Hayes, Hillingdon
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| Hayes | |
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| OS Grid Reference: | Template:Gbmappingsmall |
| Administration | |
| Borough: | Hillingdon |
| County: | Greater London |
| Region: | Greater London |
| Nation: | England |
| Other | |
| Ceremonial County: | Greater London |
| Traditional County: | Middlesex |
| Post Office and Telephone | |
| Post town: | HAYES |
| Postcode: | UB3 |
| Dialling Code: | 020 |
Hayes is a place in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
Until the end of the 19th century, Hayes was primarily an agricultural and brickmaking area.
Hayes was developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries as an industrial locality to which residential districts were later added to house those who worked in the nearby factories. Its development is typical of that of what is sometimes called the second industrial revolution - the creation of new light engineering industries on the edge of existing cities.
Because of its situation on the Grand Junction Canal (later called the Grand Union) and the Great Western Railway it had a number of advantages as an industrial location in the late 19th century.
It was because of this proximity that the Hayes Development Company offered sites on the north side of the railway, adjacent to the canal. An early occupier was the Gramophone Company, later His Master's Voice and latterly EMI. Only the EMI archives and some early reinforced concerte factory buildings, notably one (1912) by Evan Owen Williams, later knighted, the engineer, remain.
It was here in the Central Research Laboratories that Isaac Schoenberg developed (1934) the all-electronic 405-line televison used by the BBC (full service 1936), and Alan Blumlein carried out his research into binaural sound and stereo gramophone recording.
"Trains at Hayes Station" (1935) and "Walking & Talking" are two notable films Blumlein shot to demonstrate stereo sound on film.
In 1939 a 60MHz radar was developed, and from 1941 to 1943 the H2S radar system.
Later Godfrey Hounsfield was to create his computed tomography (CT) scanner, utlising the EMIDEC 1100 computer of which he was the project leader, receiving the Nobel Prize in 1979.
In World War I the EMI factories produced aircraft. Richard Fairey was seconded there for a short time, before setting up his own company, Fairey Aviation, which relocated across the railway.
Needing an airfield to test his aircraft he secured a site at the south east of what is now Heathrow Airport, which was acquired by the Ministry of Aviation towards the end of World War II, which renamed it.
Until its takeover by Morrisons the head office of Safeway plc was located in Hayes, on the old Fairey Aviation site.
The Nestlé company located its major chocolate and instant coffee works on the canal, adjacent to the railway east of the station, and it was for many years, the UK headquarters of the company.
Opposite Nestlé on the other side of the canal, the Aeolian company and its associates manufactured player pianos and rolls from just before the World War I until the depression. That, and the increasing sophistication of the gramophone record market lead to its collapse, and its facilities were then exploited by Walls, a meat processor and ice cream manufacturer.
Since development, industry has been pre-eminent in Hayes, and the provision of adequate housing did not begin until after World War I with the creation of modest dwellings of the garden suburb type.
George Orwell who adopted this pseudonym while he lived here, worked as a schoolmaster in the town, but hated it, camoflaging it lightly as West Bletchley in Coming Up for Air.
Whilst there are some pleasant locations in the area such as Barra Hall Park, Hayes in the early 21st century is largely a residential suburb, and industrial sites in their second their use. As a shopping centre Hayes is eclipsed by Uxbridge and Hounslow which offer a far wider variety of shops.
Hayes has few cultural assets, there is no cinema, one theatre (The Beck Theatre), and no galleries or museums. Nightlife is confined to a handful of public houses.
Nearest places:
Nearest railway station:
See also
External links
- Alan Blumlein (http://www.doramusic.com)
- Sir Evan Owen Williams (http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/W/Williams2/Williams.htm)