Bedfont
Bedfont is a district in the London Borough of Hounslow in West London. It's 21 km west-southwest of Charing Cross and two miles from Heathrow Airport. It contains the area that is informally referred to as North Feltham as well as the neighbourhood of Hatton.
Bedfont is mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘Bedefunde’, which is thought to derive 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. Before Heathrow’s Terminal Five was constructed, just a few miles north of Bedfont, archaeologists discovered Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman artefacts, suggesting that individuals had been residing in and around Bedfont during these times.
The populace of Bedfont stood at 12,701 in the 2011 census. The number of inhabitants started to increase when Heathrow Airport was opened in 1946. This triggered increasing demand for neighbourhood housing, especially as the village of Heathrow was lost together with a part 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 from the late 15th century. Fawns Manor is on the south side of the Green and dates back to the 16th century, now belonging to the British Airways Housing Association.
