Cranford

Its name came from Anglo-Saxon cran-ford = "ford of cranes" as at the time the word heron was not used for that bird and it covered an almost north–south rectangle lengthwise of 737 acres. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor of Cranford being given to a Norman baron, William Fitz Ansulf. By the 13th century, the main area of Cranford Park and House, the High Street and Bath Road had been given to the Knights Templar (followed by the knights of St John of Jerusalem) as Cranforde St John. The rest, Cranford le Mote, included the manor house and stretched in a narrow taper to the north of the present M4. The manors were reunited by purchase by Sir Roger Aston, an official to the King,…

The middle of the locality's position, directly below the flight path of the northern runway of Heathrow Airport led to a ministerial statement-backed undertaking by the airport operator: the Cranford Agreement given on 31 July 1952 at a meeting of the Cranford Residents' and District Amenities Association – as far as possible, the northern runway would not be used for landings or take-offs to the east. This meant that houses under the flight path would not have to suffer the noise from landings, and more especially, louder take-offs. This was gradually watered down to a limited number of flights with government agreement. A study in an air transport white paper of December 2003 proposed…