This walk can be started in two places: the ‘new’ (since 1934) Osterley station on the Great West Road or the old station on Thornbury Road, which has been a bookshop since 1967. You can reach the old station from the new Osterley station by heading east along the Great West West and then first left into Thornbury Road.
Assuming we’re at the older station, head north and cross Jersey Road into the Osterley Park grounds.
Osterley Park
Walk from Jersey Road through parkland and past a lake to reach the large house.
The original manor house on the Osterley site was constructed in the 1570s for Sir Thomas Gresham, a banker who acquired the manor in 1562. The ‘fair and stately brick house’ was finished in 1576 and received a visit from Queen Elizabeth I. The stable block from this era remains on the grounds. Gresham, who established the Royal Exchange, also purchased the neighbouring Manor of Boston in 1572.
In the late 17th century, property developer Nicholas Barbon owned the estate. He mortgaged it to Child’s Bank and died in debt around 1698. Due to a mortgage default, the estate came into Sir Francis Child’s possession by the early 1710s. Sir Francis was the founder of Child’s Bank.
Sir Francis’s grandsons, Francis and Robert, commissioned Scottish architect Robert Adam to renovate the house. Adam was emerging as one of Britain’s most fashionable architects at the time and he remodelled the house between 1761 and 1765.
Robert Child’s only daughter, Sarah, married John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, in 1782. Upon Child’s death two months later, his will placed his extensive holdings, including Osterley, in trust for his ‘second-born grandchild’. This turned out to be Lady Sarah Fane, born in 1785.
Child’s will cleverly kept his property from John Fane’s control. Fane and Child’s daughter had eloped to Gretna Green without Child’s consent.
Under the doctrine of ‘coverture’, if Child had given his daughter more than a life interest in any property, Fane would have controlled it. Child had hoped his daughter would marry someone willing to adopt the Child surname, ensuring its continuation.
Lady Sarah Fane, Child’s eventual heiress, married George Villiers in 1804. As they had children, the estate passed to the Villiers family. In 1819, George Villiers changed his surname to Child Villiers.
George Child Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey, made Osterley accessible to the public in 1939, responding to numerous requests to view its historic interior. He explained this decision by noting he didn’t live there and many wished to see it. About 12,000 people visited in the first month.
The National Trust took charge of Osterley in 1991, and the house and park are still open to visitors.
Osterley Park was used as the Home Guard’s training site where the real Dad’s Army learned guerrilla warfare tactics and the art of making explosives.
In June 1940, 300 000 volunteers signed up to Britain’s newly formed Home Fighting Force. There were a lot of younger men, First World War veterans but also a lot who were of a fighting age but in reserved occupations.
Osterley Park was the site of their official training school where a motley collection of artists, spies, and war revolutionaries came together to set up the real Dad’s Army.
After training at Osterley, participants would go back to their own home guard and LDV units to teach them.
At its strongest, the Home Guard was nearly 2 million men.
The image that Dad’s Army gives of it being to do with knives lashed to broom handles, only lasted for a couple of weeks until they started getting equipped.
By 1942, they were forced to be reckoned with.
From Osterley House, follow the path around and to the side of the house to reach a junction with Osterley Lane.
Osterley Lane
Sir Thomas Gresham enclosed Osterley Park in 1565 under a licence to enclose 600 acres. Though this action was seemingly unpopular locally, as evidenced by subsequent trespasses, most of the land was likely already enclosed, if not used for pasture. The bulk of the land was Osterley Farm, which Gresham already owned. This 200-acre plot stretched westwards from the house in Osterley Lane nearly to Heston village.
At the time, Osterley Lane ran north-westwards from Wyke Green, passing close to Osterley House before following its current route to Norwood Green. Gresham also acquired the freehold of Osterley Lane and Fawkener’s fields to the east. Subsequently, Osterley Lane shifted eastward, away from the house but still through the park.
Before 1746, possibly under Sir Francis Child’s direction, Osterley Park was redesigned with straight avenues converging on a 20-acre enclosure surrounding the house, which featured formal gardens.
Coinciding with Adam’s work on the house, the grounds were remodelled in the contemporary style. The old approach along Osterley Lane was replaced by a more circuitous route.
The park expanded into Norwood, where Robert Child had acquired adjacent land. This new area served as a menagerie in the late 18th century, housing exotic birds. Whilst Walpole admired the menagerie and kitchen garden in 1773, he considered the rest of the park unattractive.
Osterley Lane was closed to through motor vehicles in 1959.
Keep following the lane over the M4 and take the diagonal public footpath on the right towards Tenterlow Lane in Norwood Green.
Norwood Green
Norwood Green is the modern name for the old hamlet called Norwood in the manor of Norwood and the parish of Hayes.
The layout of the area was altered by the arrival in 1796 of the Grand Junction Canal.
Norwood Road, then called Wolf Lane, ran to a pub called the Wolf Inn. But the road was extended down to the village green of Norwood Green where it joined Tentelow Lane (then called Duncot Lane), leading to Heston. Norwood Road crossed the new canal by means of a new bridge called Wolf Bridge and a pub called The Lamb was opened to the right of the bridge on the south side. This did a fine business supplying new customers on the canal boats.
There were nine farmhouses in the parish, of which one at Frogmore Green, next door to the Wolf Inn, was named Manor Farm. Another of the farms – Waxlow Farm – provided the name for the local telephone exchange in the 1920s. When London telephone numbers went all digital, this glorious exchange name was lost.
In the early 19th century, the Earl of Jersey owned nearly half of the parish’s eastern section, with part of Osterley Park extending into southern Norwood. Thomas Parker and John Brett each held about 150 acres. The area boasted several large houses, including Southall Park, owned by Lord Jersey.
By 1816, wharfs had appeared on the Grand Junction Canal where it met the Paddington Canal at Bull’s Bridge. Norwood Green featured many ‘respectable villas’ of ‘ornamental character’. By the 1960s, some houses on Norwood Road and Tentelow Lane had been replaced by modern structures.
Surviving buildings included Vine Cottage in Tentelow Lane and a pair of tall houses in Norwood Green Road known as the Grange and Friars Lawn. Norwood Hall, east of Friars Lawn, had been significantly altered in the late 19th century and served as a horticultural institute for Ealing Borough Council in 1968. These houses likely date from 1813.
In 1834, the parish houses were described as mainly labourers’ cottages, though labour itself was scarce.
Norwood manor belonged to Hounslow parish until 1859, when St Mary’s Church became the parish church. This new parish included the villages of Southall and Northcotte .
In 1894, Norwood Green became part of Southall Norwood Urban District of Middlesex. Following the London Government Act of 1963, the area became part of the London Borough of Ealing in 1965.
Norwood Green urbanised during the 1930s and the original village was overtaken by growth from the Southall direction.
The unique status of Osterley Park has preserved Norwood Green’s southern edge as Green Belt land and, unexpectedly, fields of wheat still grace the UB2 postcode of Southall (South).
Tentelow Lane
Tentelow Lane connects Norwood Green with Windmill Lane. There was a general renaming of roads after the arrival of the canal in the 1790s. Tentelow Lane was originally called Duncot Lane.
In the 21st century, there has been a trend to buy original houses on Tentelow Lane in their large grounds, demolish them and build prestige homes in their place.
Windmill Lane
Turn left into Windmill Lane.
As you cross the canal, you are at the top level of three bridges built on top of one another.
It is part of the Three Bridges.Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the bridges are arranged to allow the routes of the Grand Junction Canal, Great Western and Brentford Railway, and Windmill Lane to cross each other, with the road above the canal which is above the railway. Work was completed in 1859 and it was Brunel’s final project.
Once over the canal, cross the road and follow the path down to the canal towpath.
Walk along the towpath, past all the Hanwell Locks, over the River Brent and take a left into Elthorne Park.
Cross diagonally across the park and locate Wyke Gardens
Wyke Gardens
Walk along the line of Wyke Gardens, cross Southdown Avenue and a green until Boston Road is reached.
Boston Road
Turn right and you will reach Boston Manor station.