King’s Arbour was an orchard at the junction of Bath Road and Heathrow Road.
This small orchard was founded before the 19th century and separated The Magpies from Heath Row.
In 1784, within the orchard, General William Roy mapped one end of the first baseline for measuring the distance between the Paris and Greenwich observatories, the first precise distance survey in Britain.
General Roy chose the orchard for his lines as it was near-flat, near Hounslow Heath barracks and about 15 miles from the Royal Observatory. The south/east/ end was the Hampton Poor House. Both ends were marked by vertical wooden pipes which could support flagstaffs.
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King’s Arbour was an orchard at the junction of Bath Road and Heathrow Road.
