An estate agents’ label for one of the most advantaged parts of north Ealing, centred on Pitshanger Lane and sometimes
taken to include the garden suburb of Brentham. The name was first recorded in 1493, and may refer to a wooded slope frequented by hawks or kites. Pitshanger manor once
covered an area stretching from Hanger Hill to Mattock Lane. Pitshanger Farm (for a while called Pitch Hanger Farm) lay in the north of the manor in the 18th and 19th
centuries, latterly keeping dairy cattle. Pitshanger Lane (originally Pitshanger Road) followed its present route by 1894.
Between the start of the 20th century and the outbreak of World War I the area was transformed, first by the creation of Brentham
to the north, and then by the building of houses, shops, churches and a school along Pitshanger Lane. The farmhouse at Pitshanger
Farm was demolished in 1908, but some of its land was preserved as Pitshanger Park, now part of Brent River Park. The Pitshanger
Community Association organizes a Pitshanger party in the park each summer and ‘Light up the Lane’, held in Pitshanger
Lane to mark the start of the Christmas festivities. Sir John Soane’s Pitshanger Manor is located well to the south
of the ‘village’, in Walpole Park, off Mattock Lane.
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