EALING AND BRENTFORD
Ealing, (fn. 1) which in 1904 claimed to be the 'queen
of the suburbs', (fn. 2) was a roughly rectangular parish
whose centre lay 10 km. west of Hyde Park
Corner. (fn. 3) Its southern part, formerly called
Lower Side in contrast with Upper Side or the
northern part, included Old Brentford, containing most of the township of Brentford and
constituting a chapelry from the 1760s and a
parish from 1828. New Brentford, to the west,
was a medieval chapelry formed out of the
southern end of Hanwell parish and had its own
government by the early 17th century. Ealing
local board district was formed in 1863 without
Old Brentford, which joined New Brentford to
form a separate district in 1874. (fn. 4) The present
account includes both Old and New Brentford
but excludes a small detached portion of Ealing,
south-east of Acton and known as Stamford
Brook grounds, which was transferred in 1878 to
Chiswick.
The southern boundary of the old parish
followed the Thames eastward from Lot's
meadow, east of Town meadow, to include Lot's
Ait but not Brentford Ait (Surr.). From a point
slightly east of Kew bridge it turned inland to
Chiswick High Road, which it followed eastward
before turning north and then east to Bollo
Bridge Lane. The eastern boundary, with Acton,
ran along Bollo Bridge Lane and east of Ealing
common and Hanger Lane to a detached part of
Hanwell, included in the present account, northeast of Hanger Hill. Thence it turned westward
almost to Hanger Lane and followed it to the
river Brent, which formed the northern boundary with Harrow, Perivale, and Greenford. The
western boundary, with Hanwell, ran southward
to the west of the modern Argyle Road and
Northfield Avenue to meet Boston Manor Road
near Boston House, whence it continued to the
Half Acre, Brentford High Street, and the
Thames. New Brentford consisted of a narrow
strip between the Brent on the west and the Half
Acre and Boston Lane on the east, except where
the boundary curved east of the lane to include
Boston Farm. The division between New Brentford and the rest of Hanwell lay roughly along the
line of the railway west of Boston Manor station.
Ealing parish, with Old Brentford, contained
3,821 a. in 1881, (fn. 5) after the loss of 29 a. at
Stamford Brook grounds. New Brentford then
contained 216 a. In 1901 Ealing M.B. contained
2,947 a. and Brentford U.D. 1,091 a. During the
1920s Ealing M.B. was enlarged to 9,133 a. by the
addition of neighbouring areas to the north and
west, and from 1927 Brentford formed three
wards of Brentford and Chiswick U.D., later
M.B. In 1965 Ealing M.B. joined Acton and
Southall M.B.s to form Ealing L.B., and Brentford and Chiswick became part of Hounslow
L.B.
Much of the land is flat, rising gently from the
Thames to reach 23 m. at the centre of the parish
and 30 m. near Uxbridge Road. North of the road
it rises more steeply before sloping down towards
the Brent. The ridge of high ground, with
Castlebar Hill at its western end, reaches c. 60 m.
at Hanger Hill in the north-eastern corner of the
parish. (fn. 6)
In the north part some alluvium, bordered by
flood plain gravel, lies along the Brent. Most of
the higher ground is covered by London Clay,
with Claygate Beds on the slopes of Hanger Hill
and Boyn Hill gravel on the east side of Castlebar
Hill. Brickearth lies along Uxbridge Road,
except where a band of Taplow gravel stretches
north across the road east of Ealing common and
east of Ealing Dean. The Taplow gravel extends
across the parish north of Gunnersbury park
from Acton to the Brent except at Little Ealing,
where a tongue of brickearth runs from Uxbridge
Road. Farther south is more brickearth, with
flood-plain gravel at Old Brentford and a strip of
alluvium along the Thames and at the mouth of
the Brent. (fn. 7)
Two streams, later hidden by housing, ran
southward on either side of Ealing village in the
mid 19th century. The easterly one, from water
in the grounds of Elm Grove, fed some small
ponds in the fields east of South Ealing Road and
larger ones near Clayponds Lane before flowing
under Brentford High Street to the Thames. The
westerly stream ran from Castlebar Hill east of
Northfield Avenue to Little Ealing, where it fed
ponds at Ealing Park; farther south it followed
the line of Brook Road before passing under
Brentford High Street and entering the Thames
near Ferry Lane. (fn. 8)