Brentford

A notable family from Brentford was the 18th-/19th-century architectural father and son partnership, the Hardwicks. Thomas Hardwick Senior (1725–1798) and Thomas Hardwick Junior (1752–1829) were both from Brentford and are buried in the old church of St Laurence. Hardwick Senior was the master mason for the Adam Brothers during the construction of Syon House. Hardwick Junior assisted in the building of Somerset House and was known for his designs of churches in the capital. He was also a tutor of J. M. W. Turner and he helped start Turner's illustrious career in art. Both father and son did a great deal of remodelling and rebuilding on the church of St Laurence.

Brentford's industrial status and the Great West Road are notable facets of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World. Set in London in AD 2540 (632 A.F.—"After Ford"), the influential dystopia anticipates changes in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that combine to change society profoundly. The BBC Three sitcom People Just Do Nothing is set in and around Brentford. The Brentford Trilogy, a (ten-book) series of "far-fetched fiction" novels by Robert Rankin, humorously chronicle the lives of a couple of drunken middle-aged layabouts, Jim Pooley and John Omally, who confront the forces of darkness in the environs of western…