Manor of Hanwell

8 manse at Hanwell were granted to Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Dunstan in the 10th century. Hanwell was reckoned as an independent manor in Domesday Book, but after this, apparently before the 13th century, it became absorbed in the neighbouring manor of Greenford, which also belonged to Westminster. The first court rolls, which survive from the early 16th century, show that Hanwell was then a subsidiary hamlet of Greenford; from the middle of the century the manor was generally called 'Greenford and Hanwell', and lands in Hanwell were described indifferently as held of Greenford manor or Hanwell manor. By the late 18th century, though the courts were still held together, the two manors seem to have been regarded as separate entities. Most of the extensive copyhold land in Hanwell seems to have been enfranchised during the 19th century and the manorial courts were discontinued about 1900.

The leases of the demesnes of Greenford manor which were made from the late 15th century onwards included a certain amount of land in Hanwell, though it seems that Hanwell Park, which was copyhold, was never the residence of the lessees of the manor. The manor passed in the 16th century to the Bishop of London and in 1649 his lessee was estimated to hold 95 acres in the parish. When the manorial estates were divided into two unequal parts in the 18th century, the Hanwell lands all formed part of the larger share. At the inclosure of 1816, the bishop and his lessee were allotted 26 acres for open-field land and common rights, and also held about 75 acres of old inclosed land. Most of these lands, like the manorial estates in Greenford to which they were attached, were sold by the Church Commissioners after the Second World War.

Source: 'Hanwell: Manor', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 224-225 (available online).