Bedfont is a district within the London Borough of Hounslow in West London. It is 13 miles west-southwest of Charing Cross and two miles from Heathrow Airport. It consists of the area which is informally referred to as North Feltham as well as the neighbourhood of Hatton.
Bedfont is mentioned inside the Domesday Book as ‘Bedefunde’, which is believed 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 found Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman artefacts, suggesting that people had been living in and around Bedfont during these times.
The population of Bedfont stood at 12,701 in the 2011 census. The amount of inhabitants started to rise when Heathrow Airport was opened in 1946. This caused rising demand for nearby housing, specifically as the village of Heathrow was lost along with 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 back to the late 15th century. Fawns Manor is around the south side of the Green and dates from the sixteenth century, now belonging to the British Airways Housing Association.