Welcome to this site which was created to show the interesting and historic areas and buildings of the Heathrow Villages and highlight the ever present threat of their destruction to accommodate Heathrow’s expansion. A great many news column inches have been reported on this subject but we want to put into pictures what would be lost. Click here for latest news.
The Heathrow Villages are located to the immediate north and west of LHR; these comprise of Harlington, Sipson, Harmondsworth and Longford (Cranford sometimes also included). These were all quiet, idylic Middlesex villages at London’s western edge (click here for video link), Sipson for example enjoyed very fertile soil and there were productive farms until the arrival of LHR towards the end of WWII. The villages still contain many listed buildings and other items of interest. Large parts of the area which are now buried under thousands of tonnes of concrete have history going back as far as the neolithic period.The over simplified version of the story is that LHR was built on a lie and built in the wrong place.
The Lie – As LHR’s construction commenced, the war in Europe was pretty much at its end but was sold as needed to ‘finish off the Japanese’ – it is debatable as to whether an aircraft ever took off in anger from LHR.
The wrong place – the UK’s weather is primarily westerly prevailing and as aircraft need to take off and land into the wind, it requires many thousands of aircraft movements every week over central London, a situation which is not seen in any other country.
Heathrow Villages 