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Cuckoo Avenue is an avenue of horse chestnuts planted as the approach to the Central London District Schools, built in 1856/7 on the north-east part of the once extensive Hanwell Park estate, whose remaining land and mansion were sold off from 1884. The school housed up to 1,000 disadvantaged children; Charlie Chaplin was once a pupil. By 1900 it covered 140 acres, with its own well, sewage and gas works, supplied with produce farmed on the land. It closed in 1933 and most buildings were demolished apart from the central block, later converted into Hanwell Community Centre. The LCC Cuckoo Estate was built in 1933-39 on former school land with houses along Cuckoo Avenue, which became a double carriageway. Land behind the Community Centre became Cuckoo Park providing recreational facilities for the estate, with a small rest garden in front of the building that was restored in 1991.
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Dean Gardens were once part of Ealing Dene Common, where donkey and pony racing took place as part of the annual Ealing Fair, which may have been why it was known as Jackass Common. In 1832 part of the common was divided into allotment gardens. In 1909, at the instigation of local residents, Ealing Town Council agreed to convert an area fronting Uxbridge Road into pleasure gardens, for which allotment tenants received compensation. By 1910/11 the new park had been laid out with ornamental trees and shrubs, a perimeter path with seating and a number of beds. Between the wars for some years a tank was displayed in the park.
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Drayton Green was a small hamlet in the parish of Ealing, with commonland surrounded by a few large properties but otherwise remaining quite rural until the late C19th, when housing increasingly encroached the area's open space. As a result of the 1866 Metropolitan Commons Act, Ealing Local Board was able to purchase various areas of common land for public open space, including 4 acres of former commonland at Drayton Green. By 1932 a large oval running track had been laid out here and a children's playground existed by the 1950s.
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Ealing was largely agricultural until the mid-C19th with villages clustered along Uxbridge Road and from Norman times commoners had rights to graze cattle and fowl on Ealing Common. By the 1840s much of the other common land in the region had been enclosed. In 1878, as a result of the 1866 Metropolitan Commons Act, Ealing Local Board purchased c.47 acres of Ealing Common from the landowner, the Bishop of London. Horse chestnuts were planted on the boundaries and white metal posts and rails were installed in 1887, many of which remain. In 1904 the road across the Common was widened and a new footpath created. During WWII the common was dug up for allotments and there were underground air raid shelters beneath the north-west corner. The common was used for grazing and donkey rides into the C20th.
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Ealing was a large village by the late C18th, having become a popular rural retreat for the wealthy during the C17th, although few of their houses survive apart from Pitzhanger Manor, built by Sir John Soane and now restored. An open green space crossed by paths with a number of mature trees, the commonland of Ealing Green was the site of the 3-day Ealing Fair each June until 1880. It was acquired by Ealing Local Board in 1878, along with other common land in the parish. In 1863, the year the Local Board was set up, Ealing Green was the venue for celebrations for the Prince of Wales's marriage to Princess Alexandra and in 1902 the new Ealing Council approved the planting of a tree to commemorate the Coronation and the first Mayoral Year. Ealing War Memorial faces the Green, dedicated in 1921.
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By the early C20th Hanwell's population had rapidly grown and Hanwell UDC, keen to make provision for public open space, approached the owner of Osterley Park, Lord Jersey in 1907. He offered a 7.5 acre site, then leased out. Due to the pressing need for a place for children to play the Council requested temporary use of the site while negotiations were in progress, to which Lord Jersey agreed. Elthorne Park was officially opened on 11 June 1910 by Lady Jersey accompanied by her son Lord Villiers. Among its facilities were a bandstand that remains today and a drinking fountain. The layout included lime and horse chestnut trees planted on the lawn, open lawns with an axial walk, and floral displays. The park abuts Elthorne Waterside on the River Brent, which was created in the 1970s and is managed for nature conservation.
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In 1657 what is now East Acton had been inherited by the Goldsmiths' Company under the will of John Perryn, an alderman and goldsmith residing in Acton. The Goldsmiths' Almshouses were erected under a benefaction of the Perryn Trust in 1811 to designs by Charles Beazley, initially 12 almshouses, with 8 added in 1838. The forecourt gardens are laid out simply with lawn and shrubs, and originally had two Lebanon cedars, one of which has since died. Behind the Almshouses is a walled garden and allotment garden with service yard, with two old water pumps and a chapel.
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Greenford Park Cemetery was opened as a private cemetery, later taken over by Greenford Council. It was laid out on former farmland on the west side of Brent Valley, with a grid of paths leading to a small chapel in the centre. It was declared open for interments 'at exceptionally low charges' in January 1902; in 1905 it was agreed that Hanwell parishioners could be buried there. The gravestones are set in mown grass, with some ornamental trees and shrubs as well as larger trees including horse chestnut, sycamore, Lombardy poplar and willow.
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The land on which Hanger Hill Garden Estate was built was acquired in 1925, and had earlier been used as an aerodrome and for aircraft manufacture. The Mock-Tudor estate was built in 2 phases between 1928 and 1936 along Garden Suburb principles with houses and flats within a formal landscape setting. The layout comprised ornamental gardens, open spaces and street trees; each of the 18 blocks of flats was set in lawned gardens, and privet hedges enclosed front gardens with distinctive timber gates. The estate was in its heyday before WWII, but after 1954 maintenance of communal garden areas and service roads suffered until a company was set up by the Residents' Association that now owns and maintains the communal areas.
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Hanger Hill Park came into being as a result of negotiations between Ealing Borough Council and the owner of the land here, who sought permission for drainage works in advance of developing the land for housing. In 1905 the Council agreed to undertake these works in return for conveyance of a piece of land for a recreation ground. By 1907 the new park had railings and entrance gates and was laid out with paths, seats and shrubbery borders. One of the highest points in Ealing, the park has dramatic views and includes a fragment of oak woodland to the west. A pitch and putt course was set up on lower land to the north. To the west of the park across Fox Lane is now a Nature Reserve, a remnant of ancient woodland that was later part of the site of Fox Reservoir. The reservoir opened in 1888 and was eventually drained in 1943; in 1949 the land was purchased for public open space.
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* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens
In 1853 St George's Hanover Square Burial Board purchased land in Hanwell for a new cemetery, its existing burial grounds overcrowded. Hanwell Cemetery opened in 1854, and was initially only for use of parishioners of St George's Hanover Square, but later extended to Hanwell parishioners. In 1889 ownership transferred to the Metropolitan Borough of City of Westminster. Its layout was influenced by John Claudius Loudon, who advocated combining the functional with the aesthetic, with a grid pattern of paths for ease, and evergreen trees planted singly to avoid dropping leaves and obstruction. Its Victorian Gothic-style buildings included a lodge and pair of chapels, and it had fine gates and railings. A series of mausolea are found along the Cedar-lined main drive. Further tree planting took place in the 1920s, and some of its fine and unusual trees are the result of the connection that one of the superintendents had with Kew Gardens.
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Havelock Cemetery opened in 1883 as Southall's parish churchyard was becoming overcrowded. It is named after Sir Henry Havelock, the British army general who was prominent in suppressing the Indian Mutiny of 1857. A mortuary was built in 1895 and a small mortuary chapel in 1896, neither remaining today. It was extended to the north in 1924. The entrance on Church Avenue has cast-iron gates, gate piers and railings, as does the main entrance on Havelock Road. There are a few interesting monuments, a yew walk, and a variety of trees particularly along the Havelock Road boundary, including yew and Cedars near the entrance.