Harlington, London

Harlington is a district of the London Borough of Hillingdon, on the northern perimeter of London Heathrow Airport. It is centred west of Charing Cross. The district adjoins Hayes to the north and shares a railway station with the larger district, which is its post town, on the Great Western Main Line.EtymologyThe place-name Harlington is recorded in Anglo-Saxon as Hygereding tun: "Hygerǣd's people's farmstead".HistoryThe earliest surviving mention of Harlington appears to be in a 9th-century charter in which land at Botwell in Hayes was said to be bounded on the west by "Hygeredington" and "Lullinges" tree. The first of these must be Harlington; the second has not been identified. The boundary between Hayes and Harlington, which may thus have been defined by the date of this charter, was later marked by North Hyde Road and Dawley Road, but Dawley Road may not have followed the boundary before the 18th century.Administrative historyBy 1834 the select vestry (informally known simply as the vestry) employed a paid assistant overseer. In 1824 a surgeon for the poor of Cranford and Harlington was appointed by the vestries of both. Their later co-operation saw the establishment of Harlington's National School jointly with in 1848, and its cottage hospital jointly with Cranford and Harmondsworth in 1884.In 1924 the civil parish council (CPC) asked Staines Rural District Council (RDC) to light the village street and this was done a year later. The cemetery in Cherry Lane was opened in 1936 by the UDC and the CPC started its first allotments in 1895 but rejected proposals to acquire a recreation ground or parish hall. See the entry for Hayes for the later detailed local history.