St Marks and Canal Conservation Area Appraisal - Ealing Council

St. Mark’s and Canal Conservation AreaCharacter AppraisalThe Enclosure Act of 1814 was another event that greatlycontributed to the change of character of the area. TheAct put an end to the old method of strip-farming and theresulting increase in land values encouraged morefarmers to give up their smallholdings on the slope andmove further south.Larger landowners were gaining control over most of theland to grow hay to meet the ever-increasing demandfrom London. Rows of terraces were built along UxbridgeRoad and around it and farmers were forced to seekwork elsewhere.But it was with the coming of the railways in the mid-19 thcentury, first the GWR at Hanwell Station (1839) followedby the Southall to Brentford line (1859), that VictorianHanwell begun to engulf the villages and commons ofthis part of the Middlesex.In the 19 th century the northern part of the CA wasoriginally exploited for gravel extraction. Boston Place, infact, was once a gravel pit. Later in 1903, the Councilbought and laid it out for the use of the children growingup in the newly developed “Olde Hanwell”. The Dolphinpublic house and a few of the dwellings around the smallgreen - Laurel Bank Villas and Frederick Villas - areVictorian but the Factory Yard area towards UxbridgeRoad was earlier and densely populated. A well knownactivity in the Factory Yard was a glove factory run by aJohn Fownes, recorded there since1795. The cottage atNo 11a was a Cart House. While Cottages at no 5-11 inBoston Place are early Victorian.The Parish of Hanwell in 1800Westminster Road on the north-easternmost end of theCA used to be the road chosen by middle-classprofessionals for their homes. Mid-Victorianprofessionals, in fact, found this road a convenient placeto set up residence. Always along Westminster Road, theschool of Non-Conformist Union Church of 1867 is nowSt Mary Assyrian Church.From 1870s onwards the land between Lower BostonRoad and the canal was laid out in a rectangular streetpattern and the development of housing in the southernpart of the CA and along Green Lane for the growingpopulation commenced in earnest.Enclosure Map of 1837Ealing Borough Council 2006 11