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CLAYPONDS LANE BRENTFORD |
on which the town has been built is quite varied. A lot of brick
earth, a type of clay suitable for making bricks, can be found
close to the rivers, with flood plain gravel at Old Brentford.
There is also a strip of alluvium, sediment deposited by flowing
water, along the Thames and at the mouth of the River Brent. The
higher land is covered with layers of London Clay. Two streams,
since hidden by housing, used to run southward on either side of
Ealing village in the 19th Century, passing through Brentford
and out to the River Thames. The easterly stream, originating
from water in the grounds of Elm Grove, fed into some small ponds
in fields close to South Ealing Road and also into larger ones on
Clayponds Lane. Evidently this lane, as well as Clayponds Avenue
and Gardens, takes its name from these geographical features. The
ponds appear on maps of Ealing from 1777, although they may have
existed prior to this. These roads have gone on to have some
interesting features close to them. In 1883 a sewage system was
built to serve both new and Old Brentford. This involved constructing
underground sewers that would collect the wastewater and send it on
to Town Meadow it was then pumped into treatment tanks on Clayponds
Lane, which was on land adjoining the Ealing Sewage Works. Sludge was
dried in the filter process and the effluent was discharged into the
Thames through a culvert along Claypond Lane. In an interesting juxta
position Brentford Sanatorium was built next to the sewage works, and
officially opened in January 1892. In 1921 it was annexed to the Ealing
Isolation Hospital in South Ealing Road. On the 1777 maps there also
appears a Clayponds Farm. This became Clayponds House around 1864
and then Carville Hall in 1894. The house was brought by Brentford
Council shortly after World War 1 to act as a war memorial hall and
public open space. Ironically, Clayponds Avenue was hit by a flying
bomb or doodlebug, on July 12th, 1944. Five people were killed and
34 injured.
Photographs of Brentford
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