My next alphabetical destination has its own tube station, hence is perhaps not the unsung suburb the previous eight have been. But Ickenham is still properly off-piste for the vast majority of Londoners, tucked away in Metro-land between Uxbridge and Ruislip with a historic identity all of its own. Wikipedia suggests "no major historical events have taken place in Ickenham" and also lists no famous former residents, but it is still broadly interesting and very much not icky.
The heart of the former hamlet of Ickenham is the village pump by the village pond opposite the village church. The pump was sunk in 1866 and raises water 80 feet from the chalk below, the overspill from which feeds the duck-infested pond. The octagonal canopy was added to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, its slate roof resting on twisted columns and topped by a weathervane. It was nearly demolished in the 1920s for being a traffic hazard but thankfully villagers stepped in and told the miserable motorists where to go. The adjacent pub is much older, that's the Coach and Horses, its beams essentially Tudor and its seven HD TV screens only months old after a six-figure internal refresh. I didn't venture in because the pub was absolutely overflowing with boozy Leeds United fans who'd coached down to watch the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, but I bet they weren't quite so upbeat on the journey home.
Across the road is the even older parish church of St Giles, its nave perhaps late 13th century, the chancel 14th and the wood-shingled bell turret 15th. The porch is mostly timber-framed and has just the right amount of wonk, visually speaking, but is probably locked. The absence of a clock is now balanced by a gold-etched sundial on the church hall, the inscription HEW MMIII MLW being two-thirds initials and one-third Roman numerals. I picked up a copy of Ickenham Church News by the gate and was struck by the dense list of throwback local societies (Flower Club, Bowls Club, Ballroom Dancing, Townswomen's Guild, Dramatic Society) and especially by the cordial invite to become a member of the local Home Guard (1944) Association Private Members' Club, almost like the 21st century never happened.
Perhaps Ickenham's finest heritage attraction is the Ickenham Miniature Railway, this the unique creation of the Ickenham and District Society of Model Engineers. They've crammed an inordinate amount of looping tracks and sidings into a very compact space behind the pub car park, this accepting either 5" or 3½" gauge rolling stock, and will happily whizz visitors round their mini loops aboard steam-hauled trolleys for a fare of £1 a time. If you fancy a visit the next monthly Open Day is this Saturday from noon, while at any other time you'll have to make do with staring at Ickenham St Giles halt through the iron gate.
The actual Ickenham station opened on the Metropolitan Railway in 1905 after the parish council pleaded for a halt. First it brought weekend trippers, then in the 1920s and 1930s it brought thousands of new residents keen to live in what was marketed as Ickenham Garden City. The station is the drabbest on the Uxbridge branch, this the inevitable consequence of the buildings being built in 1970. Step free-access arrived five years ago and an additional car park for disabled passengers is almost complete alongside, a £1.4m project which delivers just three spaces atop a hefty platform. Across the road is IckenhamHall, a Georgian farmhouse with an even older listed redbrick wall out front, which was purchased by the council in 1948 for use as a youth club. Since then the 158-seat Compass Theatre has been bolted on behind as a real boost to the arts, where works by Alan Ayckbourn and Agatha Christie await your custom next month.
Keep walking to the back of the Glebe Estate, past houses that confirm pebbledash isn't always bad, and you can follow Austins Lane into deep countryside. This tracks a small channel called the Ickenham Stream, skirts some woodland where I disturbed a deer and passes a scrapyard with 'Trespassers Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again' written on the blackest of gates. Eventually you reach Ickenham Marsh, a nature reserve on the banks of the Yeading Brook, where you can either follow the path or yomp off freely across tussocks of rush and hair grass towards Ruislip Gardens. I adored the solitude - just me and a couple of ducks - until what sounded like a fleet of vacuum cleaners started up behind the trees, this because the runway at RAF Northolt is just a jetblast away.
Ickenham's chief river is the Pinn, a floodable corridor which divides the suburb in two. It's possible to walk along most of it, especially down south in Swakeleys Park where one side is bounded by a long ornamental lake. But the quirkiest spot is to the north where a wooded 30m square island is squished into an artificial meander in the river. This is Pynchester Moat, one of London's handful of medieval moated sites and a Scheduled Ancient Monument to boot. Its provenance is contested but they found 14th century earthenware and flint tools on site and also excavated part of a wooden causeway which used to cross to the centre. Walk the wrong side of the river and you'd never spot it, walk the right side and it feels like your own special personal fiefdom for the couple of minutes it takes to negotiate the perimeter.
The Pinn is one of the natural features being comprehensively assaulted at present by the construction of HS2. This launches from tunnelto viaduct at a portal just beyond West Ruislip and is starting to veer away from the Chiltern mainline as it crosses the river. A truly massive swathe of earthworks has been carved through the golf course and on across the Green Belt, the realignment of the river just one of the immense permanent changes hereabouts. To their credit HS2 have spent dosh on proper footpath diversions and also provide regular updates to local residents on ongoing works which thisweek include conveyor foundation removal and the installation of noise barriers. When they've finally departed a huge triangular wedge of Ickenham between Harvil Road and Breakspear Road will have been remodelled into three grassy mounds using spoil from the Northolt Tunnel, and if you've not been out here to see the gobsmacking transformation recently they hope you'll never notice afterwards.
The other local sight someone hopes you'll never see is Swakeleys House. This Jacobean mansion was one of Ickenham's two former manor houses, built in 1638 for the Sheriff of London (and future Mayor) Sir Edmund Wright. It has fancy gable ends in the Dutch style, an oak staircase and a lot of intricate woodwork. After the last owner sold it off in the 1920s, kickstarting development of the prestige Swakeleys housing estate, the mansion ended up in the hands of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Sports Association and eventually fell into disrepair.
The house was restored in the 1980s to the benefit of all, but since 2009 the private owners have sought increasing seclusion, starting by kicking out the biannual Ickenham Festival from the grounds. They also now restrict public access to Open House just once a year, and when I went in 2018 all we were permitted to see of the interior was a hallway and a painted staircase. Since then the hedge they planted around the perimeter has thickened to make it very hard, but not quite impossible, to see the house, and I suspect if you come back in a few years (or in high summer) it'll have vanished altogether, the miserable isolationists.
More Ickenham mini-bits
» RAF West Ruislip was sited in north Ickenham from 1917 to 2007, the tenants for the last half-century being the US Air Force. The site is now an estate of 400 not-especially dense houses and as far as I can tell no memorial of any kind exists on site.
» A lone oak tree in a tiled circle beside Swakeleys Road is recognised on a headstone as Ickenham's 'Gospel Oak' where the curate and parishioners would pray for healthy crops on Rogation Sunday (but it's not the original tree, it's the fourth attempted replacement).
» There's a genuine sense of community here, exemplified by the fact a majority of the households are members of the Ickenham Residents’ Association. You've just missed the AGM but I get a sense from the quarterly newsletters that its priorities are caution and tutting, especially in the areas of planning, parking and HS2.
» The Swakeleys and Glebe Estates are served by one of London's 10 least frequent TfL buses, the hour-and-a-halfly U10.
» Businesses in Ickenham include Scentsational (florists), Suzanne's Dance Supplies (also school of modern jazz), Wick & Ceramic (candle workshop), Burgerbey (for halal patties), Maison du Soleil (for boulangerie and patisserie) and The Tichenham Inn (a Wetherspoons, not usually packed with Leeds supporters, Tichenham being the medieval name for Ickenham).
» The 1908 Olympic Marathon passed through Ickenham, this the event that set the distance as 26 miles and 385 yards, so it's not actually true that no major historical events have taken place here.
» The next Ickenham Festival will take place from 6th-14th June, with the big Village Day on Saturday 13th should you want to see the place at its best.
