For my next alphabetical visit to unsung suburbs we're off to Bedfont, specifically East Bedfont because then I can count it as an E rather than a B. We're in the borough of Hounslow on the Staines Road, very close to Heathrow Airport but to the south, which is good news for residents because the runways are west-east so hardly any streets are overflown. You'd have heard of the place if its local tube station was called East Bedfont but instead it's called Heathrow Terminal 4, which is bad news for residents because it's extremely hard to walk there and the fares are sky high.
A word about the Bedfonts
These days the local settlement is known almost exclusively as Bedfont. However the parish was originally called East Bedfont, there being a smaller hamlet to the west called West Bedfont. Later came New Bedfont, but that was tiny and almost in Hatton. Meanwhile BedfontPowderMills used to be a mile east of East Bedfont but these days that area's known as North Feltham. Today my intention is to stick within the traditional parameters of East Bedfont as was, plus it turns out West Bedfont has been in Surrey since 1965 so it's ineligible for this feature anyway.
The most extraordinary thing in Bedfont is the church of St Mary the Virgin, or more specifically the two topiary peacocks out front. Just amazing.
They date back to 1704, as you may be able to infer from the date '1704' trimmed into the base of the leftmost peacock. They're supposed to represent two local sisters who once dismissed a suitor so snootily that he took the mick by clipping two peacocks into the yew trees outside the church. Eventually the villagers lost interest in maintaining them and the shapes faded, but not before Thomas Hood (1799-1845) had written a poem about the pair. Much later a local man remembered the poem, contacted the vicar and crowdfunded a Dutch topiarist to come over and trim them again. This happened in 1990, as you may be able to infer from the date '1990' trimmed into the base of the rightmost peacock. Anywhere else in London this might be a well-known attraction but Bedfont's a bit of a backwater so the birds fly under the radar.
The church behind is Norman on a potentially Saxon site, and contains a set of medieval wall paintings in splotchy red representing Christ on the cross and separately in heaven. Unsurprisingly with such treasures the front door is invariably locked. The spire looks ancient but is actually a Victorian replacement, while the clock on the front was added for the Diamond Jubilee and still bongs across the village green.
A Roman road passes in front of the church aiming for Staines, where it was possible to cross the Thames, this once the chief route from London to the west country. Several coaching inns plied a trade along the Bedfont stretch including the Duke's Head, the Royal Oak and The Black Dog (where The Four-In-Hand Driving Club used to stop for sustenance). Only The Bell and The Beehive survive, the former now specialising in Indian cuisine and the latter Romanian, and alas neither in their original buildings. Other than the straightness of the road the main evidence of road-based longevity is a battered milestone outside the library confirming that we are XIII miles from Hyde Park Corner.
East Bedfont's unusual in that it has two extant manor houses, both not quite facing the green. The medieval manor's called Pates and is tucked behind the church, while the Tudor's called Fawns and is screened behind a hideous artificial hedge. A more egalitarian proposition is the Fairholme Estate, a loop of 72 almshouses built on the footprint of a former fruit farm in 1934. It was funded from the estate of a pawnbroker's widow from Fulham, confirming that good things can come from being childless, and hides behind somewhat unwelcoming gates. The entire chain of buildings has a continuous unbroken roof, a unique feature which apparently once got a mention in the Guinness Book of Records (although I've looked across several eras and I can't find it).
One of the oldest roads in East Bedfont is called New Road, where at number 63 you'll find the unremarkable final residence of a remarkable man. That'll be Captain Matthew Webb who on 25th August 1875 became the first man to swim the English Channel, reaching Calais from Dover in just under 22 hours. This made him very famous and also set him up for a career of water-based stunts, including long-distance swims off the east coast of America and a lot of floating in pools to beat endurance records. Unfortunately the general public became less and less interested, forcing a downmarket house move from Kensington to Bedfont, and Webb's health became seriously compromised too. For his final exploit in 1883 he attempted to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls for a prize of £12,000, but the whirlpool sucked him down and his body was found four days later.
If you fancy swimming in Bedfont today the Duke of Northumberland's River has better water quality than the Longford River, although it'd be safer to enter neither. Both are artificial channels, the first dug to irrigate Tudor fields and the second as a water supply for Hampton Court 100 years later. Upstream of Bedfont they run virtually in parallel, relocated to skirt the edge of Heathrow Airport, the downstream division coming just after they've passed under Hatton Road. The Two Bridges used to be a narrow pinchpoint with a ford but is now two drabber concrete spans more suitable for heavy traffic. Follow Hatton Road and you soon reach the homeground of table-topping Bedfont FC and also Myrtle Avenue, Heathrow's premier plane-spotting vantage point, but technically both are in New Bedfont and I said we weren't going there, remember.
Easily the nicest spot hereabouts is Bedfont Lakes, a former gravel pit filled in before the millennium to create 180 acres of recreational space. It has a visitor centre, a large lake and a lot of ducks. It has umpteen sinuous paths, not all of which lead back to the car park, and several wooden animal sculptures. It has signs saying dogs must be kept on leads except in one specific corner, a restriction I very much appreciated. And it has two artificial hills, one of which makes a lacklustre pretence of being a castle and the tallest of which has a single compass-toppedstone on its summit. Monolith Hill was supposed to have become the highest point in Hounslow but alas at 29m it's outranked by some nondescript streets near Heston services. The best view was originally of Heathrow directly to the north, but that's since been blocked by trees so I made do with Wembley's arch, Leith Hill Tower and Thorpe Park's new very tall rollercoaster.
Alongside is Bedfont Lakes Business Park, an anodyne lowrise commercial centre set around two large private squares. Cisco have been here since launch and their employees get to enjoy roof terraces with cemetery views and a bespoke bus service to the nearest stations so they don't have to ride with the commoners. Half the remaining units are now empty however, Birds Eye having scarpered to Woking and IBM having been by replaced in 2012 by BP, who have themselves also moved out. IBM's former HQ achieved celluloid immortality in 1997 when it was used as the home of media conglomerate CMGN in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, even if this site effectively has.
A final word in praise of Hounslow council whose 278-page Local List of Heritage Assets proved invaluable in the research for today's post. Every neighbourhood in the borough gets an illustrated list of treasures, some quite lowly, with the Bedfont and Hatton section having 48 entries. I was thus alerted to a plaque for a dead dog, a saw-tooth brick works, a wood-carved owl, the door to a fire extinguisher factory, a noticeboard erected by the Urban District of Feltham, Samuel Gentle-Cackett's chapel and "an interesting circular bench". I also acquainted myself with the institution that is Barry's of Bedfont, an orange-fronted bazaar that usually specialises in hardware, haberdashery, ironmongery, bedding, toiletries and storage boxes but is currently going all out on bedding plants. There's something for everyone in East Bedfont.
