1.   DESCRIPTION

"Cowley is a parish and village in Elthorne hundred, Uxbridge union, county court district and rural deanery, Middlesex archdeaconry, and diocese of London, on the road from Uxbridge to West Drayton, about a mile from the former town, on the canal and river Colne, near where the Blackwater, or Cowley brook, joins the latter stream. The parish church of St. Laurence is a plain edifice of great antiquity, with chancel, wooden spire and 1 bell. In the churchyard is the grave of Dr. Dodd, the author of "Lectures on Death" and the celebrated "Prison Thoughts" who was executed for forgery in 1777. The registers date back to 1563. The living is a rectory, annual value £130, including 40 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of W. E. Hilliard, Esq., and held by the Rev. John Crosier Hilliard, M. A., of St. John's College, Oxford. The almshouses, rebuilt by an ancestor of Thomas Dagnall, Esq., of Cowley, stand by the churchyard. The principal trade is derived from three large corn mills in the neighbourhood. The parish comprises 300 acres and the population in 1861 was 371. Parish Clerk, James Horrod"
From the Post Office Directory Middlesex 1866 published by CD Archive Books