Cranford | |
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Cranford shown within Greater London | |
Area | 2.72 km2 (1.05 sq mi) |
Population | 12,330 (Cranford wards 2011) |
• Density | 4,533/km2 (11,740/sq mi) |
OS grid reference | TQ105765 |
Civil parish |
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London borough | |
Ceremonial county | Greater London |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | HOUNSLOW |
Postcode district | TW4, TW5 |
Dialling code | 020 |
Police | Metropolitan |
Fire | London |
Ambulance | London |
EU Parliament | London |
London Assembly | |
Cranford is a suburban ward formed from a medieval parish of the same name in the London Borough of Hounslow 12 1⁄2 miles (20 km) west of Charing Cross and on the eastern perimeter of London Heathrow Airport.
The area is bounded in the west by the airport and the River Crane which flows through publicly owned Cranford Park or Cranford Countryside Park. To the north the area is bounded by the M4 motorway.
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 (2.98 km2).
Before the Norman Conquest, the village was a small Saxon settlement in all senses completely surrounded by its open fields abutting the north of Hounslow Heath and was in Elthorne Hundred for troop-mustering and taxation purposes. 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.