Hounslow (/ˈhaʊnzloʊ/ HOWNZ-loh) is a large suburban district of West London, England, 10+3⁄4 miles (17.5 kilometres) west-southwest of Charing Cross.

[2] The priory developed what had been a small village into a town with regular markets and other facilities for travellers heading to and from London.

The construction of the Great Western Railway line from London to Bristol from 1838 reduced long-distance travel along the Bath Road.

By 1842, the local paper was reporting that the 'formerly flourishing village' (which used to stable 2000 horses) was suffering a 'general depreciation of property'.

Hanworth Road drill hall (now the Treaty Lodge Hotel) was built for the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, The Middlesex Regiment.

The construction of the Great West Road (a by-pass for the Bath Road, around Brentford, Isleworth and Hounslow town centres) in the 1920s attracted the building of factories and headquarters of large companies and led to a great deal of housing development.

After a decline in the 1970s, offices largely replaced factories and further expansion in hotel and housing stock started to take place.

Hounslow Heath has a continuous recorded history dating back to the Norman period, in which it lent its name to the hamlet of Heathrow.

[5] The Heath once had strategic importance as its routes acted as a throughway from London to the west and southwest of Britain.

The event was attended by King George IV and Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society.

It was in the London borough of Hounslow, and in 1919 was where the first scheduled daily international commercial air services began.

Hounslow was made its own ecclesiastical parish in 1835, whilst continuing to straddle Heston and Isleworth for civil purposes.

[11] A referendum of local electors was held in 1927 on whether to change the urban district's name from Heston and Isleworth to Hounslow.

A significant majority of those who voted supported the change of name (6,778 in favour, 3,775 against), but it was vetoed by Middlesex County Council.

[17] Hounslow has a high proportion of people who identify themselves as BAME (Black, Asian and minority Ethnic), and it is the borough's most diverse town.

[20] Hounslow is an economic hub within the west of the capital city, with it having a large shopping centre which adjoins its high street and many restaurants, cafés and small businesses,[21] many of which are associated with product assembly, marketing, telecommunications and Heathrow Airport, which has many businesses and public sector jobs in and around it to which the local population commute.

There is a large ASDA superstore located within the Blenheim Centre complex (which was completed in 2006)[24] along with B&M, a Barnado's charity shop, a local health centre, a gym run by The Gym Group and Jungle V.I.P (a children's indoor play area).

[28] One of the earliest surviving houses in the town is The Lawn, in front of the former Civic Centre with its public tennis courts, in brown brick with three double-hung sash windows set back in reveals with flat arches, roof with parapet and porch of fluted doric columns, pilasters, entablature and semi-circular traceried fanlight.

In doing this, it connects Hounslow to towns and districts such as Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Brentford and Isleworth.

The single road re-divides just north in Norwood Green into a northwest road to Southall (the A3005) and into the A4127 that passes by Hanwell, briefly using the A4020 west before bypassing Dormers Wells, passing Greenford to reach Sudbury, the town immediately to the west of Wembley and North Wembley.

In 1962, as a result of the final stage of the London trolleybus programme of conversion to motor bus operation, when Isleworth garage was closed, the staff from that depot (coded IH) were transferred to Hounslow.

Alfred Doolittle from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is claimed to have been raised in Hounslow, by the protagonist Professor Henry Higgins.