Thamesbank Credit Union serves anyone who either lives or works in Ealing, Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond, Wandsworth or Spelthorne. So in this article, we wanted to share a few facts about the Borough of Hounslow. How many of them did you know already?
• Where does the name Hounslow come from? In old records, Hounslow is spelt ‘Hundeslow’ or ‘Hundes hlāw’ in Anglo-Saxon translated as ‘the Hound’s barrow’ or more accurately ‘the barrow of a man named or nicknamed Hound’.
• The Staines Road on the north side of Hounslow Heath was originally a Roman Road – that’s why it’s so straight!
• The first flight from Britain to Australia also took off from the Heath in 1919 – they couldn’t fly very far each day and so it took them almost a month to get there.
• In the early 1800s Hounslow village was a stagecoach stop on the road from London to Bath (rather like a motorway service area these days) and could look after almost 2,000 horses. But all that stopped after the Great Western Railway to Bristol was built in 1832 and few people went by road anymore.
• Michael Keens developed the first large, sweet strawberry variety in England in Isleworth in 1806.
• Quite a few famous people have been born or lived in Hounslow, for example, David Attenborough, Jimmy Carr and Phil Collins. Mo Farah went to Isleworth and Syon School and ran for Hounslow Athletics Club. Freddie Mercury of the band Queen lived in Gladstone Avenue in Feltham from 1964 after he first came to England.
• Hounslow is twinned with four other towns overseas – Issy-Les-Moulineaux in France, Ramallah in Palestine, Lahore in Pakistan and Jalandhar in India.
• According to the 2011 census, over 43% of people in Hounslow were born outside the UK and it is one of the most diverse London boroughs with over 100 languages spoken.
References
Sources: Wikipedia, Hounslow Council, ONS.
Image source: Google maps