restoration of the plumbing. (Footnote 16) The younger children of Charles I were in the custody of the 10th earl at Syon in 1646 and 1647 and the king saw much of them both there and at Hampton Court during his imprisonment in the palace. Charles, Duke of Somerset (d. 1748), refurnished the house but had no occasion to rebuild at Syon as he did at Petworth. He also had a royal guest in the house: in 1692 he allowed the Princess Anne to use Syon as a temporary residence; a famous altercation between Queen Mary and her sister occurred there on 17 April.
Sir Hugh Smithson, later 1st Duke of Northumberland, who succeeded to Syon in 1750, employed the brothers Adam at Syon between 1762 and 1769, and executed the most important of all Syon's restorations. Robert Adam has recorded: 'Some inequality in the levels on the old floors, some limitations from the situation of the old walls, and some want of additional heights to the enlarged apartments, were the chief difficulties with which I had to struggle.' The floor of the hall is considerably lower than that of the other apartments, but this is concealed cleverly at the north end by a great apse with a door which hides a flight of steps and at the south by a recess screened by Doric columns within which steps rise to the ante-room door. The hall, decorated in black and white, has a strong architectural treatment inspired by the work of Piranesi (see plate facing p. 100); the ante-room, by contrast, is the most richly coloured of Adam's rooms which survive, with verd-antique columns, gilt Ionic capitals and statuettes, an entablature with a honeysuckle frieze on a blue ground, gilded trophies on the walls, and the whole reflected in a polished scagliola floor, one of the earliest uses of the material in England. The hall is almost of double cube proportions (66 feet by 31 by 34 high); the anteroom is actually 30 feet wide by 36 feet long, but by standing the columns away from the south wall Adam created the effect of a square room. He heightened the state rooms along the south wing, but retained their other proportions. The diningroom, finished in stucco and adorned with statues in place of damask or tapestry that it might 'not retain the smell of the victuals', is some 66 feet long but only 21 feet high and wide; for picturesqueness, he placed apses at each end, with ornamented halfdomes and screens of columns. Where white and gold predominate in the dining-room (the deep colouring of the statue niches was not part of Adam's plan), the red drawing-room is a profusion of rich colour, with plum-red Spitalfields silk damask on the walls, a specially designed carpet executed by Thomas Moore of Moorfields in 1769 on the floor, and an elaborate ceiling with wooden medallions painted by Cipriani. This replaced the original plan for a simpler ceiling in white and gold to match the pattern of the carpet, as so many of Adam's ceilings match the floors. The fireplace of this room was made to Adam's designs by Matthew Boulton; both this and the ivory pilasters of the Spanish mahogany doorcases are decorated in ormolu. The doors of all the rooms on the south wing's principal floor are so placed that a vista of the entire front may be obtained when they are open. In the long gallery Adam contented himself with a masterly redecoration which has been acclaimed his greatest work; he described it as 'finished in a style to afford great variety and amusement'. The ceiling is set out with circles down its length of 136 feet; each circle is held in an octagonal framework separated from the next by a square. Horizontal unity is achieved by cross-lines which tend to expand the apparent width of a room which is in fact no more than 14 feet wide and high; vertical unity is given by a series of 62 pilasters painted by Pergolesi. Secret closets open from the gallery at either end.
The plans which Adam made for the conversion of the north range and for the building of a central rotunda or great circular saloon in the courtyard were never carried out. The 3rd Duke of Northumberland (d. 1847) restored the house in 1824, providing a corridor along the north range to give access to the private apartments there, adding the portico entrance on the west front, building a riding school and constructing in the grounds a conservatory, with a dome of more than 60 feet and a frontage of 380 feet, to the designs of Charles Fowler. His brother, the 4th duke (d. 1865), redecorated the private apartments in the north range (the breakfast-room, dining-room, and green drawing-room), as well as the print room which leads directly out of the long gallery, giving each a richly embellished ceiling from the design of Monteroli; the work was carried out by Charles Smith of Upper Baker Street in 1863-4. The only other notable development in modern times was the removal of a fine chimney-piece of 'Bossi' inlay and ormolu to the green drawing-room, and of the Percy lion after the model of Michelangelo to the roof of the east front, both brought from Northumberland House, Charing Cross, at the time of its demolition in 1874.
Adam's decorations provided an admirable background for the social life of the first duchess, a favourite of Queen Charlotte, and her household books survive to give testimony to the lavishness of her hospitality, but perhaps the most outstanding reception of royalty at Syon occurred in the time of the 3rd duke, when William IV came on 31 July 1832. It was a time of popular demonstration over the parliamentary Reform Bill but the king was given a remarkable welcome both by the people of Isleworth and by the duke
The park surrounding Syon House attained to its present size of 208 acres between the 16th and 19th centuries. At the Dissolution the wall round the abbey enclosed 30 acres of orchards and gardens. On the river side the wall followed approximately the line of the present ha-ha. (Footnote 27) Outside the wall, nearly all the land south of the London Road belonged to the manorial estate by the early 17th century. ) In 1445 the abbey was said to have enclosed over 80 acres of meadow and pasture, at least part of which probably lay in this area. The Earl of Northumberland purchased land in Syon Field, between the house and church, in 1604; the whole field belonged to him and was enclosed by 1607. Much of the present park, however, was leased at this time, and Lion Farm (formerly an inn, later Syon Farm) stood midway between the house and the London Road.Lion Farm stood beside Syon Lane, which then extended south of the London Road towards the house, turning westwards opposite the farm and curving towards Isleworth church, while a drive ran from the turning to the house
The laying-out of the formal gardens within the wall round the house is traditionally attributed to the naturalist Dr. William Turner (d. 1568), whose Names of Herbes (1548) was dated at Syon; Turner was chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset and is said to have planted the mulberry trees by the east front. Somerset was responsible for the building of a high triangular terrace, the remains of which are still visible in a mound planted with cedars to the south-east of the house. ) The terrace and two orchards are shown clearly on the map of 1607 and there was an avenue of trees along the drive to Syon Lane; the 9th Earl of Northumberland is known to have carried out considerable garden works, including the planting of avenues to the south of the house. The Duke of Somerset (d. 1748) planted more trees along the drive to Syon Farm and perhaps made the drive from Brentford End. The 1st Duke of Northumberland employed 'Capability' Brown at Syon from 1767 to 1773, but had already accomplished many alterations within the grounds before this time. By 1761 he had demolished the garden walls, levelled the triangular terrace, and turned the gardens into a lawn bounded by a ha-ha. He planted shrubberies stocked with many foreign trees to the south and north of the house, erected a column (then surmounted by a statue of Flora) in the north shrubbery or botanical garden, and made the lake there. Brown must have been principally concerned with the west side of the park. The changes made while he was employed included the closing of part of Syon Lane, which was replaced by the present Park Road, which leaves the London Road farther west and runs south to where, about two-thirds of the way to the church, it joins the old line of Syon Lane. Syon Farm was pulled down, another lake was made, and a new drive was laid out. This crossed the lake by a bridge designed by Adam in 1768 and ended at the great gateway and screen built to Adam's designs in 1773. The pavilion or boat-house was built by James Wyatt at this time. The 3rd duke, who built the conservatory and other outbuildings, made the last important changes in the grounds. He redesigned the garden round the conservatory, introducing the large basin and fountain, acquired and later demolished the house by the London Road called Little Syon, and employed Richard Forrest to supervise the restoration of the botanical garden, adding many rare and tropical trees and shrubs to those already planted, so that by the middle of the 19th century Syon was noted horticultural.

Markets and fairs

In 1231 Richard of Cornwall was granted the right to hold a Thursday market and a two-day fair in Whit week at his manor of Isleworth.  The profits of this market do not seem to be accounted for in the manorial accounts which begin in the late 13th century, nor were a market and fair later conveyed with the manor.
There were pleasure fairs at Isleworth in July and at Heston in May during the 19th century The Isleworth fair still survived, in spite of efforts to stop it, in 1909, and was rumoured to be held under charter

Manors

The medieval manor-house of Isleworth seems to have stood between North Street and Church Street, on the south of what is now called the Duke of Northumberland's River. Richard of Cornwall surrounded the manor-house with a ditch and fence. The house was burned down and pillaged in 1264 by the Londoners whose enmity Richard had aroused and who also broke into the park he had made between Isleworth and Twickenham, and emptied his fishpond at Baber Bridge. The house was rebuilt, and was visited in the 14th century by both Edward III and Queen Philippa. By 1370 it was in bad repair but still included a hall, chapel, and several other rooms within the moat, as well as farm buildings and a mill outside. It seems highly probable from other evidence that this mill stood on the site of the later Isleworth Manor Mill behind Church Street. After the manor came to Syon Abbey the manor-house was no longer needed, though the abbey continued to use farm buildings (later the Dairyhouse Farm) which stood across the Duke's River to the north. The manor-house and buildings within the moat were leased about 1455 and were still leased in 1486. John Fox, Bishop of Winchester, held a lease in 1506 of the Moatplace and the adjoining derelict millhouse. Among the later lessees was Thomas, Lord Darcy (d. 1537). Robert Cole or Plume leased the Moatplace under Elizabeth I and one Plum is marked on a map of 1607 as the occupier of a moated house on the site described above. Glover in 1635 ascribes the same house to 'Ofley kt.', and in 1643 Sir John Offley received a lease from the Earl of Northumberland of the Moat House in Isleworth where he then lived. He was to rebuild it in two yearsThe same property was leased again in 1661, and a house on the same site or nearby was said to have been occupied by the widow of Charles, Duke of Somerset. It was called Somerset House, and after being used for some time as a school was pulled down in 1803. By 1851 the only evidence of the former existence of the moated manor-house was the small arm of the Duke's River east of Percy Gardens, which seems to represent the west side of the moat. Syon House is described elsewhere.
In addition to the park made by Richard of Cornwall there were fairly extensive demesne lands. In 1296 171 acres of demesne arable were sown, but the total demesne arable in the 14th century seems to have been between 150 and 164 acres. At this period there were about 25-40 acres of meadow in severalty, some of them by the river in what is now the park of Syon House. More land in this area and near Worton was acquired in the 15th century, ) and from the 15th century the more distant demesne lands outside Isleworth parish were generally leased. By the Dissolution the demesne farm of some 320-40 acres, much of it inclosed, lay largely to the north of Isleworth town on both sides of the London Road. It centred upon a house or buildings known as the Dairyhouse or Dairyfarm lying on the north of the Duke's River behind Church Street. These lands did not include the 30 acres within the monastery walls or the 90-100 acres of the abbey's park at Syon Hill. The demesne underwent some changes during the 16th century as parts of it were separately leased or granted away altogether  By 1606 the whole of it, including the park at Syon Hill, the gardens round the house, and leased lands of which the Earl of Northumberland had the reversion, covered about 560 acres. During the 17th century the two chief farms included in the demesne seem to have been the Dairyhouse, to which 43 acres were attached at one date, and the Lion Farm, with about 105. The Lion, a former inn, stood to the north of Syon House in what is now the park. It was later called Syon Farm and was pulled down after most of its lands had been converted to parkland. The Dairyhouse survived into the 19th century though its lands were curtailed. Part of the 18th-century park attached to Syon Hill House was leased from the Duke of Northumberland, and he bought the rest with the house in 1823. As Syon Hill Park West Farm it formed a separate unit for a while, but the house was apparently pulled down by 1865. (Footnote 58) Syon Park East Farm, or Syon Hill Farm, on the other side of Syon Lane, had 146 acres around the farmhouse by the late 18th century: this included the old abbey park. The farm survived until the Great West Road was constructed just to the south of the house, which was then pulled down
In 1840 the Duke of Northumberland owned 700 acres in Isleworth parish, of which 496 were said to have belonged anciently to Syon Abbey. Another 174 acres in other ownership--147 of them belonging to the Earl of Jersey--were also said to have belonged to Syon. The duke's property in Heston and Twickenham amounted after the inclosures of 1818 to about 55 and 190 acres respectively. ) By 1958 all this had been sold, apart from the 208 acres of the park at Syon House, and a few acres elsewhere in Isleworth. The park is discussed elsewhere, with Syon House itself.
The manor of ISLEWORTH RECTORY, also known in the 17th century as THE WARDEN'S HOLD or WARDEN HOLD, (Footnote 65) originated in the grant by Walter of St. Valery (fl. 1086) to the Abbey of St. Valéry (Somme) of the churches of Isleworth, Hampton, Twickenham, and Heston. He may have given them to the abbey after 1086, as Domesday Book mentions one priest in the manor who held 3 virgates. The rectorial estate at Hampton became detached during the Middle Ages. (Footnote 68) Twickenham rectory, though the parish and vicarage were distinct, was never separated from Isleworth. Heston rectory, consisting only of a house and barns to the north of the church, 2 acres of meadow, and the great tithes of the parish, was separately leased by the end of the Middle Ages,  and was in different ownership from Isleworth rectory after 1547. In 1562 it was granted to the Bishop of London, who still owned it in 1818, when the great tithes were commuted for 316 acres of land around the Bath Road. This land was later known as the Rectory farm. Suit of court from tenants in Heston was meanwhile retained until the 17th century or later by Isleworth rectory manor In the late 16th century the rectory of Twickenham, presumably consisting only of the great tithes, was leased separately from Isleworth rectory, though it had been held as part of it in 1544 and was again united with it from the 17th century onwards.
By the 14th century the manor comprised 4½ virgates and about 17 acres held at will, as well as a number of free tenements, one of which became Woodhall manor in Heston. (Footnote 74) Most of the customary lands probably lay at Whitton, where St. Valéry had villeins in 1300, and where much of the later copyhold was concentrated. The tenants paid pannage and intercommoned with Isleworth manor on the heath. By the 18th century the exclusive jurisdiction of the manor was restricted to the part of Isleworth town between Mill Bridge and the Rectory House, including all that part of Church Street and the ait nearest the church. In 1818 there were also a few acres of copyhold elsewhere in Isleworth parish, 24 acres in Twickenham, but none in Heston. In 1693 the rectorial glebe, or manorial demesne, comprised about 40 acres north of Smallberry Green, 18 acres near the Railshead, and 10 acres in Twickenham, together with the Rectory or Parsonage House behind Isleworth church.
In 1211 Isleworth seems to have been the administrative centre of St. Valéry's English lands, for the 'Prior of Isleworth' then paid to have seisin of his lands and rents in Essex. (Footnote 80) Later, Takeley in Essex was apparently the centre. In 1391 St. Valéry sold Isleworth, which had been in the king's hands as the possession of an alien house, to Winchester College. In 1543 Winchester granted it to Henry VIII in exchange for other lands. St. Valéry had leased the rectory for at least four years about 1338By 1543 Winchester's lessee had been replaced by Thomas Young, a friend of Thomas Cromwell. In 1547 the rectory glebe was included in the Isleworth property granted to Somerset but this part of the grant may not have taken effect, for a few months later the rectory was given, in fulfilment of Henry VIII's will, to St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Among St. George's lessees was Gideon Awnsham (d. 1641), who also held Hallplace, and whose lease had passed to his son-in-law, Henry Mildmay, by 1650. (Footnote 87) In 1651 the sequestered rectory was sold to William Smith, who was referred to after the Restoration as a 'committee man'. (Footnote 88) In the 18th century one at least of St. George's tenants sublet the land.
In 1800 Edmund Hill, the then lessee, purchased the Rectory House, glebe, and great tithes. St. George's retained the manorial rights and court, which had always been reserved out of the leases. They also retained the Court House or Church House, but this has not been identified. After Hill's death the land was divided. The Duke of Northumberland bought the tithe barns by the Rectory House in 1822 and the house itself was bought by the parish and pulled down in 1847-8 so that the churchyard could be enlarged. In 1820 the great tithes of Isleworth and Twickenham were put up for sale in lots, and a number of landowners, including the Duke of Northumberland, purchased those arising from their own lands. By 1840, when the tithes of Isleworth were commuted, only £150 were payable to the owner of the remaining great tithes.
Richard of Cornwall gave to the Trinitarian friars of Hounslow his land of Babworth, reserving to himself the fishpond there. The friary lands later included over 80 acres by or near the Crane above Baber Bridge (i.e. in Chapel, South, or Lower Beavers) and in the inclosure out of Hounslow Heath farther north (the Beavers, North or Upper Beavers, &c.). The manor of HOUNSLOW is first referred to in 1296 and by the end of the Middle Ages this title was commonly applied to the friary's land in Hounslow and Heston: none of the property apparently extended into Isleworth. In the 19th century there were three copyhold houses of the manor in Kingston, a relic of the friary's property there. A manor court was held in the 16th century, and free and customary tenants are referred to once or twice at that time, but there were only about 15 acres of copyhold by 1849. (Footnote 2) The 'manor' in fact seems to have consisted chiefly of a freehold estate, part of which was leased out by the friary in the early 16th century. In 1571 the estate or demesne comprised the friary buildings, an inn in Hounslow, about 110 acres in Heston, and about 28 in Hatton (presumably across the Crane in East Bedfont parish). Of this the friary had held about 96 acres in hand in 1535. In 1537 the minister of the friary apparently leased all his lands to one Cheeseman for 99 years, but this lease was probably revoked by order of Thomas Cromwell. Richard Awnsham (d. 1539) of Hallplace in Heston secured a 21-year lease of the friary house and most of the demesnes in 1539. Another lease was granted to the Marquess of Northampton in 1552, but Awnsham's widow was still in occupation when the freehold reversion was granted by Mary to William, Lord Windsor, in 1558. According to the grant, Windsor, whose father and brother were buried in the friary chapel, was to found a religious house there, but this of course was never done, and in 1571 his son Edward, Lord Windsor, sold the house and lands to Anthony Roan, auditor of the Exchequer. Roan was then already in possession. The manorial rights were reserved, together with a rent, while Roan covenanted to maintain the Windsor tombs in the chapel, which was conveyed as part of the manor- or friary-house. The next Lord Windsor conveyed the reserved rent and manorial rights in 1596 to Thomas Crompton. Crompton also acquired Roan's estate in the house and land, and the whole property had passed to his son Thomas by 1602. (Footnote 12) Sir Thomas Lyttleton and his wife, who was probably the younger Crompton's daughter, conveyed Hounslow in 1625 to Justinian Povey, another auditor of the Exchequer. He held it in 1643 and 1650 and was succeeded by his son Thomas (fl. 1633-85), also a civil servant. Lysons suggested that Henry Elsynge, clerk of the House of Commons, who retired to Hounslow in 1648, was Justinian Povey's tenant in the manor. Lady Shannon, who occupied a house of considerable size in Hounslow in 1664, and whose daughter was married in the chapel there in 1663, may have been another tenant. (Footnote 16) The manor left the Povey family in 1671 or 1672 and was acquired by Henry Sayer. By 1697 William III was Sayer's tenant and used the house as a hunting-lodge. Sayer's heirs sold it in 1706 to Whitelock Bulstrode. (Footnote 18) Bulstrode, a mystical writer, was buried in the chapel in 1724. His son and grandson, both called Richard, succeeded him in turn. The widow of the second Richard died in 1816 and the estate passed to a cousin, G. C. Bulstrode. It was soon afterwards sold in lots, the chapel being purchased by the Vicar of Heston, and the house was pulled down.The estate purchased by Whitelock Bulstrode in 1705 apparently included only about 17 acres, but in 1731 Richard Bulstrode the elder held about 60 acres which he claimed to have belonged formerly to Hounslow friary, and in 1818 the estate contained about 140 acres of old inclosures and 37 of allotments. (Richard Bulstrode the younger also inherited from his father over 285 acres copyhold of Heston manor.
Little information seems to survive about the manor-house. It stood behind the chapel, which was on the site of the present Holy Trinity Church in the High Street. The old friary buildings were at least partially replaced in the 16th century, for Norden says that there was a 'fair house' erected where the friary had been. (Footnote 25) In 1706 the house was built partly of brick and partly of stone. The manors or estates of WORTON and AYDESTONES originated in two freehold estates which were held of the manor of Isleworth in 1300. William de Stanton and his wife Mabel then held a carucate and 2 virgates, and William de Eyston and his wife Emma held two houses and some land. These lands were presumably the same as the eighth of a knight's fee at Imbury and the quarter-fee in Isleworth which were respectively attributed to them at the same date. (Footnote 28) William de Stanton's estate passed to William de Eyston and Emma, including his rights in the demesne pastures in the park and the meadows by the river north of Isleworth town. Emma de Eyston was in possession as a widow in 1352 and by 1362 had been succeeded by her grandson, another William de Eyston. In 1375 this second William conveyed to Edward III (then lord of Isleworth manor) considerable estates in Isleworth and Heston, including a house called Worton and 93 acres in Isleworth; a mill, 80 acres of land, and 20 of meadow at Imbury; and 50 acres of inclosed land at Osterley in Heston parish. The house at Worton may have stood within the moat which was marked on later maps, but has now disappeared, on the west of the Duke of Northumberland's River north of Worton Road. This site later belonged to the demesne of Isleworth manor. Imbury is described in 1375 as lying in Isleworth parish between Babworth pond (near Baber Bridge) and the common heath of Isleworth: it is not clear quite where William de Eyston's property at Imbury can have been, since there were no inclosures here later except to the north of Baber Bridge in Heston parishThere was some demesne of Isleworth manor north of the bridge, but nothing, whether arable or meadow, apparently approaching 80 acres. The Osterley property was probably the later Fawkeners fields (about 30-40 a.), which were afterwards inclosed in Osterley Park Several life interests in William de Eyston's lands were granted in the next 50 or so years. In 1416, when one of these was still running, the king granted the reversion to trustees for his new foundation of Syon, to which, under the name of Worton manor, it was transferred in 1424.
After William Eyston's grant in 1375 his brother Thomas tried to regain that part of his lands which had descended from William de Stanton. Thomas's claim may have succeeded, for in 1422 his widow conveyed to the Syon trustees, a house, a carucate, and 2 virgates (i.e. the amount of William de Stanton's holding), with appurtenances including pasture for 200 sheep in Isleworth, Twickenham, and Worton. This had belonged to Thomas and was also conveyed to Syon in 1424. This transaction may account for the presence of Worton and Aydestones or Aystons as separate units of Syon's property, though the position of the two estates remains obscure. William de Eyston's house at Worton may have stood on the site by Worton Road described above, but the position of Thomas's house is unknown. In 1449 all the buildings of the chief messuage of Aystona or Aydstons had been pulled down and carried to Syon Abbey, and in 1486 three parts of Thomas Aydston's tenement were in the abbess's hand because the abbey was built on them.
Thomas Eyston's widow also conveyed to Syon Eyston wharf by the Thames. In 1519 the abbey held Haydestones wharf, and in 1486 they also held a 'wilstage', which had formerly belonged to Thomas Maydstone. This was probably some sort of wharf and seems to have lain near the Dairyhouse in Isleworth. Whether Thomas Maydstone was the same man as Thomas Eyston cannot be ascertained: in 1381 one Thomas Maydston had built a sewer in the Thames between Isleworth and Brentford, which was certainly in the approximate area where some of Thomas Eyston's lands lay. On the other hand, the distinction between the two Thomases may be indicated by the continued existence in the mid-16th century of a house or manor called Maydstones; this house, or other property belonging to its owner (over 300 a.), was afterwards granted by the Crown to Sir Thomas Gresham and became part of the Osterley estate. Whatever the explanation of all this, it may be said that the Worton and Aydestones properties considerably enlarged Syon's demesnes, and that the Syon demesnes around Worton, including a moated site, probably came from them, like part of the demesnes near Baber Bridge. It also seems clear that Worton and Aydestones were manors only in name: there is little evidence of either possessing any courts or tenants.
Although at a date probably fairly soon after 1560 Heston was said to be 'no lordship or manor, but only a hamlet and member of Isleworth Syon', there had once been an estate known as HESTON manor, and another one seems to have been created in 1570. The earlier of these had originated in a grant by Bernard of St. Valery (d. c. 1191), lord of Isleworth, to the Hospital of St. Giles without London. In 1293 St. Giles's claimed to hold the assize of bread and ale for their tenants in Hounslow and Heston, and in 1308 they held the rents and services of a hide of land in Heston. These rents and services were intended to support one leper who was to be presented to the hospital by the lord of Isleworth manor. Virtually nothing more is known of St. Giles's holding, save that it passed with the hospital itself into the possession of Burton Lazars Hospital (Leics.) and was granted to Henry VIII in 1536. In 1567 Sir Thomas Gresham asked for a grant of 'Heston and other quillets', saying that he wanted them 'rather for quietness and to be lord of the soil than for profit, as most is quit-rents, and the rest out on long leases'. When he received his grant in 1570 no demesne lands were specified in it; it comprised the overlordship of the estates of Hallplace and Groveplace, and of nearly 600 acres of copyhold land, all in Heston parish.This became the manor of Heston. In a successful chancery suit of 1598 the tenants, producing copies of court roll going back over a century, claimed that it had formerly been part of Isleworth Syon, from which rents and services in Heston had been detached by the grant of 1570. In 1818 there were about 330 acres of copyhold old inclosures and nearly 645 more were allotted for open-field and common land. There was, however, no waste belonging to the manor. Manorial courts continued to be held until the late 19th century, and there was some copyhold until the tenure was finally abolished.
By 1570 Sir Thomas Gresham already held a good deal of land in Heston, most of which was included in the manor or estate of OSTERLEY. In 1300 John of Osterley held 2 carucates in Isleworth and Heston, and about 1335 a man of the same name had lands in Heston worth 40s. In 1443 John Ford quitclaimed to John Somerset, physician to Henry VI and Chancellor of the Exchequer, all the lands called Osterley and all other lands in Heston and adjoining parishes which had formerly belonged to Thomas, son and heir of John Osterley. Somerset had acquired the lands from Richard Dunket and others: Ford's and Dunket's claims or titles to the lands are not explained. Somerset held other land in Heston and Isleworth, including Wyke manor. When he died about 1455 his whole estate covered nearly 500 acres in the two parishes, and another 260 in Norwood, and was in the hands of feoffees who were to support the chapel of All Angels which Somerset had founded at Brentford End. The feoffees sold Somerset's house in Isleworth parish to Syon Abbey, and also possibly alienated one or two other pieces of property, but the remainder was kept intact. In the late 15th century it was described as the manor of Osterley, 16 houses, 550 acres of arable, and over 100 acres of other land, but this description almost certainly included Wyke manor. In 1490 it passed from Thomas Grafton and his wife Agnes to Joan Luyt, widow: it had apparently been Agnes's land. By 1498 it belonged to Edward Cheeseman (d. 1510), the owner of Norwood manor From him it was purchased by Hugh Denys (d. between 1507 and 1516) who left Osterley and Wyke manors to Sheen Priory in trust for All Angels and for a hospital to be founded in connexion with it. In 1530 Sheen transferred them to Syon under various covenants, for convenience of administration. Syon leased Osterley in 1534 to Edward Cheeseman's son Robert. The chapel lands, as they were called, were granted to the Duke of Somerset in 1547, along with the rest of Syon's possessions in Isleworth. 'Osterley farm' then comprised 202 acres lying together, with a farmhouse on the site of the present house at Osterley Park. In 1557 it was sold to Augustine Thayer and Alexander Chesenall and was said to be still occupied by Robert Cheeseman. Since Sir Thomas Gresham held it by 1565 it may have been the estate in Heston which he acquired in 1559 From Gresham's time Osterley became in effect the manorhouse and demesne of Heston manor. To the two estates were added other lands in Heston and Isleworth which Gresham acquired. Among them was land named ALLCOTTS, which was occasionally called a manor at about this time. It had belonged to Sheen Priory and had been granted to Somerset with Isleworth manor. It was granted to Gresham in 1565, when it comprised 146 acres, all lying together in what became the north-east part of Osterley Park. The house and the park, to which other former Crown lands contributed, are discussed elsewhere.
Osterley and Heston, with the lands that had been absorbed in them, were held by Gresham's widow after his death in 1579. They then passed to her son by a former marriage, William ReadRead was succeeded by his daughter, Anne, who married Sir Michael Stanhope and left three daughters, who held the Osterley estate jointly with their husbands. The third daughter, Bridget, and her husband George, Earl of Desmond, lived at Osterley between 1639 and 1651. The representatives of the Stanhope coheirs sold the estate, probably in 1655, to Sir William Waller (d. 1668), the parliamentary general. Waller sold the western part of Osterley Park, with Heston farm, to Anthony Collins, the owner of Hallplace, in 1663, and in 1670 his son William sold the house, manor, and the rest of the estate to Daniel Farington. From Farington it passed in 1674 to Sir William Thompson, whose son Samuel sold it in 1683 to Nicholas Barbon (d. 1698), the London building speculator. Barbon conveyed Osterley to two mortgagees, of whom one was the banker, Sir Francis Child the elder (1642-1713). Child took possession on Barbon's death and in 1713 the heir of his co-mortgagee sold his interest to Child's son, Robert, who thus became possessed of the whole property. Robert Child died unmarried in 1721 and was succeeded in turn by his brothers Sir Francis (d.s.p. 1740) and Samuel (d. 1752), and by Samuel's sons Francis (d.s.p. 1763) and Robert (d. 1782). Under the will of Robert Child, who regained the part of the estate alienated by Waller, Osterley and Heston passed after the death of his wife, later Lady Ducie, to his granddaughter Sarah, who married George Villiers, Earl of Jersey. The estate then descended with the Jersey title until 1949, when Lord Jersey gave Osterley House and Park (140 a.) to the National Trust, who leased it to the Ministry of Works In 1958 the Villiers Estates Co. still owned 528 acres between Heston village and Syon Lane. In 1905 the then Lord Jersey had owned about 900 acres in Heston and Isleworth. Virtually all of this lay east of Heston village and north of Scrattage Lane and Wyke Green, and it included the former Wyke manor, which, after passing through other hands, had returned to the same ownership as Osterley. About 320 acres of the 1905 total were included in the park, but part of this was leased to farmersThe chief units into which the leased part of the estate was divided at this time, and for some time before, were Heston farm (generally c. 200 a.), Scrattage farm (c. 134 a., nearly all in the park), Wyke farm (158 a. in 1885), and Osterley Park gardens (c. 60 a. and a house in the park). Other parts of the lands were leased with farm-houses in Southall and Norwood.
The manor or estate of WYKE is first mentioned in 1444, when it belonged to John Somerset, along with 200 acres of arable and over 200 acres of other land in Isleworth, Heston, and Twickenham. In 1449 Somerset held the house of Wyke and other lands of Aydstons manor. They were said to have belonged formerly to John Harpdon and once to Andrew Gilford. There had been freehold land in Wyke from the 13th century, (Footnote 98) and in 1428 William Loveney (a former lessee of Worton manor), had delivered seisin of lands there, apparently constituting the manor, to William Harpdon and others: beyond this nothing is known of the earlier history of the manor. Wyke descended with Osterley to All Angels' Chapel and to Augustine Thayer and Alexander Chesenall in 1557: it was then occupied under a 40-year lease granted by Syon Abbey in 1537. In 1547 'Wyke farm' comprised 104 acres of land and wood on each side of Wyke Lane (now Syon Lane). (Footnote 4) Sir Thomas Gresham held Wyke by 1570 and had perhaps acquired it with Osterley. It remained with his successors until 1638 when they sold it to Sir William Washington. (Footnote 6) It then passed to Sir Richard Wynn (d. 1649), and to his brother's widow Grace Wynn (d. 1680). ) Wynn apparently lived at Wyke at one time, though he also owned, and in 1635 occupied, the house later known as Little Syon in the London Road.Grace Wynn's granddaughter married Robert, 1st Duke of Ancaster, who sold the manor in 1724 to Joshua Fletcher. From Fletcher's widow it passed in 1731 to John Jacob under whose will it was sold in 1755 to William Baker. It then comprised nearly 140 acres. Baker's son sold it in 1778 to John Robinson (d. 1802), the politician.It was sold after Robinson's death to the Earl of Jersey, and became part of the Osterley estate. Rents belonged to the manor in the 15th century but there is no evidence of any courts or copyhold tenants, and by the 16th century the 'manor' was simply a freehold estate lying around and to the south of the house. This stood on the west side of Syon Lane on a moated site now more or less obliterated by the Underground railway. Some time after 1635 this house seems to have been replaced by one further south on the site of Wyke House. (FIn 1778-9 Robert Adam designed what was presumably an addition to this already existing house for its owner, John Robinson, and the rest of the present house appears to have been rebuilt within the next few years. In 1827 the house was used as a school and soon afterwards it became a private mental hospital.  In 1958 it was still a nursing home for nervous disorders. Except for the land attached to the house (30 a. in 1923), the rest of the Wyke estate continued during the 19th century to be leased as a single farm by the earls of Jersey together with a farmhouse standing to the north of the old moated site. The present building there probably dates from about 1800. It was no longer used as a farm in 1958.
The estates of WOODHALL, HALLPLACE, and GROVEPLACE seem originally to have been distinct, though by the end of the Middle Ages they were in the same ownership and their names were often combined or used as alternatives for one holding. In 1336 Nicholas de la Woodhall held of Isleworth rectory manor a house and 30 acreware of land in Heston. The rectory's overlordship of Woodhall was remembered as late as 1642, while Hallplace manor and the farm or house called Grove or Groveplace were said to be held of Heston manor. In 1483 the manor of 'Woodhallplace', with four houses and 100 acres of land, was conveyed to Sir Thomas Bourchier and his wife Isabel, who had possibly inherited it from her father Sir John Barr. In 1488 it passed from Bourchier to Richard Awnsham. Richard Awnsham, probably his son, who also held a lease of Hounslow manor, (Footnote 26) died in 1539 leaving his house at Heston called Hallplace to his wife Eleanor with reversion to his eldest son William. He left to William his free land with 'the place called the Grove place' which he had just bought from Thomas Dewell. This is the earliest definite reference to the Grove, though it may have originated in the three virgates in Heston which Matthew atte Grove held freely in 1300. William Awnsham died shortly before 1565 holding Hallplace of Isleworth Syon, and was succeeded by his son William. In 1570, however, when the overlordship was transferred to Heston manor, Eleanor Awnsham was said to be still in occupation of 'Woodhall or Hallplace', while William--presumably her grandson-- held Groveplace. It was perhaps this William who had two sons called Robert and William, and the elder of these who was the Robert Awnsham who held the three estates in 1621 and died in 1627. Gideon Awnsham, who held them at his death in 1641, and also leased Isleworth rectory, was probably the son of Sir Gideon Awnsham of Isleworth (d. 1631). Sir Gideon's father was named William and may have been the younger brother of Robert (d. 1627).The younger Gideon left a son Robert who died soon after him leaving as coheirs his sisters Margaret and Jane. (Footnote 36) Margaret, who held the property for life under a settlement of 1651, died unmarried and it reverted to Jane and her husband Henry Mildmay. In 1668, after Mildmay's death, Hallplace and about 100 acres in Heston were sold to William Denington (d. 1687). (Footnote 38) After Denington's death his estates were divided among his sisters' heirs. One of these, Abel Bradley, received the house and 33 acres, and later also got the share (18 a.) of one of the others. His son conveyed most of this land to Samuel Child of Osterley in 1746, and Child also bought the third share in the same year. (Footnote 39) Abel Bradley had, however, parted with the house separately before 1698. At this date it belonged to Henry Collins (d. c. 1704), ) whose father Anthony had bought 365 acres on the west of Osterley Park from the Osterley estate in 1663. Henry Collins's son Anthony, a deist writer, married Martha, the daughter of Sir Francis Child (d. 1713), and after the death of their daughter and eventual heir Elizabeth Cary in 1763, part at least of the Osterley land was transferred to Robert Child. Hallplace house, however, was not included. In 1818 it belonged, with about 23 acres round it, to John Westbrook. It stood back from the road in the angle of Heston Road and Church Road, and had been pulled down by 1865. In 1635 Gideon Awnsham's house had stood on this site, though possibly nearer the road. It seems to have been larger than the house of 1818, and to have been built round a courtyard. Where Groveplace lay is unknown.

Mills

In 1086 there were two mills in Isleworth manor. In 1297 the lord of the manor owned a mill 'of Isleworth' and a mill 'of Brentford', and by 1300 there was a mill at Oldford, on the Crane in Twickenham. (Footnote 90) The Brentford mill was presumably driven by the Brent and was probably that which was granted about 1235 with land by the Brent from Henry de Stoke to his daughter Maud. Henry held it of the Abbey of St. Radegund, Bradsole (Kent). Ralph de Pyrie, perhaps Maud's son, granted it to Edmund, Earl of Cornwall.It seems to have been still in existence in 1326.
There are several references to a mill belonging to the manor in the early 14th century, which perhaps concern the mill 'of Isleworth'. Its situation is first indicated in 1352, when it adjoined the manor-house and stood on a stream called the Bourne. This seems to have run through Isleworth town in the course of the present Duke's River, and the manorhouse probably stood south of the river and west of Church Street. One chronicle includes a mill among the buildings belonging to Richard of Cornwall which were destroyed by the Londoners in 1264: if this is correct, it may have stood here, beside the manor-house which the mob burned, or at Baber Bridge, by the fishpond which they emptied. In 1370 there were two water-mills attached to Isleworth manor, one of them in need of rebuilding; just before this the reeve had been ordered to rebuild the water-mill of Isleworth. The Bourne seems to have had defects as a mill-stream in the 14th century, and by 1463 the Isleworth mill was totally in decay and disused. Later the mill-stone was sold, and before 1506 the derelict mill-house had been leased with the adjoining manor-house to John Fox, Bishop of Winchester, who had granted Syon Abbey another mill in exchange. This new mill had been built between Twickenham and Isleworth by a man who had leased the manor-house about 50 years before. The most likely, if not the only possible, place for a mill between Twickenham and Isleworth was on the Crane.
The Crane worked other mills in Isleworth before this date. The Oldford mill in Twickenham has already been mentioned. The site of a former mill at Imbury (i.e. near Baber Bridge) was conveyed to the Crown in 1375 and is perhaps to be connected with the mill at Baber Bridge which may have been destroyed in 1264. It seems that the Crane was little more effective than the Bourne in driving a mill, for the new mill between Isleworth and Twickenham is not referred to again, and by 1543 yet another mill (later known as the Isleworth Manor Mill or Kidd's Mill) was being built at the old position near the mouth of the Bourne, while the Bourne was reinforced by a new river specially built across Hounslow Heath from the Colne. ) The new mill remained an appurtenance of Isleworth manor until 1876. It had two mill-stones in 1553, and five in 1633, of which four ground corn and the fifth ground wood for dyes. It had only the four corn-grinding wheels in 1669, when it was to be rebuilt by the lessee. By 1845 there were two steam-engines to assist the water-power and the mill was said to be one of the largest for flour in England. The lessee was then Richard Kidd. After some variations in the firm's name, Samuel Kidd & Co. Ltd. were the owners when the mill stopped work a little while before it was demolished in 1941.
The new river which was built under Henry VIII soon served other mills in the area. Norden described a copper and brass mill between Isleworth and Worton, where 'many artificial devices' were in use. (Footnote 9) This mill stood on the Duke's River in St. John's Road, and was managed by a partnership, of which one member, John Broad, claimed to employ processes for making copper plates which had never before been used in England. According to the proceedings in a dispute between the partners in 1596 the mill was probably built between 1581 and 1587. (Footnote 10) Glover's map of 1635 describes it as a copper-mill, but it was marked as a paper-mill in a map of 1607 (Footnote 11) and may have been the Isleworth paper-mill which was stopped with other Middlesex mills from working in 1636, because of danger from plague-infected rags. (Footnote 12) The mill never belonged to the owners of Isleworth manor and had no inherent right to use the water of the Duke's River; deeds survive from the later 17th century and later by which the miller of Isleworth Manor Mill leased the use of the water to the owners of what was almost certainly this mill. These deeds show that the mill was used in 1671 both to make paper and to grind brazil wood for dyes, and by 1721 as a brazil-mill only: one of the terms of these leases was that it should not be used as a corn-mill. (Footnote 13) By 1694 the mill was generally called the Brazil Mill, a name which adhered to Brazil Mill Lane (now St. John's Road) and to the mill itself some time after it had in fact become a corn-mill in the 19th century. By 1862 the mill had been burned down and the site was bought by the owners of the adjoining brewery, who demolished the remaining buildings. (Footnote 16)
Between the junction of the Duke's River and the Crane above Baber Bridge and their divergence below Fulwell in Twickenham a number of mills were built at different times. The highest up the river was the Bedfont Powder Mill, north-west of Baber Bridge, in the parish of East Bedfont. It was in operation as a sword-mill in 1635, and was converted to gunpowder during the Interregnum. It stood on the Duke's River just above its confluence with the Crane. A paper-mill was built above Baber Bridge just below the junction of the rivers about 1620. (Footnote 19) It was still working in 1636 but had apparently gone by 1675. (Footnote 20) Below Baber Bridge on the Crane Ogilby marked a sword-mill in 1675, and the sword manufactory is said to have moved here from the Bedfont Mill further up after that had been converted to gunpowder-making. In 1687, however, it was reliably said that the owners of the Bedfont Mill above the bridge had received a joint lease about 21 years before from the Earl of Northumberland, the owner of the river, and Francis Phillips, the owner of the land, and had thereupon built a second powdermill on the Feltham bank below the bridge  A powder-mill on the south of Baber Bridge, but this time said to be in Isleworth manor and parish, was to be pulled down and replaced by a brazil-wood mill under a lease of 1752. The brazil-mill was working in 1756 and 1784, but in 1810 it was leased as a flaxmill. ) In or before 1834 it was again converted, this time to make snuff, and between 1865 and 1894 became a cartridge factory. This last change may have been made in 1871 when the Duke of Northumberland sold it to Messrs. Curtis & Harvey, who also worked and bought from him at the same time the Bedfont and Hounslow Gunpowder Mills. This last, with another mill at Fulwell, stood on the Crane in Twickenham parish.
On the Duke's River after its separation from the Crane two calico-printing mills were set up quite near to the Brazil Mill but over two centuries leatr. The first seems to have been started about 1769, and stood on the east bank of the river just north of Worton Bridge. It was leased from the Duke of Northumberland. The other, which did not belong to the duke, stood on the west bank a little farther upstream. It was in existence by 1818. Both had been discontinued by 1833. (Footnote 30)
Heston, with no streams of any size except for the Crane on its western boundary, seems to have had no mills in the Middle Ages. Sir Thomas Gresham, however, built corn-, oil-, and paper-mills which were worked by the stream running through Osterley Park: (Footnote 31) the mill pond was the farthest east of the several ponds on this stream, and lay between Windmill Lane and the Brent. (Footnote 32) The mills were probably all in one building: in 1584 the corn-mill was said to have been set up on the Brent about twelve or thirteen years before and the paper-mill to have been added to the same building about seven years later. All were 'decayed' by 1593, except for the corn-mill, which does not seem to have survived much longer.
In 1818 there was a mill on the Brent just above Brentford Bridge. It was no longer there in 1865.
A windmill belonging to Isleworth manor in 1352 and 1362 may have stood at Whitton, in Twickenham parish, where one is known to have existed later. 'The Windmill' in Heston, mentioned in 1718, seems to have been an alehouse, but after the inclosure of 1818 a real windmill was built on Hounslow Heath north of the Staines Road, to grind corn. A steam-engine was added in a nearby building shortly before 1891, when all the buildings were burned. The factory of Parke Davis & Co. Ltd. later took over the site.
The Good Intent Flour Mill was a co-operative venture started in 1802. There is no evidence that it flourished or even functioned as a mill, but it attained considerable notoriety while it was being built because its share-holders claimed to vote as freeholders in the parliamentary election of that year. It is said to have stood at the Town Wharf in Isleworth (i.e. in Swan Street), but the source of its power for grinding is unknown.

SCHOOLS.

In 1630 Elizabeth Hill gave £20 a year charged on land in Buckinghamshire to educate poor girls. After her death the schoolmistress was to live in the donor's house in Isleworth. This may have stood on the site of the later Blue School in Lower Square, for in 1635 Glover marked a house there as the Free School and Court House, ) and in 1670 the feoffees of Elizabeth Hill's gift cased the Town and School House in brick and did other repairs. It is not known whether this house may have been connected with the piece of waste land on Isleworth Green (probably Lower Square) which the lord of the manor granted to the churchwardens in 1527 or 1528 to build a Church House. The school later received other endowments. One, left by will of Ann Oliver (d. 1672), was for educating poor children, and one of 1658 was for apprenticing boys, while Glover's map does not say that the free school was for girls.
William Cave (d. 1713), vicar of Isleworth, left £100 for a charity school to be built, and in 1715 a meeting of prospective subscribers decided to amalgamate the existing funds and charities for schools and set up a new one in the Town House. The Duke of Somerset gave £20 and promised £10 a year, and the vicar and churchwardens were to give a third of the 'sacrament money' each quarter. There were to be 40 boys and 20 girls wearing badges marked 'I.P.', and 36 primers, 24 prayer-books, 24 testaments, and 12 bibles were purchased. In 1729 a new workhouse was built, the master and mistress of which took over the school, and the Town House was let. Among other inconveniences this arrangement meant that the charity children could not go to school during an epidemic of smallpox in the workhouse, and in 1752 the school moved back to the Town House. Up to 16 workhouse children were still allowed to attend after the move, and the parish paid the trustees 2s. 6d. a week for each of them. John Robinson (d. 1802) of Wyke House, the politician, gave £150 to buy religious books for the school. In 1813 the building was enlarged with the help of £80 from the National Society, whose methods were introduced. Between incorporation with the society and 1819 numbers rose to 100 boys and 60 girls; 40 of each were given clothes and some were occasionally apprenticed. The income was about £320 and was overspent by about £15, which was made up from church collections. The master and mistress lived in the building, which was said to be Elizabeth Hill's old house. In 1841 it was rebuilt in two brick and stone stories with a battlemented parapet. Part of the ground floor housed the parish fire-engine and part was a playground with open arcades to the street. Above were two schoolrooms and a committee-room. The central clock-turret was presented by Lord Prudhoe (later Duke of Northumberland) on his marriage in 1842. Fees of 2d.-6d. were first charged when the school came under government inspection in 1855. Only 30 out of the 140 pupils were given clothes in 1858 and the practice seems to have stopped altogether later in the century, but the name of the Blue School was by then established. The ground-floor arcades had been filled in by 1858 to enlarge the boys' department and in 1870 the girls' department was moved to North Street Between 1883 and 1885 an upper boys' department was founded and, after fees were abolished in the rest of the school under the Act of 1891, this moved first to a temporary home in the old British school in Worton Road, and in 1896 to a site given by Andrew Pears in St. John's Road.  At first partly under control of the Borough Road College, it came under the county council in 1906. In 1907 58 per cent. of its pupils came from elementary schools. In 1958 it was still a voluntary school, called Isleworth Grammar School. Various enlargements at St. John's Road allowed the numbers to rise to 340, and then in 1939 the school moved to Ridgeway Road. The buildings there have been enlarged since 1957.
Meanwhile the old building in the Square continued to be used as an elementary boys' school until 1939, when it was given up and most of the pupils were transferred to the former girls' and infants' school in North Street. (Footnote 73) The old building was used in 1958 as a factory, and the Blue Schools Foundation used its income to support the North Street School (which is still called the Blue School) and to make awards to former pupils of Isleworth Grammar School or Isleworth Green School, when they went on to further education.
The Green School originated in a girls' Sunday school started with benefactions of 1794 and 1797. The second of these was given by John Robinson of Wyke House. By 1819 the school was also held on two evenings a week, and the vicar's wife, Mrs. Glossop, converted it into a day school, probably in 1821. In 1858 the Dowager Duchess of Northumberland gave the school £100 a year, and in the following year the duke erected a new building at the end of Park Road by the church: before this the school had met in a house belonging to him in Church Street. During the 19th century the educational standard was rather low, with an emphasis on needlework, and the school did not receive grants until 1872. In 1893 the pupils were said to be such as were turned away from the Blue School, and the atmosphere of an old-fashioned charity school was emphasized by the distinctive free clothing: 40 girls out of 70 were given the green clothes which had first been supplied as a regular practice soon after 1819. About the turn of the century the character of the school changed. In 1906 a new building, given by the Duke of Northumberland, was opened at Busch Corner. In it the school provided secondary education and the elementary department was closed altogether in 1914. The new secondary school opened with about 30 girls. Forty per cent. of the pupils came from elementary schools in 1907. The buildings were much enlarged in 1934 to accommodate 330 pupils but were very badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War. They were repaired and reopened in 1951. In 1829 Mrs. Kidd (presumably the wife of the lessee of Isleworth Manor Mill ) who was a Quaker, started an infant school in Isleworth. A building was erected by subscription in 1841 on land belonging to the Duke of Northumberland in North Street. An evening school for boys and young men was also held here, though it was later transferred to the Blue School, and was closed between 1891 and 1893. The school secured a certificated mistress in 1859, and then had about 120 pupils. In 1870 it was enlarged and a new building was erected next door for the girls' department of the Blue School. The infant school did not officially become part of the Blue School Foundation until the early 20th century, but its pupils passed into both departments of the Blue School. When the old Blue School building closed in 1939 the North Street Girls' School became a junior mixed school.
An infant school was started in Brentford End in 1849. It was held in a succession of cottages and received occasional grants from the Isleworth parish charities until 1864, when a building was erected on charity land behind the houses to the south of the road.  In 1862 the school was referred to as a ragged one, and it may be that the better-off children of Brentford End went to the Blue School. The school began to receive government grants in 1870-1. It was closed in 1936. A school at Woodlands was started at about the same time as the Brentford End School and came under the care of the incumbent of St. John's when the church was opened. ) In 1859 John Farnell added a school building to his benefactions to St. John's. The school was inspected from 1872, when it had 70 pupils. By 1906 it took infants only.
A British school was opened in 1840 and a schoolroom was built for it in 1856 behind the Independent chapel in Worton Lane. It took girls and infants and charged fees of 3d.-4d., or rather more than those of the Church schools in Isleworth at the time. ) It had some 70 pupils in 1863, but about 1887 it 'dwindled and snuffed out', after being under government inspection for some years.
The first Roman Catholic poor school in Isleworth was the girls' school of St. Mary's, which was started by the nuns of Gumley House in 1841.A regular building was opened in 1844 and a mixed infants' department in 1889, and in 1922 the school took over another building formerly used by the private convent school. A Roman Catholic boys' school was opened in 1854 and moved into a new building next to the church at Shrewsbury Place in the following year. It seems to have received grants from its inception, while the girls' school did not do so until 1881-2. By then the two schools had 113 pupils between them. In 1908 the boys' school moved with the church to Twickenham Road. In 1948 the boys' and girls' departments were united, though the school continued to use buildings on both sides of the road. It still took children of all ages in 1958.
In Hounslow the inhabitants set up a charity school in 1708. It was closely connected with the chapel and the chief of the nine subscribers was Whitelock Bulstrode. The school apparently consisted of twelve boys. It seems to have been quite independent of any Isleworth foundation, so that there is no evidence that it was closed when the charity school there was reorganized on a subscription basis. It was still going in 1716 or 1717 but is not heard of again after that, though there was said to be a charity school in the town in 1794. In 1819 there was only a Sunday school, and a new subscription school was opened in 1831. It stood in School Road and had 245 pupils, both boys and girls, in 1833. It was largely supported by Henry Pownall of Spring Grove, whose wife opened an infant school, apparently on the same site, in 1835, and still maintained it by herself in 1840. Both schools were enlarged at various times, at least once with help from Isleworth charities, and the infant school seems to have been united to the other school later in the century. After fees were abolished the school was said to have become very overcrowded: there were 825 pupils in 1893. ) It was soon afterwards transferred to Isleworth School Board as the Hounslow Town School. A part of the buildings, said to be the original infants' school, but possibly in fact the school of 1831, was pulled down in 1945.
Isleworth meanwhile managed to avoid having a school board until 1893. When the board was formed it had nine members, including four ministers of religion. None of the existing schools was transferred to its care at once, though Hounslow Subscription School was handed over in 1900 or 1901. (Footnote 27) In the meantime the board opened schools in Grove Road in 1895 (enlarged 1896) and in Worple Road in 1897 (enlarged 1901). When the urban district council superseded the two boards in 1902 the three Isleworth board schools had nearly 3,000 pupils and the voluntary schools of the parish had just over 1,200. The total for the whole urban district in voluntary and board schools was 5,167.
The changes and enlargements of the Isleworth Grammar School (originally part of the Blue School) and of the Green School in the 20th century have already been mentioned. In 1920 St. Mary's High School, at Gumley House, was recognized as a voluntary secondary school, and two years later moved into new buildings for 120 girls. There had been a private convent boarding school here since 1841 and the high school had been opened in 1890. The boarding school was closed during the Second World War but reopened after it. After the 1944 Act, Spring Grove Central School and the council senior schools became secondary modern schools.
In 1958 the numbers at the voluntary grammar schools were: Isleworth Grammar School, 555 boys; Green School, 357 girls; Gumley House Convent School, 371 girls. The Spring Grove County Grammar School had 604 boys and girls. All the secondary modern schools were county ones: they had 3,535 pupils between them. The Roman Catholic all-age schools, St. Mary's, and St. Michael and St. Martin's, had respectively 401 and 386 pupils. The Blue School and St. John's, both Church of England primary schools, had 311 juniors and infants and 65 infants respectively. The county primary schools had altogether 7,600 pupils. There have also been many private schools in the area. Thomas Willis (1582-c. 1660), a grammarian, had a school at the Railshead. (Footnote 41) The Porch House, Syon Lodge, Syon Park House, Somerset House, Wyke House, Silver Hall, Albemarle House, Burlington Lodge, and Van Gogh House were among the houses used at one time or another as schools. Shelley attended the school at Syon Park House (then called Syon House Academy), R. L. Stevenson was at Burlington Lodge Academy (now St. Vincent's), and Vincent Van Gogh taught for a few months in a Methodist school in Van Gogh House. Albemarle House in Hounslow was a military academy in the early 19th century. The Society of Friends had a school in the London Road in 1833, which was probably private. There was a Roman Catholic boys' school in Shrewsbury House in the late 18th century. The Gumley House Convent school was started in 1841 to give to girls in England the type of Roman Catholic education until then generally obtained abroad. The granddaughters of Louis Philippe were among its earlier pupils. Only the preparatory school is now independent. The Sisters of Charity of St. Paul also opened a middleclass convent school about 1909, which has since been closed, and in 1958 the White Fathers had an independent nursery and infant school in Heston.
Another noteworthy 19th-century school was the London International College which was opened in 1866 as one of three companion schools: the others were at Paris and Bonn. Richard Cobden was one of the initiators of the scheme, which, however, never realized its promoters' hopes. The school lasted for only about 20 years from when the Prince of Wales opened the building in 1867 In 1890 the Borough Road Training College took over the building, and is still using it. The Royal Naval School buildings at St. Margaret's have also passed to a training college, the Maria Grey College. This, however, was because the school moved away from Isleworth during the Second World War. It had been founded in 1840 to educate the daughters of naval officers and had moved to St. Margaret's in 1856.
In addition to the more select private schools there were, of course, a good many of the dame-school variety, perhaps particularly in Heston, where the public elementary schools were founded later and were less adequate than those of Isleworth. Heston House was used for some 30 years from about 1827 as a school for infant paupers maintained by the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. George, Bloomsbury. Brentford Union built poor law schools at the workhouse in 1883. A Roman Catholic orphanage was opened at North Hyde about 1854, and an industrial school at Nazareth House about 1892. Heston and Chiswick school boards shared a truant school in Van Gogh House for some years.

Waterways.

The only evidence of any changes in the course of the Thames past Isleworth is that ground-levels indicate that a water-course, which in 1607 linked the River Brent to the stream which now forms the mouth of the Duke's River, was originally natural. It may once have formed a channel of the Thames so that the site of Syon House was on an ait in the river. The medieval lords of Isleworth owned weirs in the Thames of which at least one was in the stretch of the river by Isleworth. This was called Isleworth weir, and the stakes at its upper end gave its name to the Railshead. The weir had been broken down by 1538, but the Duke of Somerset set up another soon afterwards. In 1607 there was a semicircle of stakes across the river, but by 1630 the weir had been destroyed again and there were reported to be only a few short stakes left. In 1802 and later the Duke of Northumberland leased a fishery in the Thames called Isleworth weir, and in the early 20th century there were still some stakes embedded in the river which had probably once been part of the old weir. In the 17th and 18th centuries the fishermen of the neighbourhood disputed among themselves about stakes and 'salmon rooms' at Isleworth.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY.

Domeday Book accounts for over 118 persons in the manor of Isleworth, which then included Heston, Hounslow, and Twickenham. Of these six were cottars and a few were bordars. Most of the remainder were described as villeins, mostly holding a virgate or ½ virgate each. Among those who were free were a Frenchman or some Frenchmen and an Englishman who were proven knights. ) An extent of 1300 lists 24 free tenants, 15 burgesses, 18 persons holding by apparently semi-free tenures, and between 100 and 200 unfree tenants holding by a variety of customs and services. ) Several persons appear in more than one category, and in 1312 an inquiry revealed that since 1300 a dozen customary tenants had acquired free land and a few free tenants had acquired customary land. Another rental made later in the century reveals a smaller number of tenants and possibly a less complex system of tenures: the earlier one is partially illegible, however, and the later may not be complete, so that detailed comparison is impossible. In 1378 a freeman of Heston claimed that according to the custom of the manor he should be free of villein services for his customary land: three years later some of his neighbours attacked him during the Peasants' Revolt, perhaps taking the opportunity of general disorder to work off an old grudge.  In 1385 the king remitted to all the tenants a customary annual payment of 1d. each from each man over 15 years old. The total due had become fixed at 8 marks, but for a long while there had only been enough tenants to make up the sum if they all, including children and servants of over 15, contributed 6d. each. They asserted that this had caused a general defection of children and servants, to the detriment of agriculture. If the figures were accurate, the adult male population would have dropped from 1,280 to about 213. In 1547 the houseling people of Isleworth were said to number 400 and those of Heston 363. Isleworth seems to have suffered heavily from the plague in the early and mid-17th century. In 1665 149 people died of it, and there is said to have been a plague-house on the site of the later union workhouse. A hundred and twenty families were said to live in Hounslow in 1650, most of them getting their livelihood from the traffic on the main road. In 1664 27 people in the town were assessed to hearth tax, twelve of them having five or more hearths. Another 50, all but one with less than five hearths, were listed as exempt. In Heston and Isleworth, each excluding Hounslow, those assessed numbered 59 and 138 respectively, and those unassessed 110 and 143. In Isleworth 15 persons had ten hearths and over and 36 had five and over. There were said to be about 160 families in Heston parish in 1723 and more than 200 in Isleworth. In 1801 their respective populations were 1,782 and 4,346. Until the middle of the century the most rapid growth was in Heston, and in 1851, just after the railway had been built with stations at Isleworth and Hounslow, Heston had over 4,000 inhabitants and Isleworth between 6,000 and 7,000. The rate of growth in Isleworth was thereafter well over 1,000 each decade, reaching a peak of 8,000 between 1901 and 1911. Between then and 1921, the date of the last census giving separate figures for the two parishes, the population of Isleworth increased by less than 2,000. In Heston the growth was less rapid throughout, and sank to under a thousand a decade at the end of the century. In 1921 Isleworth, with nearly 30,000 inhabitants, still had over 13,000 more than Heston. Since then the balance has probably changed, while the total population of the borough had mounted to nearly 107,000 in 1951. Agrarian history.
There is insufficient evidence to deduce more than the bare outline of the medieval history of agriculture in the Middle Ages: such as there is refers to Isleworth manor and therefore to the whole area of the parishes of Heston, Isleworth, and Twickenham. In 1086 there were 6 ploughs in demesne and the freemen and villeins had 28 more. In 1195 the demesne seems to have been stocked with 10 ploughs, each having 8 oxen. The carucage of 1220 was paid in Isleworth on 20 plough-teams. A lord of the manor in the late 12th century granted away a hundred acres in his assarts on the edge of Hounslow Heath, and it is possible that some of the larger freeholds which appeared later in the Middle Ages represented clearances from the waste. In 1296-7 171 acres of arable were sown in demesne. Thereafter, as far as can be ascertained from the very few surviving manorial accounts, the acreage may have dropped a little by the mid-14th century. In the half-dozen or so years for which evidence is available the main crops seem to have been oats, wheat, and barley, possibly in that order of importance. About a score of cows were kept, and some sheep: in 1351-2 157 wethers were sheared, but there were no ewes. There was also a vineyard which produced two tuns and one pipe in 1297, but this seems to have been given up soon after and was later planted with cherry-trees. At least two ploughservants and a carter appear in all the accounts, and a shepherd, cowman, and dairymaid in some. In addition, a good deal of work was done by labour services: well over a third of the ploughing was done by services in 1296-7 and 1313-14, and in 1352 160 workers appeared at the lesser harvest boon-work and 104 at the greater. In addition to the services owed by most of the tenants, the customary tenants who held 'workland' or 'acreland' took it in turns to provide extra workers in the summer.
An indication of heavy mortality in the 14th century has already been mentioned. In 1351-2 the demesne was cultivated apparently much as usual, but by 1361-2 all the demesne arable was leased on five-year terms, of which that year was the third. None of the lessees held more than 15 acres. The only works which were not sold were the mowing ones, and these were still being done in 1463, but by that time the tenants were refusing to pay for the harvesting works they never performed. Some, however, still seem to have been paying for not doing their boon-works in 1538. The memory of the complex system of tenures prevailing in the manor during the Middle Ages was recalled by Isleworth Syon's Peace, an agreement made between the lord of the manor and the copyholders in 1656, following many disputes. This laid down the customs of the manor concerning copyhold, which included inheritance by the youngest son: this had applied only to some holdings in the 14th century. (Footnote 64) A tallage of £20 a year was remitted to the tenants in 1424.
The area cultivated outside the demesne in the Middle Ages is unknown. In 1351-2 94½ virgates of customary land alone owed ploughing services and boon-works to Isleworth manor. In 1635, when the medieval arable had been diminished by inclosures for pasture and parkland, there were 2,817 acres of arable in the whole manor, of which 910 were in Isleworth and 1276 in Heston. The 1,541 acres of several pasture no doubt included a good deal which had once been open field or common meadow. An account of the rectory manor for 1324-5 suggests that the largest tithes were paid that year in barley, with oats and maslin not far behind. (Footnote 68) Labour services were still owed to some of the lesser manors in the 15th century.
Syon Abbey seems to have taken back most of the nearer demesne lands into its own hands after the manor was granted to it, (Footnote 70) but little is known of their cultivation before 1508. From then until 1538 are preserved several accounts of the Dairy, which was the name given to the abbey's demesne farm. In the years for which accounts survive it had a staff of four or five men and one or more women, and between 100 and 200 acres were sown out of a probable total in the Dairyfarm at this time of rather over 300. Oats and wheat were the chief crops, with some barley, and a good deal of stock of all kinds was kept: nearly all the produce went straight to the abbey. In the 1530's, just before the Dissolution, there was a flock of about 200 sheep, 60 or so pigs, and about 18 milch cows. After the Dissolution the demesne passed through various hands and was split among different lessees. It was never again cultivated as a whole, but came to be mostly divided among two or three farms.
Complaints of inclosures are heard from the 15th century. Until then, and for some time afterwards, the arable lands in Heston and Isleworth lay mainly in open fields, though there were always some inclosed lands, especially in the north-east. The situation of the fields is described elsewhere: there is no evidence that they lay in two or three well-defined fields between which all the tenants rotated their crops in common, though grazing on the stubble of Link Field is mentioned in 1309. In the 16th century some lands were thrown open for common grazing between Michaelmas and February. The earliest large inclosures may have been of the meadow and pasture lands round Syon Abbey in the 15th century: the abbey's park north of the London Road may have also lain partly on former arable. In the later 16th century several people tried to inclose different bits of land. Two attempts about 1600 seem to have been defeated by a group of tenants led by Sir Gideon Awnsham. Complaints were also made in 1634 about recent inclosures of the common lands. The next two centuries saw the piecemeal inclosure of nearly all the open-field land of Isleworth for fruitgrowing and market-gardening. Fruit-growing seems to have started during the 17th century, and caused a number of disputes about tithe: one man with a garden of about 5 acres was said during one of these disputes to have sold some 3,000 fruit-trees to his neighbours in 1661 and 1662. In 1724, in the course of more litigation, several hundred acres of arable and common-field land were said to have been converted to fruit-growing within the past 60 years. This was attributed to the easy watercarriage to London, (Footnote 81) but the virtual coincidence of gardens with the flood plain gravel in 1746 should also be noticed: later they spread to other ground nearby. Later in the century a good deal of the produce was taken to London by road. (Footnote 84) In 1801 only 360 acres in the parish were said to be sown with grain: of these, 163 acres were wheat, 102 were oats, 69 barley, and 26 rye. A few years earlier marketgardens had been estimated at 430 acres and nurseries at fourteen. By this time raspberries and strawberries were among the chief crops. Some of the raspberries were used for distilling, while the rest of the soft fruit was carried to London on foot by women who came up from Shropshire and Wiltshire for the fruit season. Oziers, which were grown along the river and on the aits and were used, among other things, to make baskets for the fruit grown in the market-gardens, are said to have been another product of Isleworth.
Agriculture in Heston followed a different course, and the open fields, in spite of inclosures on their edges, remained largely untouched until 1818. In 1593 Norden commented on the supreme quality and good quantity of the wheat grown here, from which he said the queen's bread was made: succeeding writers repeated his praises, perhaps with little new information, and it is clear that Heston Field still produced fine wheat in the late 18th century. Different accounts were given of the rotation practised, but in neither was there any fallowing on the common fields, and in one version wheat was the only grain crop, while in the other it was the principal one. The cavalry barracks built on Hounslow Heath in 1793 were said to furnish the neighbouring farmers with a ready market for straw, oats, and hay, as well as supplying manure.
John Robinson (d. 1802), the politician, had a model farm at Wyke in the late 18th century, and Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., experimented with roses, strawberries, and sheep at Spring Grove. A few sheep were also kept on Hounslow Heath, but these 'pitiful, starved-looking animals' were very different from Banks's merinos. Because of the high production of Heston's open fields the movement for inclosure was directed at the heath rather than the fields, but the Act passed in 1818 covered both the fields and commons of Heston, Isleworth, and Twickenham. The awards of both parishes were dated 1818. The position of open-field land and common immediately before inclosure is shown on the map facing p. 88. After this, though Heston went on producing wheat, more land was steadily given over to orchards and market-gardens there as well as in Isleworth.In 1840 Isleworth had 875 acres of market-gardens, &c., and only 443 of arable, (Footnote 96) and in 1845 one of the growers of the parish was said to have the largest extent of land under spade cultivation in England. Strawberries continued to be a staple crop, and a number of new varieties were raised in Isleworth in the first half of the century. At the time of the 1841 Census 123 women from Shropshire and Staffordshire were fruit-picking in Isleworth, and 32 men were there for the haymaking. (Footnote 99) Other crops increased with the use of glass, and at the end of the century both fruit and flowers were still being grown on a large scale at Isleworth: one grower had over 100 acres of mixed fruit-trees and bushes. Heston was noted for cherries, and round Hounslow and Whitton roses, lilies of the valley, and other flowers were produced. By 1906 the numbers of men coming each year from Buckinghamshire to pick cherries and from Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire to hoe the market-garden land was said to be declining, but some Shropshire women were still coming to work in Heston as late as about 1935.  Within the last hundred years, however, first brickfields and then buildings have steadily driven the industry farther west away from London. In 1901 and 1921 there were still just over a thousand men in the two parishes who were employed in farming, gardening, and other work on the land. Between 1921 and 1931 the number dropped to 855, and by 1951 there were only 434 persons in all the agricultural occupations. Of these well over half worked in market- and other gardens.
Trade and Society.
In 1300 six persons held four burgages in Isleworth manor by charter. There were also nine burgesses who held without charter: one held 4 acres and the others 2 acres each. By the middle of the century the four chartered burgages were still further divided but there were only eight of the second group of burgesses. One burgage is known to have been in Isleworth, and this seems the most likely place for them all, since it was not only the centre of manorial administration but also possibly the largest settlement in the early Middle Ages. The market and fair granted in 1231 do not seem to have survived long, however, and the trading element in Isleworth probably declined a good deal as the Middle Ages advanced, though references to ferries, wharfs, and wharfage dues indicate, as might be expected, that the river carried traffic to and from the town Hounslow's medieval market seems to have been hardly more popular and enduring, (Footnote 12) but as the traffic on the main road increased so Hounslow grew with it, and by the great coaching age of the early 19th century the chief business of the town was providing relays of post-horses. With the opening of the Great Western Railway there was a short but disastrous depression in the town, and in 1845 it was calculated that the inn-holders had 1,700 fewer horses than before. The owner of the 'King's Head', with stabling for 127 horses, went bankrupt, and he may have been only one among several to do so. Though the town did not recover its greatest prosperity, the railway soon afterwards gave it a new position as the centre of a growing suburb. Hitherto, though the inns had created some sort of social life, Brentford and not Hounslow had been the centre of the country around, and a market established in the 17th century had passed out of existence at the height of the coaching age. Isleworth, like the other riverside villages nearby, had been a fashionable resort in the 18th century, with its riverside villas and public breakfast-room, and its leading inhabitants fought strenuously in the 19th century to prevent it from becoming an appendage of Hounslow. Hounslow, however, had the first local newspaper in the Middlesex Chronicle. This started publication in 1858, was first entirely produced in Hounslow in 1870, and was still in existence in 1958. Isleworth maintained the Middlesex Mercury from 1871 to 1896, but a second venture, the Middlesex Telegraph, which started soon after the Mercury had closed down, lasted only a few years. Workmen's clubs and reading-rooms in both places went through various vicissitudes, as did the earlier sports clubs. By 1890 the first branch of a chain store had opened in Hounslow, and the High Street rapidly became established as the shopping centre of the urban district, as well as of a wider district round about. The importance of the High Street was enhanced by the later demolition of much of Old Isleworth. The first films were shown in the High Street in 1909 and the first regular cinema was opened in 1911 in a building in the Hanworth Road which had earlier been used, among other things, as a variety theatre. One of the five existing cinemas closed in 1957.
In 1635 a proposal to erect a limekiln near the river at Isleworth was opposed by the inhabitants on the ground that it was 'too fair a seat for so foul an employment'. The kiln was probably not built and the river bank retained its appearance for many years, but by the time that Hounslow was becoming the social and commercial centre of a growing suburb there was a certain amount of industry settled in the area. The mills are described elsewhere. The medieval Manor Mill remained the only corn-mill until the 19th century, but in the last hundred years of its life before it was demolished in 1941 it was said to be one of the largest in England. The mills built on the Crane and the Duke's River from the 16th century on did a variety of work, and the manufacture here of brass, swords, and paper in the 17th century, and of gunpowder in the 18th and 19th was of more than local importance. The gunpowder from the Hounslow Mills (in Twickenham parish) was transported by barge from Isleworth and the fear of explosions periodically disturbed the town. Altogether, the mills must always have employed a fair amount of labour: the flax mill on the Crane is known to have had 21 pauper children from London parishes as 'apprentices' in 1821, and was said to have had 53 a few years before. (Footnote 29)
Brick-making is mentioned in the 15th century, when Syon Abbey leased a brickhouse to a tenant for 12,000 bricks a year: some of the bricks were used in building the abbey. (Footnote 30) All Angels' Chapel also had a brickfield which was probably north of the London Road on the strip of earth which ran thence past Worton to Twickenham: bricks were dug from Conduit Field in this area in the 16th century. There was a brickfield near Worton Lane in the 18th century (Footnote 33) but by the 19th all the brick-making was carried on in the larger brickearth area round Heston and North Hyde. The brick-makers were said in 1834 to be drunken in summer and, like the workers in market-gardens, out of work in winter, so that they were the class most liable to distress and were 'the great burden' of the parish of Heston. There was less brickmaking here towards the end of the century, but there were still one or two fields in the early 20th century.
A brewhouse, evidently of some size, was built at the west end of Brentford Bridge about the late 15th century, and Sir Thomas Gresham bought a 'burgage called a brewhouse' on an unknown site from the Crown in 1572. There was a brewery in Isleworth in the early 16th century. The brewery in St. John's Road had already been in business for some time when it was bought by William Farnell in 1800. As Farnell and Watson's and later as the Isleworth Brewery Co. Ltd. it expanded greatly during the 19th century. It was bought by Watney Combe Reid & Co. in 1923 and was used in 1958 as a bottling store.
Wheels appear to have been made in Hounslow for the king's service in 1523. (Footnote 42) There was a pottery at the Railshead between about 1750 and 1833, when it moved to the Hanworth Road. It closed altogether about 1855. Heston had no industries except brick-making before the Norwood Vitriol Works were set up on the parish boundary in the early 19th century. Like the ordnance depot in the same area, and a gas works later, it closed later on in the century: this area north of the Grand Junction Canal was later transferred to Southall-Norwood. At Isleworth the river and wharfs which already served the flour- and gunpowder-mills attracted some more industry, including a cement works. Though Old Isleworth has declined as a residential and shopping centre, and though the flour mills have closed and the brewery has become a bottling-store, it has gained some new works and the wharfs are used, among others, by boat-builders and buildingmaterial merchants. The wharfs and railway at Brentford End also attracted several factories there, but there was not a great deal of space available for them on the Isleworth side of the Brent. In the extreme south-west the railway repair works belonged socially to Feltham, Twickenham, and Hanworth as well as, or more than, to Isleworth. Pears' soap factory, the first of the big modern firms to arrive, was built close to the railway station at Smallberry Green in 1862, and has since much expanded. Worton Hall (now a Coal Board research establishment) was used as a film studio by various companies between 1913 and 1952. In the north, the opening of the Heston Air Park in 1929 had attracted nine aircraft manufacturers and other firms connected with flying by 1933. The airfield was finally closed to flying after the Second World War and most of it was turned over to gravelworking, but the factories round the edge remained. The event which had the greatest single effect on the industry of the area, however, was the opening of the Great West Road in 1925. The first factory there was Firestone's, which was built and opened in 1928. Others followed in the next ten years until they lined the road as far west as Syon Lane, and stretched up Harlequin Avenue and a little way up Syon Lane itself. At the same time more factories started work in other parts of the borough. In 1911 there were 82 offices, workshops, and factories, and in 1921 there were 95. By 1957 the number of industrial undertakings had risen to nearly 200. Of those in the Great West Road area (see plate facing Firestone, Gillette, Macfarlane Lang, and Pyrene each employed over 1,000 persons in 1958, their principal products being respectively tyres, razor-blades, biscuits, and fire-extinguishers. Parke Davis in the Staines Road and the Unilever concerns in the old Pears works also had over 1,000 employees each. Four other factories (Concrete, Dewhurst and Partner, Fluidrive, and Heston Aircraft) employed over 500 each, and about 30 employed over 100 each. The variety of products was very great. Other large employers were the local authority, with over 500 persons, and the hospitals, with nearly 2,000 working at the West Middlesex Hospital in Twickenham Road (established 1806), the Hounslow Hospital (established in Bell Road c. 1875, now in Staines Road), and the South Middlesex Hospital in Mogden Lane (established 1937).

Charities

In 1367 the Prior of St. Valéry, as rector of Isleworth, was said to be bound to distribute two bushels of maslin a week among the poor of Isleworth, and three quarters of beans and peas on the first Sunday in Lent to the poor of Heston. His predecessors had performed these duties from time out of mind until twenty years before. There is no later reference to the custom.
After the Dissolution some of the almshouses attached to All Angels' Chapel at Brentford End seem to have been used by the parish of Isleworth. A number of other almshouses belonged to the parish in the 17th century, and these are all discussed elsewhere. In addition, Isleworth was, and is, well provided with endowed almshouses. Sir Thomas Ingram, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, built six almshouses in Mill Platt which he and his widow endowed by their wills (dated 1671 and 1676 respectively). Several persons left supplementary endowments, and in 1822 the six almswomen received £10 a year each, with coats and gowns. The almshouses were thoroughly repaired in 1816 after eighty years of neglect and since then they appear to have been regularly maintained. They form one low single-storied range, built of red brick with a tiled roof. About 1738 Mary Bell built an almshouse for six women at the east end (then called Back Lane) of North Street. In her will (dated 1765) she endowed pensions for the inmates and founded other charities; by 1822 the whole income from her bequests (about £55) was used on the almshouses and almswomen. The houses were given up in 1841 and the site of the old workhouse in Link Lane was purchased instead. (Footnote 62) The workhouse or part of it was converted into four dwellings and two more were built beside it. A pair of houses facing these on the same site was built by subscription in 1862. All these were being modernized in 1958. Anne Tolson (later Dash), by deed of 1741 which took effect after her death, provided for the erection and endowment of almshouses for six widows or spinsters and six bachelors. The almshouses were built in Church Street in 1756. In 1822 the almspeople received nearly £10 each in money every year, with coals and some clothes. In 1861 the almshouses were rebuilt, partly by subscription. By 1958 they had become very damp and liable to flooding and were up for sale, though six people were still living there. In 1857 John Farnell built a vicarage and ten almshouses behind the new church of St. John the Baptist. The almshouses were thought in 1893 to have been primarily intended for employees of the brewery. Sarah Sermon built six almshouses for women on the corner of Twickenham Road and North Street in 1849 and endowed them a year later. Elizabeth Butler built two in Byfield Road in 1885, and endowed them in 1886 and in her will (proved 1904). Samuel Rayment (d. 1903) left property subject to a life interest to build and endow almshouses for two married couples. A pair of houses was built on the same site as Bell's almshouses in 1936. Except for Farnell's, the existing almshouses were administered together in the later 19th century, when there were some complaints of the oligarchical character of the board of trustees. It was also objected that Hounslow people were virtually excluded from benefit. The fact that most candidates went to the Established Church was, however, attributed to their own belief that attendance would increase their chances of election rather than to exclusion of dissenters by the trustees. Farnell's have continued to be administered separately but by 1958 all the other almshouses formed part of the Isleworth United Charities, which spent £2,277 on coal, repairs, and expenses, and £54 10s. on stipends. Farnell's had an income of £222 and spent £70 on repairs and gave £50 to the inmates.

Religion

In 1706 three men in Isleworth were returned as papists or suspected papists, together with an attorney who had a country house at Heston.  It was probably some years after this that a regular mission was established in Isleworth. The beginning of the mission has been put as far back as 1675, and though there is no reference to a priest before 1743, it is possible that its origins may be found in the acquisition of what became known as Shrewsbury House or Place by Sir John Talbot. His exact identity has not been established but the later descent of the property makes it very likely that he was closely related to the earls of Shrewsbury and was therefore possibly a Roman Catholic. He owned a house at Isleworth by 1678, and if its traditional identification  with Sir Thomas Ingram's house is correct (and this seems likely) he must have bought it in 1676 or soon after. (Footnote 46) The house then seems to have belonged to the Protestant Duke of Shrewsbury (d. 1718), and to have passed to the Roman Catholic George Talbot (d. 1733), often known in his lifetime as Earl of Shrewsbury. His widow continued to live at Isleworth until her death in 1752, and it was as her chaplain that the first recorded priest ministered in Isleworth. From this time there was a regular succession, (Footnote 49) and in 1759 the vestry of Isleworth complained that the papists kept an open and public chapel in the parish, whereby the inhabitants were enticed and seduced from the parish church. It is clear from the registers of the mission that from the middle of the century there was a constant though not large community of Roman Catholics in Isleworth, but there appear to have been few in Hounslow and none in Heston. The congregation on Sundays was said in 1810 to number generally about 20. The earls of Shrewsbury do not seem to have transferred the property formally to the church authorities until 1824, but there is no evidence that any of the Talbot family lived there after 1752, and by 1770 the house was occupied by a boys' school. There were said to be 60 pupils, all Roman Catholics. The house was pulled down by 1810, except for the chapel in part of the kitchens or outbuildings. Poor schools were established in 1854, and a new chapel was erected, probably in 1855, along with the school buildings. This chapel was still in existence in 1958, when it was used as a store by the Lion Wharf Ltd. It ceased to be a church in 1909 when the brick and stucco church of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Bridget was opened in Twickenham Road. This was designed by F. Doran Webb and is basilican in plan, with a barrel-vaulted nave and apsidal chancel. The red-brick west tower has a pyramidal roof.
The Convent of the Faithful Companions of Jesus at Gumley House was founded in 1841. The demands of the schools conducted by the convent led to successive enlargements of the buildings, but the original house is still visible. In 1892 the Poor Sisters of Nazareth established a convent at Isleworth House, which they renamed Nazareth House. They conduct a girls' orphanage and a home for the aged, for which a number of new buildings have been erected in the grounds. The chapel was built in 1902. For some years about the turn of the century Silver Hall in North Street was occupied by a Carmelite convent, and the Little Company of Mary had a convent at Gunnersbury House for some time longer.

The puritan opposition to the vicar of Isleworth before the Civil War may well have been revived after he was reinstated in 1660. In 1664 the vicar listed 174 persons who had not received the sacrament for four years, and nine who had not been to church at all in that time. But, as with those presented for recusancy, the motives of the persons concerned are unknown. The house of William Vincent at Hounslow was licensed for Presbyterian preaching in 1672, and Philip Taverner, who had been ejected from the living of Hillingdon in 1660, received a similar licence for his house at Isleworth in the same year. Two other ejected ministers are said to have lived in Isleworth after the Restoration, though they are not known to have ministered there. The minister of a Presbyterian meeting at Twickenham joined with six others to register a house in Isleworth for worship in 1707.

A Quaker living in Isleworth is mentioned in 1688 and from 1706 there was a Friends' meeting at Brentford. Since 1785 the meeting-house has been in Isleworth, though it continued to be called the Brentford meeting. The meeting-house built in 1785 still stood in Conduit Lane, north of the London Road, in 1958. The burial-ground beside it was given by Sarah Angell in 1824. Meetings were held once a month until 1786 when they became fortnightly. They were weekly by 1820. In 1810 about 70 people generally attended the meetings, according to the bishop's records. In 1885 the meeting had 33 members. The number seems to have fluctuated around 40 until the Second World War, and by 1958 it had risen to 97.

There was said to be a congregation of about 30 Wesleyans at Isleworth in 1810, but their first proper chapel seems to have been opened in North Street in 1829. The first resident Wesleyan minister was appointed in 1909. His subsequent secession to open the South Street mission weakened the church for a time, but the congregation succeeded in building a new chapel in 1924. The old one was sold, and in 1958 was occupied by the British Legion. The new church is in Twickenham Road, just south of North Street. It was probably the Wesleyan Methodists of Isleworth who registered a house at Smallberry Green for worship in 1840, though nothing more is known of this, or of the Wesleyan congregation at Heston which seems to have been started in 1845 by a member of the theological college at Richmond.

The school at Holme Court, in Twickenham Road, Isleworth, at which Vincent Van Gogh taught in 1876, belonged to a Methodist minister, but was not connected with a congregation in the immediate neighbourhood

The Salvation Army Hall in Inwood Road was opened in 1882. It then had the words 'Blood and Fire' inscribed on it.

From: British History Online
Source: Heston and Isleworth: Protestant nonconformity. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume III, Susan Reynolds (Editor) (1962).
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22283

Gumley House,

The name Gumley is not a common one. It is thought to have originated in France, where it had a slightly different spelling, (Gommeley, or perhaps Gautchmondley) but the same pronunciation. Whatever its origins, it has, since 1700, been associated with GUMLEY HOUSE in Isleworth, Middlesex. Although unremarkable architecturally, the house on Twickenham Road has an interesting history, more than half of which is bound up with the school founded by Madame d'Houet (The foundress of the Faithful Companions of Jesus).
1700 The house was built by John Gumley, cabinet maker by appointment to George I and George II. He specialised in mirrors, one of which still hangs in Hampton Court Palace and two in Chatsworth, Derbyshire. John Gumley had a shop in the Strand, London. He took an active part in local life. He was a church warden.
1723 Gumley was the treasurer of the Isleworth Charity School and treasurer of the workhouse (1728). He and his wife Susan had three sons and four daughters. The eldest son George is described as 'very profligate and disobedient and not to be trusted with an ample fortune.' He was cut off with £150 a year.
1714 His eldest daughter Anna Maria, married William Pulteney who later became Earl of Bath. (Pulteney played an important part in political affairs during the reign of three monarchs: Queen Anne, George I and George II.)
1722 Through the influence of his son-in-law, Gumley entered Parliament as member for Steyning in Sussex.
1724 He was given the post of Commissary General to the Army, a position that increased his fortune. A lot of money could be made through army contracts.
Anna Maria was admired for her beauty, but not for her good character. Alexander Pope describes her as: 'Fantastic, vain and insolently fair. Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain.' (The Looking Glass) He advises her to look into one of her father's mirrors and 'by reflection learn to mend her face.'
1721 The architect, James Gibbs was employed to make alterations and improvements to the house. He added the Colonnades in the front and made improvements in the attics.
1728 John Gumley died in December and was buried on Boxing Day at All Saints Church. In his will he left Gumley House to his second son, John. His widow continued to live at Gumley with her youngest daughter, Laetitia.
1735 When Laetitia married Lancelot Charles Lake, Anna Maria and William Pulteney came to l