Ruislip, Bury Street c.1955

Photo ref: R335038

More about this scene

The Village Sweet Shop and Hailey's have gone, and this very pretty building, which hides a 17th-century timber frame behind its brick skin, is now a restaurant, to which has been added a not very beautiful plastic conservatory. Note the fine heavy chimney stack. The cottages are now shops, but the timber-framed gabled range adjacent remains in residential use. On the north side of the village is Manor Farm, with its astonishingly complete array of farm buildings. A motte and bailey castle, complete with its outer bailey and extensive village outworks, define the origins of the settlement. However, it is the buildings within the earthworks which deserve comment and inspection: these include the Great Barn of the 13th century, probably the oldest timber structure in Middlesex, the library, a 17th-century conversion, the cow byre (somewhat renewed after several arson attacks) and the Farmhouse, a quite complex fragment of the 17th century. The buildings are presently in the ownership of the London Borough of Hillingdon, who recently turned away at the last moment from a resolution to market the buildings - a potential disaster put in the pending tray.