Travel Ealing Map

Travel to Ealing Map

Ealing tourist guide map of landmarks & destinations by Walkfo

Ealing history

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Toponymy

Saxon name for Ealing was recorded c. 700 as ‘Gillingas’, meaning ‘place of the people associated with Gilla’ from personal name Gilla . Over the centuries, the name has changed, and has been known as ‘Illing’, 1130; ‘Gills’, 1243; and ‘Ylling’ until ‘Ealing’ became the standard spelling in the 19th century .

Early history

Archaeology evinces parts of Ealing have been lived in by neanderthal humans – the Lower Palaeolithic Age. The typical stone tool type of neanderthals, the Mousterian, is not found in south-east England, but Levallois type may be consistent with the hand axes found. These primitive hunters span a period of at least 300,000 years in Britain. Of the Iron Age, Milne lists six Carthaginian and pre-Roman bronze coins from Middlesex: Ashford and Ealing (Carthage coins); Edmonton (Seleucid (2), Rhegium, Bithynia coins). These are not so significant as for similar and more plentiful finds from Dorset, and Milne suggests that some represent parts of imported bronze scrap. The Church of St. Mary’s, the parish church’s priest for centuries fell to be appointed by the Bishop of London, earliest known to be so in c. 1127, when he gave the great tithes to Canon Henry for keeping St. Paul’s cathedral school. The church required frequent repair in the 1650s and was so ruinous in about 1675 that services were held elsewhere for several years. Worshippers moved to a wooden tabernacle in 1726 and the steeple fell in 1729, destroying the church, before its rebuilding. In the 12th century Ealing was amid a fields- and villages-punctuated forest covering most of the county from the southwest to the north of the City of London. The earliest surviving English census is that for Ealing in January 1599. This list was a tally of all 85 households in Ealing village giving the names of the inhabitants, together with their ages, relationships and occupations. It survives in manuscript form at The National Archives (piece E 163/24/35), and was transcribed and printed by K J Allison for Ealing Historical Society in 1961. Settlements were scattered throughout the parish. Many of them were along what is now called St. Mary’s Road, near to the church in the centre of the parish. There were also houses at Little Ealing, Ealing Dean, Haven Green, Drayton Green and Castlebar Hill. The parish of Ealing was far from wholly divided among manors, such as those of Ealing, Gunnersbury and Pitshanger. These when used for crops were mostly wheat, but also barley and rye, with considerable pasture for cows, draught animals, sheep and recorded poultry keeping. There were five free tenements on Ealing manor in 1423: Absdons in the north, Baldswells at Drayton, Abyndons and Denys at Ealing village, and Sergeaunts at Old Brentford. It is likely that there had once been 32 copyhold tenements, including at least 19 virgates of 20 rateable acres and 9 half virgates. When created the copyhold land amounted to not more than 540 acres (2.2 km), a total increased before 1423 by land at Castlebar Hill. Ealing had an orchard in 1540 and others in 1577–8 and 1584. Numbers increased, as were orchards often taken out of open fields, by 1616 in Crowchmans field, in 1680–1 in Popes field, and in 1738 in Little North field. Some lay as far north as the centre of the parish. River Long field and adjoining closes at West Ealing contained 1,008 fruit trees in 1767, including 850 apple trees, 63 plum, and 63 cherry. Ealing demesne in 1318 had a windmill, which was rebuilt in 1363–4. This was destroyed in or before 1409 and may have been repaired by 1431, when it was again broken. Great Ealing School was founded in 1698 by the Church of St Mary’s. This became the “finest private school in England” and had many famous pupils in the 19th century such as William S. Gilbert, composer and impresario, and Cardinal Newman – since 2019 recognised as a saint. As the zone became built-up, the school declined and closed in April 1908. The earliest maps of just the parish of Ealing survive from the 18th century; John Speed and others having made maps of Middlesex, more than two centuries before. At Ealing a fair was held on the green in 1822, when William Cobbett chronicled he was diverted by crowds of Cockneys headed there. The fair, of unknown origin, was held from 24 to 26 June until suppressed in 1880. The manor included Old Brentford and its extensive Thames fisheries, and in 1423 tenants of Ealing manor rented three fisheries in the Thames. In 1257 the king ordered the Bishop whoever it may be from time to time (sede vacante) to provide 8,000-10,000 lampreys and other fish for owning the manor, impliedly per year, which shows the extent of the local catch.

Ealing as a suburb of London

The well-to-do of London began to see Ealing as a place to escape from the smoke and smells . The only British prime minister to be assassinated, Spencer Perceval, made his home at Elm House . Up until that point, Ealing was mostly made up of open countryside and fields .

Old inns and public houses

Stops in Ealing included The Feathers, The Bell, The Green Man and The Old Hat . At one point in history there were two pubs either side of one of the many toll gates on the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing .

The expansion of Ealing

As London developed, the area became predominantly market gardens which required a greater proportion of workers as it was more labour-intensive . In the 1850s, with improved travel (the Great Western Railway and two branches of the Grand Union Canal), villages began to grow into towns and merged into unbroken residential areas . At this time Ealing began to be called the “Queen of the Suburbs”

Ealing as a modern Victorian suburb

The most important changes to Ealing occurred in the 19th century . The Great Western Railway in the 1830s led to the opening of a railway station on the Broadway in 1879, originally called Haven Green . During the Victorian period, Ealing became a town . The Board of Health for Ealing commissioned London’s first modern sewage systems .

Queen of the Suburbs

In 1901, Ealing Urban District was incorporated as a municipal borough, Walpole Park was opened and the first electric trams ran along the Uxbridge Road . In the 1930s Ealing Village’s mid-rise, green-setting apartment blocks were built, today Grade II (initial, mainstream) category-listed and having gated grounds . Brentham Garden Suburb is said to be one of the best examples of classic suburbia in mock Tudor style .

  

Ealing map & travel guide with history & landmarks to explore

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Tourist Guide to Ealing Map

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Walkfo Ealing travel map key: visit National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top travel destinations in Ealing