The settlement is near the Colne Valley Regional Park and its centre lies 1.9 miles (3 km) north of Heathrow Airport.

It lies on the north side of the M4 motorway with the village of Harmondsworth to the south, and is northwest of M4 junction 4 (Heathrow Airport spur).

Until 1525 West Drayton Manor was managed on behalf of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's by an appointment known as a Firmarius who was responsible for the day-to-day running of the estate.

From 1537 the lessee of the manor was William Paget who held high office of state in the court of Henry VIII.

The Manor grounds contained the Church, ornamental gardens, stables, a dovecote and other outbuildings and was enclosed by a high brick wall and two gatehouses.

The construction of the manor house and grounds resulted in the demolition of villagers' homes on Church Road and building on the graves of generations of West Drayton people in the churchyard.

[12] The loss of the Parish churchyard was compensated for by the granting of an alternative burial site which was situated on the eastern side of where Drayton Hall is today.

Thomas Paget (1544–1590) and his brother Charles were both devout Roman Catholics, and would not conform to the Protestant religion of Queen Elizabeth I.

Aided by Henry Percy, Paget fled to Paris on the uncovering of the Throckmorton Plot in November 1583, joining Charles who had been in exile there since 1581.

[15] The failed conspiracy's plan was for an invasion of England by French forces under the command of Henry, Duke of Guise, financed by Philip II of Spain.

In June 1584 a formal demand for the surrender of Paget was made to Henry III, King of France through the English ambassador, which was not carried out.

The ground invasion would be led by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma with the majority of troops coming from the Spanish Netherlands.

[16] The endeavour of July–August 1588 to stop England's rise as a maritime power and to force the English and Welsh back to Roman Catholicism failed when the Spanish Armada required to support Parma's passage from the Spanish Netherlands to England was scattered after engagements with the English Navy off the coast of Calais and Gravelines.

Carey became 2nd Baron Hunsdon in 1596 and entertained Elizabeth at the West Drayton Manor House in October 1602.

[13] William like James I was a Protestant and had taken part in the successful Anglo-Dutch capture of Cadiz (Gades) in 1596 with Admiral Charles Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

There is a small memorial tablet to George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon (1547–1603) who was Lord of West Drayton Manor between 1592 and 1603.

This is one of the oldest West Drayton Parish charities and its small income is still distributed each New Year's Day.

[12] After the Potato Famine of the 1840s (known in Ireland as the Great Famine or Great Hunger), Irish immigrants who were of the Roman Catholic religion and principally from counties Cork and Waterford arrived in West Drayton and took up residence in poor housing by The Green which became known locally as the Irish hovels.

[26] The nearest official place of Catholic worship was St. Mary's chapel at North Hyde, requiring a walk of over four miles each way to attend Mass on a Sunday.

[12] Because of this distance a Roman Catholic Mass was offered in a stable at the back of the Kings Head Public House adjacent to The Green.

[27] By 1862 the Reverend Andrew Mooney, priest at the St. Mary's North Hyde Orphanage was using a cottage in Money Lane called the 'White House' as a school and was conducting services there.

[12] He was succeeded by the Reverend Peter Francis Elkins, also the priest at the North Hyde Mission to which the school at West Drayton was attached.

Elkins health had failed and the West Drayton Mission was undertaken by Reverend Michael Wren.

Wren requested financial donations for the new church and school stating that West Drayton was the most destitute mission in England with upwards of 300 persons being compelled to remain in the open air during Catholic mass.

[36][28] On 26 October 1868 the Most Reverend Dr. Henry Manning, Archbishop of Westminster laid the foundation stone of the Church of St Catherine of Alexandria.

[40] The church is built of buff stock brick with Bath stone dressing with dimensions of 85ft by 48ft and was designed by architects Samuel Joseph Nicholl and Thomas John Willson of London in the English Gothic style of the early 14th century.

The businesses situated here are: Ocado, Greencore, Carrier Retail Systems, Amalga Ltd, Clevertronics, MNX Global Logistics and the Heathrow Parcel Centre.

Drayton Hall has the offices of Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Trizell Ltd, Kore Wireless and North South Wines.

Britannia Court, on the east side of The Green, has the offices of the Schools HR Co-operative, MagLabs, Wells Burcombe LLP, MD Developments Ltd, Insultec Ltd, QIK Group and Flight Data Systems.