1.   DESCRIPTION

HARLINGTON is a parish and village in the hundred of Elthorne, Uxbridge county court district, and Staines union and royal deanery, 3¼ miles from Hounslow, north and south of the Bath Road, one mile from Cranford Bridge, 3½ miles south-west from Southall station, 2¼ south-east from West Drayton station on the Great Western Railway, 2½ from the Feltham, and 3½ from the Hounslow station, on the South Western line, and 13 from Hyde-park-corner. The church of SS. Peter and Paul is an old stone building; its porch is a fine specimen of Norman architecture; in the chancel there are two finely-executed sculptures in marble of the late Count and Countess de Salis. The register dates from May1540. The living is a rectory annual value £600 with residence in the gift of Rev. E. Davison of University College, Durham; the curate is the Rev. Francis E. Smith, M.A., of Clare College, Cambridge. An object of great curiosity here is the large and curious yew tree in the churchyard, the trunk measuring twenty feet in circumference: an old copperplate print has been found, descriptive of this tree: the print is headed "Poet John Saxy upon his yew tree," dated November,1729, and from the verses which accompany it, the tree appears to have been then fifty or sixty feet in height, and to have been surrounded at the bottom of its trunk by a wooden seat, not now existing, above which, ten feet from the ground, was a large circular canopy, formed by the tree itself, which according to, Poet Saxy, was

"So thick, so fine, so full so wide,

A troop of guards might under it ride"

Above this canopy was another, ten feet higher, but of smaller dimensions, and above that a pyramid about twenty feet high; surmounted by a globe ten feet in diameter, and crowned by a weathercock. The manorial rights are divided between Lord Fitzhardinge and Count De Salis. Henry Bennett was born here in 1618, and afterwards figured as one of the Cabal cabinet after the restoration of Charles II.; he left a daughter, who married the Earl of Euston, natural son of Charles II, afterwards Duke of Grafton, whose second title was henceforth Earl of Euston and Arlington. The Baptists have a chapel here. A fair for toys and pedlery is held on Whit-Tuesday. There is still remaining a wing of Dawley, or Doyley, House, once the residence of Viscount Bollingbroke. The principal seat, called Harlington Lodge is now the residence of J. D. Allcroft, Esq. The Count De Salis is the chief landowner. Much market gardening is carried on. The soil is chiefly brick earth. The crops are wheat, hay, and garden produce. The population in 1861 was 1,159, and the area is 1,414 acres. PINKWELL is a place in the neighbourhood.
Parish Clerk, William Forrest

From the Post Office Directory Middlesex 1866 published by CD Archive Books