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| Longford Village today |
Middlesex as
a county has lost its identity under the urbanisation of London. Most Middlesex
towns are referred to simply as a London Borough of something. A few places to
the north and west, and within the M25 unofficial boundary of Greater London, still
proudly proclaim Middlesex as their county, but soon even more of its territory
will be removed from our sight, our memory and our history.
The village
of Longford will disappear with the expansion of Heathrow airport. To those
that live there it will be a sad bitter time. To those that have yet to visit
the village it will be a disappointment to find that you are unable to use
Google’s Street View app to navigate through its streets. Street View cameras
have only ventured to the outskirts of the village and omitted to capture any
images of the historic core. Why is this? Street View has not offered an
explanation to me. Was it a deliberate omission requested by the Government to
stop any record of the village being preserved prior to its demolition, or just
a casual mistake?
The village
of Longford, within the London Green Belt and a Conservation Area, is a
peaceful (ignoring the sound of screaming jets overhead) rural setting which
has hardly altered over time. It has nine Grade II listed buildings, and five
others of special architectural interest. The village, from Saxon times and
earlier, has been a farming community. The prime horticultural land grew fruit
and vegetables for London’s Covent Garden market. It straddles the Great Bath
Road from where, for centuries, its four inns provided travellers with
hospitality. Six miles from Windsor Castle the village was the usual stopping
place for the Royals to change their horses on the way to and from London and
Windsor.
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| Longford Village 1920 |
The
villagers were witnesses to many events, rejoicing at some and turning a blind
eye to others. Highwaymen prayed on the coach travellers who had to cross the
notorious Hounslow Heath to get to Longford, but if any villagers were aware of
the culprits they kept it to themselves. With four rivers (two artificial) and
acres of orchards and market gardens it was a thriving rural community up to
the second world war when an airfield was built nearby to aid the war effort.
This airport became the country’s main civil airport at Heathrow and from then
on Longford was blighted. It has been threatened with extinction since the
fifties, but the cohesive supportive community are proud of its history and have
fought to prevent its destruction.
Google’s
Street View boasts that it now has full coverage of the road networks for the
whole of the United Kingdom, so why is Longford missing? Street View is not
just a tool for navigation, but is becoming a social history resource. Google
has an ongoing programme of re-surveying and, whilst the current image is presented
to the user first, a clock symbol in the top-left of the screen can be clicked to
see older images. This is a great asset to family or local history researchers,
or just the curious, who want to track the transition of locations through
time.
Sadly, because
the village of Longford has not been visited by the Street View cameras, when
the third runway is built no one will be able to see images of the village that
once stood there, and with the loss of images will also go the story of
centuries of village life. To preserve Longford’s history I am writing a book
on the life of the village through time. Even if the physical village
disappears I hope the lives, loves, tragedies and triumphs of its people will
live on in print.
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| The Colne River, Longford, today |
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