45 Squared 13) THE SQUARE, UB7
Borough of Hillingdon, 40m
Here's a square in the heart of a medieval village which, if intended plans play out, won't exist in ten years time. Not just the square but the entire village is pencilled in for demolition, every last building, because we're just outside Heathrow Airport and a Third Runway is coming.
We're in the village of Longford, a key staging point on the old route to the West Country. It's here that the Bath Road crossed the River Colne and the Wraysbury River, initially by fording both hence the name 'Long Ford'. Stagecoaches, royal retinues and early vehicles would once have passed along the village's curving high street, at least until 1928 when the Colnbrook bypass opened and traffic was diverted a tad to the north. These days the only vehicles that can pass all the way through the village are buses, the remainder blocked by a filter at the eastern end lest the hinterland of Heathrow overwhelm the place. Beyond this barrier are a Premier Inn, a Thistle hotel and a slew of Uber drivers waiting for a hire, and close is by the austere fortress of the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre. Longford, however, remains very much a village.
But very much a fading one. All sorts of lovely old buildings have plainly seen better days and some are boarded up behind concrete blocks. Social erosion is plainer in the newer properties, some of which have rotten windows, unloved gardens and occupants of temporary aspiration. This is what happens when your village is threatened with demolition for decades, and when there's a detention centre and jetset hub on your doorstep. But many other properties remain pristine as existing residents remain proud of living here, with their beautifully tended gardens, occasional gnomes, even the odd thatched roof. Few other London settlements are quite as paradoxical as Longford, with its decrepit homes and listed cottages almost nextdoor, but that's the curse of Heathrow expansion for you.
Inasmuch as a linear village has a heart, it's probably around The Square because that's where the coaching inn and the smithy used to be. Here was the tiny village green, incontrovertibly triangular in shape so The Triangle would have been a much more appropriate name. Two cottages were later built in the centre disguising things somewhat, and these days The Square is merely one side of the old green so not even polygonal. It won't take long to walk along, not least because nobody officially lives here.
The Square begins beside a bungalow called Dolphins, although officially that's 520 Bath Road so we can disregard it. Instead I'm afraid we're going to have to focus on items of street furniture, kicking off with a BT callbox that's currently displaying an advert for a Katsu Chicken Wrap. A McDonalds exists at the Shell garage less than half a mile up the road, which it has to be said is one of the benefits of an international airport erupting beside your village. The payphone alas is doomed according to a poster inside dated 22/1/25, the reason being "it just isn't used enough", which in terms of Ofcom criteria means it must have been used for fewer than 52 calls a year. Villagers have 90 days to save it, i.e. until next Tuesday, although I doubt many of them have even noticed.
Beside the phone box is a black bench which could be a leftover from an era when callboxes had queues or could be because it offers half an obscured view of the local pub. A litter bin, a telephone pole and a green BT cabinet complete the street furniture cluster here, while a bit further along is a bright red bin for dog mess carefully bolted to a crescent of verge. There isn't much grass here but it is the most convenient spot for canine relief for those who can't be bothered to walk up the road to the Peggy Bedford Heathrow Biodiversity Site. A single hook-necked lamppost lights The Square, and also provides somewhere to hang the sign confirming that parking is outlawed overnight. I suspect the discarded fridge is temporary.
The Square ends abruptly at a bridge over a weedy braid of the River Colne, beyond which lies The Island. This genuinely is an island and has has been a residential hideaway for centuries, now slightly denser since certain cottage plots got sold off for flats. Officially it's private property overseen by The Island Road Residents Ass Ltd, although it's not attractive or elusive like Eel Pie Island so nowhere particularly worth trespassing. More delightful at this time of year is the lawn by the river's edge where a patch of bluebells and dandelions has burst forth on the edge of some straggly woodland. Stepping into the trees soon bursts the illusion, however, the undergrowth scattered with takeaway tubs, vodka bottles, two old boots and a discarded For Sale sign.
The quaint row of buildings along the third side of the triangle includes Willow Tree Cottage and Queen River Cottage, both built in 1739. Both are white-rendered with dormer windows, both are grade II listed and only one has an ambulance parked out front. Much more impressive and welcoming is the White Horse pub, a wonky timber-framed building that's fundamentally Tudor and has very low ceilings. Its long-term landlords have gone to particular effort to bedeck the place with windowboxes and flowering tubs, and also to waft out the smell of gravy as Sunday lunchtime approaches. If you're ever stuck overnight at Heathrow you could do worse than drop in for a pint and maybe a plate of Nanny Marge's Fish Pie, assuming Longford's still here next time you fly.
Longford has two bus stops, one of which is called The Square and the other of which is called Heathrow Close. And Heathrow really is close, the T5 car park that's accessed by self-driving pods being less than 200m from this scene of pastoral pleasantry. You can't walk there because the airport's security perimeter is fierce and additionally backed up by the intermediate Duke of Northumberland's River. Indeed it's so close that Heathrow recently put in a planning application to erect a 7m-high sound barrier between the end of the runway and the beleaguered village of Longford. This is because the government recently agreed to allow alternating runway operation when the wind is from the east, a move outlawed for decades by the Cranford Agreement which protects airspace over Hounslow. This change requires the construction of an additional main taxiway at the western end of the northern runway and this'll bring ground noise much closer to the airport perimeter. Only live in Longford if your need for convenience and cheap property outweighs your need for silence and security of tenure.
Intriguingly the borough of Hillingdon has one more thoroughfare called The Square which has a bus stop named after it and which isn't square. It's in the artificial business zone of Stockley Park, where all VAR decisions are made, just off the Grand Union Canal near Hayes. The Square is the easternmost segment and is actually a long oblong, surrounded by six huge buildings suitable as corporate HQs half of which are currently empty. This The Square would have been more interesting to write about but I blogged it back when I explored the teensy postcode district of UB11 so you got the doomed village backwater instead. Its destiny is to become part of the apron surrounding T5's new northern satellite terminal, just south of the extra runway, so you may one day end up taxiing across The Square oblivious to its past charms.
