June Challenge II. (c) - A history hike on Hounslow Heath

[squirmelia]

Hounslow is a place I think of more as somewhere to start an adventure (by getting a tube from there to Heathrow airport), as opposed to somewhere to have an adventure, but for a Flaneurs June challenge, I went to Hounslow. This perhaps isn’t the adventure you’ve been waiting 4 years to read about, but I will tell you about it anyway, and there are highwaymen.

My real motivation for going to Hounslow was because I wanted ice-cream, specifically unusual ice-cream flavours. I chose two fruit flavours - chickoo and custard apple, and ate them as I walked towards the start of the walk from Hounslow Station.

Hounslow has a heath! I found this out from the local council's website, as when I searched for walks, two appeared - Hounslow Heath history hike and Hounslow Heath wild walk. Hounslow Heath walks and trails.


I opted for the history hike, as it was the first on the list. In the car park, I found a sign welcoming me to Hounslow Heath local nature reserve, and noticed the giant silver slug crawling up the side of the sign.



On the gate to the heath, there was a poster advertising a “Brazil Mill Balsam Bash” and a large sign warning that there is an extreme fire risk in the area.



The PDF I downloaded of the walk said to make up your highway name by combining your age or your house number, and sword, pistol or string, and your nickname or your pet’s name.. So please call me: 99 Pistol Pippi. (Okay, that’s not my age or house number, but it is the most ice-cream of numbers.)

Here's a sign detailing the two walks:



Through the gate and I noticed a giant dragonfly!



I was a bit confused about where the walk started and which way to go, which wasn’t the best start, and I did end up doing the entire walk backwards, but nevermind.

I found a sign in memorial of Hounslow Airfield. Apparently the world’s first England to Australia flight took place here.



It was a sunny Thursday evening and the heath had a number of people on it, having picnics, children playing football, people jogging, people walking dogs. I had been concerned that the heath might be a bleak and lonely place but it wasn’t at all.

There were sounds of birds, of planes, of an ice-cream van in the distance.

The heath:



I live near to Heathrow, but this was even nearer to Heathrow, so the planes were even closer than I was used to and looked large in the sky above me.

For the History Hike, there were wooden posts with a small sign on them saying “History Hike” and then a person or thing to look up in the PDF.

Here’s an example of one:



It’s Moll Cut-Purse! I learnt that Hounslow Heath had various highway robbers, such as Moll, which made me feel a bit nervous, particularly in the quieter parts. At one point I had been alone for a while and then a person appeared! They were picking up litter.



The PDF suggested hiding from your friends and jumping out and demanding treasure. I didn't do this.

A mysterious blank sign:



Wild buildings seen in the distance:


I learnt that a Roman road went through Hounslow Heath, that there was an iron age village on the heath before that, that Oliver Cromwell’s armies were stationed here, that William the Conquerer used the heath to hunt wild boars, and that a bronze Celtic boar was found here.

Getting leafy:



I kept a look out for Sixteen String Jack, another highway man, who wore eight coloured strings attached to each knee of his breeches.



I saw a red admiral butterfly fluttering past.

Some of the posts had jewels on them:



This is my shadow and highwayman, Claude Duval, former pageboy. This post was supposed to have a jewel on it, but it had gone missing.



More heath pictures:









My favourite history post was the last one I found: Extreme Pedestrianism! Walking long distances quickly became popular in the 18th and early 19th century and bets were placed on postwoman, Lucy Hawkins of Hounslow on completing a 20 mile walk in under 3 hours.



After I had finished the walk I looked at the notice board and found that there were apparently snakes on the heath, but alas, I didn’t see any.

The walk was more interesting and more pleasant than I expected and I enjoyed it, but it might have been easier to find the signposts if I had gone the right way around.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

The photos are lovely! Thank you for sharing your ramble.

[weofodthignen]

Thanks for this! I don't think I ever made it to Hounslow Heath when I lived in London (and presumably the nice marked discovery trails are more recent :-) ). I wondered whether Lucy Hawkins managed the 20 miles in 3 hours and found the History Hike pdf and a related Google doc but nothing else. Darn, I was hoping she was Wikipedia fodder :-)

[nou]

I like this, and I also like the idea of going to places for very specific food. I once found an amazing pani puri place near one of the Hounslow stations, but I failed to document it and I could never find it again. (I think I might have told you this previously and you told me it was a magic pani puri shop that’s never in the same place twice, or maybe that was in a dream.)

[solitarywalker]

There's an excellent book on Pedestrianism (that's the title) by Matthew Algeo.

[spiralsheep]

Looks like a good walk, 99 Pistol Pippi. I like the idea of extreme pedestrianism, and also the Mystery of the Stolen Jewels. If someone had jumped out at you and demanded treasure, what would you have given them?

I once read an entertaining novel about Moll Cutpurse by Ellen Galford but I don't recall it mentioning Hounslow.