Bedfont
Bedfont is a district in the London Borough of Hounslow in West London. It's 13 miles west-southwest of Charing Cross and two miles from Heathrow Airport. It consists of the area which is informally known as North Feltham and the neighbourhood of Hatton.
Bedfont is described inside the Domesday Book as ‘Bedefunde’, which is thought to come from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Bedfunta’, which means ‘bed’s spring’. It states that the manors of Bedfont, Hatton and Stanmore were all held by William Fitz Other. Just before Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was built, just a few miles north of Bedfont, archaeologists discovered Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman artefacts, suggesting that individuals had been living in and around Bedfont in these periods.
The population of Bedfont stood at 12,701 at the 2011 census. The number of inhabitants began to increase when Heathrow Airport was opened in 1946. This triggered growing demand for nearby housing, particularly as the village of Heathrow was lost in addition to some of the Hamlet of Hatton.
Bedfont has two surviving manor houses: Pates Manor, once owned by the Page family, and Fawns Manor. Pates Manor is behind the Church of St Mary the Virgin and dates back to the late 15th century. Fawns Manor is on the south side of the Green and dates from the 16th century, now belonging to the British Airways Housing Association.
