VIRGOs in Hillingdon, Middlesex (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 22, 2011, 13:25 (4807 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Hi Roger,
fwiw I live in the Hillingdon area and have done since the 1980s, I moved here to take a Graduate Engineer's job at the huge EMI Factories in Hayes, Middlesex, a few miles from Uxbridge towards London, and all within "Hillingdon" Borough.

Hayes itself grew hugely during WW1 when shell-making factories were built on what had been green fields near a tiny agricultural village & station on the London mainline railway. This huge expansion "wild-west" style helped the likes of EMI (the birthplace of RADAR and employing 4000 within the defence industry thro the Wars until the late 1980s) and Fairey aircraft to be here. There was also one of the first RFC bases at Hillingdon House, their first Gunnery School setup in 1917. This expanded to become RAF Uxbridge, a non-flying station yet very important nationally within the RAF and the main Fighter Command HQ co-ordinating London's air defences during the Battle Of Britain. Sadly the Station closed only last year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Uxbridge
Locally and still within Hillingdon Borough we have RAF Northolt, still the major RAF flying station for Greater London, and until the end of the Cold War with the USSR we had several other small but important bases locally including Royal Navy(!) and US Air Force, the military services have had a huge influence on the borough during the C20th.

Long before this Uxbridge had been an important market-town on the drover's & mail coach route into London from High Wycombe, Oxford and the West via the A40. When London was expanding in the C19th Uxbridge supplied much of the city's flour, not to mention house bricks from the local brickfields which is one possible tie-up with the FoD. It had also usurped Hillingdon wrt local government. Anyone from the West planning to seek their "fortunes" in London in the late C19th and early C20th, such as the Virgos perhaps, would first reach Uxbridge and nearby Hillingdon. It's quite possible they would settle here, especially if factory workers around WW1 time.

"The Middlesex section of the canal was completed by 1796. The facilities offered by the canal for bulk transport to the metropolis and the industrial Midlands revitalized the commercial life of Uxbridge and facilitated the working, from about 1815, of the brickearth deposits in south Hillingdon. By 1801 passenger barges were also running daily between Paddington and Uxbridge. This development had little effect on the volume of traffic on the London road, described in 1798 as one of the busiest highways in the country. An account of Uxbridge in the 1830s describes the constant passage along High Street of pedestrians, cattle, waggons carrying farm produce from Buckinghamshire and flour from the Uxbridge mills to London, carriers' carts, and private carriages. More than 40 passenger and mail coaches running between London and the West also passed through the town between 4.30 a.m. and 10 p.m. The fastest coach, 'The Age', took 3 hours 20 minutes for the journey from Oxford to London. There were twelve daily coaches from Uxbridge to London: two fourhorse coaches left from the 'Kings Arm's' and two more from the 'Three Tuns'. Three carriers ran daily from Uxbridge to London and there were daily services to Drayton, Harefield, Pinner, and Windsor. In addition 33 long-distance carriers running between London and places as far distant as Bristol and Birmingham provided connexions to Uxbridge. Extensive stabling and refreshment accommodation was provided by the numerous inns along High Street: in 1853 there were 54 public houses and inns in the town."

Coincidentally wrt the Forest there has long been an important Rank Xerox site here.

I wonder if it was this military-based expansion around WW1 that caused the Virgos to come, or at least settle, here ?. If you have any thoughts I can try and investigate further if you like, there's an active FHS here.

Jeff.