
Whilst meandering to the hotel last night, I made the effort to walk around the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Harlington for the first time. The church was mostly built in the twelfth century and is mentioned in the Domesday Book, so there was probably a Saxon religious building here as well. The chancel was rebuilt in the fourteenth century, the tower added in the fifteenth, and the porch in the sixteenth, with a Victorian restoration and a new north aisle added in 1880.

I find this an intriguing building as it was once a country church in a rural setting and now it’s a few hundred metres from Heathrow Airport and around fifty metres from the M4. However, this is what the area looked like around 180 years ago when everything was much more peaceful in this area. I think it’s fair to say that anyone from 180 years ago the main drama would have been someone with strong opinions on turnips compared to today’s A380 or similar flying overhead.
