COWLEY
Cowley became part of the urban district of
Uxbridge in 1929 and part of Uxbridge civil parish
in 1937. (fn. 1) It therefore now has no separate civil
existence. Before 1882, when the first important
changes were made in its boundaries, the parish of
Cowley covered some 300 acres lying for the most
part to the south of Uxbridge, between a branch of
the Colne called Fray's River on the west and the
River Pinn, which runs into Fray's River on the east. (fn. 2)
It was entirely surrounded by Hillingdon parish, of
which the town of Uxbridge itself and Uxbridge
Moor, which separated Cowley from Buckinghamshire on the west, formed part. Within the triangle
formed where the Pinn and Fray's River meet,
Cowley parish was so intermixed with Hillingdon
that parts of it were entirely detached from the rest,
while other parts, some detached, lay farther east
across the Pinn. For this reason most of the more
general history of the parish has been reserved for
discussion with that of Hillingdon, along with the
description of those parts of the village of Cowley
which were in any case in Hillingdon parish.
The village of Cowley lies on a ridge (about 100-25
feet above sea-level) overlooking the Colne valley.
Eastwards, after a slight drop to the Pinn, the land
rises again towards Hillingdon. There is also a slope
downwards to the south where the two rivers meet.
Between the rivers the soil is brick-earth, though
there is London clay and gravel east of the Pinn. (fn. 3)
The parish boundaries owe little to natural causes,
and the reason for their complexity is that they are
also the boundaries of the manor: (fn. 4) in predominantly open-field country and in a district where
many settlements contained more than one manor,
the shape of the manor of Cowley, or Cowley Peachey,
as it came to be called, was not unusual. In the
Middle Ages the manor of Colham covered most
of Hillingdon, including part of the small settlement of Cowley and the fields around and between
the villages of Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Cowley, and
Colham. (fn. 5) By 1086 Westminster Abbey owned an
estate, later Cowley Peachey manor, which comprised the rest of Cowley. (fn. 6) Later, perhaps in the 13th
century, (fn. 7) another estate appeared which became
known as Cowley Hall. This was a subsidiary
manor of Colham and, though most of its lands
probably lay around the manor-house of Cowley
Hall close to the village of Cowley, and though later
in the Middle Ages it was for a while held by the
lord of Cowley Peachey, it was not directly connected with the older Cowley manor or with Westminster Abbey. (fn. 8) In or before the 12th century Westminster Abbey or its under-tenant seems to have
founded a church at Cowley, to which the tithes and
dues of the abbey's lands and tenants became permanently annexed. (fn. 9) This perpetuated the boundaries
of Cowley manor, which would otherwise probably
have become obscured with time, as the boundaries
of Cowley parish.
The church, which was in existence by the 12th
century, stands near the Pinn on the eastern side of
the manor: there is no evidence of a settlement of
any size here, though there were probably always one
or two buildings beside the church. Farther west,
along the main road between Uxbridge and West
Drayton, and mostly to the north of the Iver Lane
turning, lay the village formerly known as Cowley
Street. The greater part of this lay in Cowley
parish. (fn. 10) These two small hamlets formed the main
areas of settlement within the parish, though there
were a few houses elsewhere, including some at
what is now called Cowley Peachey. (fn. 11) This name,
however, is of recent origin as applied to the hamlet,
and the older name of 'Three Households' or 'Three
Houses' indicates that it was not a settlement of any
size: part in any case lay outside the parish bounds. (fn. 12)
Stretching northwards from the church almost to
the houses of Uxbridge, and eastwards from Cowley
Street past the church and across the Pinn to
Kingston Lane in Hillingdon, lay open-field land
which was known in the 18th century as Cowley Field.
Parts of this, on both sides of the stream though
probably chiefly on its west bank, belonged to the
manor and parish of Cowley. In the 18th century,
and doubtless before, the rest belonged to Colham
and Cowley Hall manors, and formed part of
Hillingdon parish. (fn. 13) The largest undivided part of
Cowley parish, comprising about half its total area,
stretched southward from the church along the
west side of the Pinn. The boundaries of this area
seem to be the most clearly marked in the parish:
on the west side they followed Peachey Lane (since
diverted) and the Fray's River, and on at least
part of the east side they followed the Pinn. By
1748 the greater part (106 a.) of the area comprised
inclosed lands, attached to Cowley Peachey Farm
(later Manor Farm) and belonging to the lord of the
manor. (fn. 14) The farm-house was built about 1600, (fn. 15)
which suggests that part at least of the land was then
inclosed: it may never have been open. For some
unexplained reason the survey of the parish and
manor made in 1738 does not include the farm and
its lands. (fn. 16) The only common-land in Cowley
parish appears to have been Nomansland (about 5 a.
by the 19th century) which lay east of the Pinn on
both sides of the road from Cowley church to
Pield Heath, an adjoining common which belonged
to Hillingdon parish. (fn. 17) There seems to be no record
of Cowley manor and parish having any rights over
the common (generally known as Uxbridge Moor)
which bordered it on the west. In addition to these
various parts of the parish there was a small piece
(2 a). of glebeland belonging to it on the other side
of Hillingdon by Long Lane. (fn. 18) Also at Long Lane,
according to the survey of 1738, were 140 acres of
inclosed land: (fn. 19) these are not mentioned elsewhere
as belonging to the parish, and their entry in the
survey is unexplained. (fn. 20)
In 1796 Cowley Field was inclosed, with the
object not only of consolidating holdings but also
of consolidating the parishes of Hillingdon and
Cowley, which, as the Inclosure Act declared, were
'inconveniently intermixed and separated'. (fn. 21) As a
result Cowley received several blocks of land, of
which the largest were connected to the part of the
parish by the church and to the part at Cowley
Street by roads which the inclosure commissioners
decreed were to be repaired by Cowley parish and
which therefore became part of it. Four parts of the
field north of the Greenway were also assigned to
Cowley but remained detached, and so did two
others farther south by the High Street and by
Maygoods Lane. (fn. 22) Nomansland, across the Pinn,
also remained cut off from the rest of the parish,
while the little field (2 a.) nearly 2 miles away in
Long Lane remained, of course, unaffected by the
award.
Under the Divided Parishes Act of 1882 the eight
detached parts of Cowley were transferred to
Hillingdon parish. (fn. 23) In 1894 Hillingdon was divided
in two, the part within Uxbridge urban district
becoming the civil parish of Hillingdon West and
the part outside becoming Hillingdon East. (fn. 24) The
urban district had the same area as the former local
board of health district, which since 1853 had
reached southwards to the northernmost boundary of
the main area of Cowley parish, thus including four of
the detached parts. (fn. 25) The part of Hillingdon East
parish west of the Pinn was therefore entirely cut
off from the rest by Cowley, and in 1895 all this part
of Hillingdon East was transferred to Cowley, while
the part of Cowley east of the Pinn was transferred to
Hillingdon. (fn. 26) This increased the area of Cowley to
525 acres, and meant that for the first time the parish
included the whole of the village and all the land
south of Uxbridge between the Fray's River and the
Pinn. In 1929, 33 acres in the south of the parish,
bounded by the Grand Junction Canal and Packet
Boat Lane, were transferred to Yiewsley parish,
while 29 acres of Yiewsley, lying north of Packet
Boat Lane and west of the Fray's River, were transferred to Cowley. The whole parish of Cowley, as
altered, was at the same time added to the urban
district of Uxbridge, and in 1937 it was finally
absorbed in Uxbridge civil parish. (fn. 27)
Domesday Book records only two villeins and a
cottar in Cowley manor. (fn. 28) In 1547 the parish contained 36 'houseling' people, in 1719 there were 109
inhabitants, and in 1801 the population was 214: (fn. 29)
these figures do not of course include the part of the
village in Hillingdon parish. Because of the division
of the village, the manor and parish never constituted a real community, and the regulations made
by the manorial court about the fencing of the open
fields, meadows, and commons, and the stinting of
the beasts pastured there, (fn. 30) were no doubt duplicated
in Colham manor court. The manorial estate probably always covered a good deal of the parish and
employed a fair number of the tenants. (fn. 31) During
the later 19th century increasing amounts of land
were given over to market- and nursery-gardens,
and to brickworking. (fn. 32) About 1800 the stretch of the
Grand Junction Canal through Cowley was opened,
and packet-boats ran for a while in 1801 and
occasionally in the next few years between Uxbridge
and London. (fn. 33) The Packet Boat Inn at Cowley
Peachey, licensed in 1804, (fn. 34) commemorates this
episode, and a small group of buildings had appeared
around two docks there by 1825. (fn. 35) The Uxbridge
branch of the Great Western Railway was opened
in 1856 and ran through Cowley, but there was no
station here until 1904, (fn. 36) and despite the spread of
building from Uxbridge in the north, the beginnings
of industry at Cowley Peachey, and the three large
mills just outside the western boundary of the
parish, Cowley remained an almost entirely rural
village until after the First World War. In 1891,
just before the parish was enlarged, the population
was 322. In 1901, after the enlargement, it was 869,
and this had only risen to 1,170 by 1931. (fn. 37) During the
1930's there was a good deal of building, partly by
Uxbridge council, and the population of the same
area was 3,687 in 1951. (fn. 38) Since then a great many
more houses have been built, bringing the total
provided by the council to nearly 1,000 in 1959, so
that much of the area east of the main road and south
of Station Road has been covered, though extensive
nurseries remain farther north. (fn. 39) The diversion of
Peachey Lane in 1938 (fn. 40) and the blocking of Maygoods Lane about fifteen years later (fn. 41) have destroyed
the old road plan of this part of the parish. A number
of older buildings survive, apart from the church,
Cowley House, and the Manor Farm, which are
described below. (fn. 42) In the High Street, Old Vine
Cottage, the 'Crown', and Maygood's Farm date
from before 1700, and there are several detached
18th-century houses there, some of which may
incorporate earlier work. At Cowley Peachey are
two timber-framed houses: the Old Cottage probably
dates from the 15th or early 16th century and is a
three-bay house of which the central bay was
originally an open hall. At some later date the hall
was divided into two stories and a brick chimney was
inserted. (fn. 43)
Few well-known people have been associated with
Cowley. Barton Booth (1681-1733), actor, and John
Rich (d. 1761), theatrical manager, both lived at
Cowley Grove, but this house was in Hillingdon
parish. (fn. 44) John Lightfoot (1735-88), naturalist, was
curate of Cowley from 1768 to 1786. (fn. 45) The son of
Richard Dodd, rector 1771-1807, achieved fame as a
popular London preacher, and the rector's brother,
William Dodd, a former royal chaplain, achieved
notoriety when he was hanged for forgery in 1777. (fn. 46)