Southall

Southall () is a large suburban town in West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated 10.7 mi (17.2 km) west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided in three parts: the mostly residential area around Lady Margaret Road (Dormers Wells); the main commercial centre at High Street and Southall Broadway (part of the greater Uxbridge Road); and Old Southall/Southall Green to the south consisting of Southall railway station, industries and Norwood Green bounded by the M4. It was historically a municipal borough of Middlesex administered from Southall Town Hall until 1965. Southall is located on the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) which first linked London with the rest of the growing canal system. It was one of the last canals to carry significant commercial traffic (through the 1950s) and is still open to traffic and is used by pleasure craft. The canal separates it from Hayes on the west, whereas to the east the River Brent separates the town from Hanwell. From the 1950s the town's local factories and proximity to Heathrow Airport attracted large numbers of Asian immigrants. This town is known for its diverse communities, and some parts of the town eventually became home to the largest Punjabi community outside the Indian subcontinent which become a major centre of South Asian culture, and sometimes known as known as an example of a Little India.

Toponymy Southall appears as Suhaull in 1198, and Sudhale in 1204, and as Southold on the Oxfordshire Sheldon tapestry from the late 1580s.

History

Southall formed part of the chapelry of Norwood in the ancient parish of Hayes, in the Elthorne hundred of the historic county of Middlesex. For Poor Law it was grouped into the Uxbridge Union and was within Uxbridge Rural Sanitary District from 1875. The chapelry of Norwood had functioned as a separate parish since the Middle Ages. On 16 January 1891 the parish adopted the Local Government Act 1858 and the Southall Norwood Local Government District was formed. In 1894 it became the Southall Norwood Urban District. In 1936 the urban district was granted a charter of incorporation and became a municipal borough, renamed Southall. In 1965, the former area of the borough was merged with that of the boroughs of Ealing and Acton to form the London Borough of Ealing in Greater London. The southern part of Southall (roughly south of the railway) used to be known as either Old Southall or Southall Green (and a section of the main north–south road in the area is still called The Green) and was centered on the historic Grade II*listed Tudor-styled Manor House which dates back to at least 1587. A building survey has shown much of the building is original, dating back to the days when Southall Green was becoming a quiet rural village. Minor 19th and 20th-century additions exist in some areas. It is currently used as serviced offices. The southernmost part of Southall is known as Norwood Green. It has few industries and is mainly a residential area, having remained for many years mainly agricultural whilst the rest of Southall developed industrially. Norwood Green borders, and part is inside, the London Borough of Hounslow.

The main east west road through the town is Uxbridge Road (A4020), though the name changes in the main shopping area to The Broadway and for an even shorter section to High Street. Uxbridge Road was part of the main London to Oxford stagecoach route for many years and remained the main route to Oxford until the building of the Western Avenue highway to the north of Southall in the first half of the 20th century. First horse drawn, then electric trams (until 1936) and, then, electric trolleybuses, gave Southall residents and workers quick and convenient transport along Uxbridge Road in the first half of the 20th century before they were replaced by standard diesel-engined buses in 1960.

19th century The opening of the Grand Junction Canal (later renamed Grand Union Canal) as the major freight transport route between London and Birmingham in 1796 began a commercial boom, intensified by the arrival of Brunel's Great Western Railway in 1839, leading to the establishment and growth of brick factories, flour mills and chemical plants which formed the town's commercial base. In 1877, the Martin Brothers set up a ceramics factory in an old soap works next to the canal and until 1923, produced distinctive ceramics now known and collected as Martinware. A branch railway line from Southall railway station to the Brentford Dock on the Thames was also built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1856. It features one of his (impressive for the period) engineering works, the Three Bridges (although it is still often referred to on maps by the original canal crossing name of Windmill Bridge). where Windmill Lane, the railway and the Grand Union Canal all intersect – the canal being carried over the railway line cutting below in a cast-iron trough and a new cast-iron road-bridge going over both. Brunel died shortly after its completion. Sections of his bell-section rail can still be seen on the southern side being used as both fencing posts and a rope rail directly under the road bridge itself. It is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The other notable local construction by Brunel is the Wharncliffe Viaduct which carries the Great Western Railway across the River Brent towards London and which was Brunel's first major structural design. Otto Monsted, a Danish margarine manufacturer, built a large factory at Southall in 1894. The factory was called the Maypole Dairy, and eventually grew to become one of the largest margarine manufacturing plants in the world, occupying a 28 ha (69 acres) site at its peak. The factory also had its own railway sidings and branch canal. The Maypole Dairy Company site was later acquired by Lever Brothers who, as part of the multinational Unilever company, converted the site to a Wall's Sausages factory which produced sausages and other meat products through until the late 1980s.

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