West Acton

Arriving at West Acton I hoped I would find it more interesting than the previous station which I did, but with four underground stations in close proximity to each other I had to restrict my exploring to a short radius from the station.

The current station building at West Acton was built in 1940 and replaced an earlier station building of 1923. This  now listed building was built by the Great Western Railway even though it formed part of London Underground's New Works Programme which ran from 1935-1940.

The inside of the ticket hall is in a poor decorative state but maybe it is on the list for  refurbishing.

The opening of the station in 1923 was the stimulus for much housing development in the area.














West Acton is a large residential area with another tube station just 500 metres away at Ealing.

So there were plenty of mainly semi detached houses

not many apartment blocks

lots of railway lines

and a  lawn tennis club

On the approach to one of the railway bridges is this sculpture  of the Iron Duke, one of the first locomotives to ride on Brunel's Great Western railway. The artwork was commissioned by Transport for London following the replacement of two road bridges on Hanger Lane. The Iron Duke class of engine was very fast with speeds of 50-80mph in the mid to late 19th cent.

Further along Hanger Lane I was intrigued by these gates with the initials EV. There was no information near by telling me what the initials stood for but it was obviously a private housing estate.

I discovered  on the internet that EV stands for Ealing Village which was built in 1934-36. What was interesting was that it was built to create a mini Hollywood to attract the film stars working at Ealing studios. The facilities at the village included a club house, swimming pool, tennis court, bowling green and croquet lawn. However, many of the film stars still  preferred to be driven to the studios from their West End Hotels.


Many of the original features remain such as the outdoor pool, tennis court, clubhouse and gardens.














Residents of the village in more recent times have been television presenters, international models and politicians.

 Returning to the station I came across another housing estate of interest, the Hanger Hill Garden Estate. The mock Tudor estate was laid out between 1928 and 1936 . It has short terraces of houses and three storey blocks of flats. The land on which the Estate was built had been used as an aerodrome and for aircraft manufacture. It is the immaculate lawned gardens that sets it apart from other housing estates.


Apparently the estate is very popular with Japanese families, so much so that there is a Japanese school on the Estate.