Before the 19th century, Dormers Wells had been a tiny hamlet halfway along Dormer’s Wells Lane between the Uxbridge Road and another hamlet called Mount Pleasant. Largely the settlement consisted of a farm of the same name, owned by Lord Jersey.

The manor of Dormers Well (then Dorman’s Well) seems to have developed in the late 16th and 17th centuries from the house and estate of Gregory Fiennes, Lord Dacre. It is said to have taken its name from the medicinal chalybeate springs in the neighbourhood. A certain Ralph Dorman is mentioned in 1294 but nothing further is known of the family. The large house called Dorman’s Well was recorded as in the possession of Robert Cheeseman upon his death in 1547. Records show that there was a chapel, possibly a domestic one, at Dorman’s Well in 1547. Robert Cheeseman left the house or ’great hall’ to Alice Cheeseman as long as she remained a widow. The house in due course became the seat of Lord and Lady Dacre, who had a park surrounding the house.

In 1770 the land comprising Dorman’s Well Farm, amounting to nearly 108 acreas was principally arable. By 1816 it was described merely as a farm rather than a manor.

Suburban development came late - the Ordnance Survey mapping from the last decade of the nineteenth century showed a rural landscape which become built up after the First World War as Southall expanded to be a manufacturing district.

North of Uxbridge Road and east of Dormer’s Wells Lane the course of the West Middlesex Golf Club was laid out in 1890 which protected some of the area from developement though 700 houses were built between 1926 and 1928 at Mount Pleasant.

The area has a large secondary school, Dormers Wells High School, founded in 1930. Dormers Wells Junior School and the adjoining school: Dormers Wells Infant School, were purpose-built in 1954. There is also a community centre and an old people’s home.


Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence