HOUNSLOW  , a

town in the Brentford parliamentary division of Middlesex, England, 122 m . W. by S. of St Paul's Cathedral, London, on the District and London & South Western railways . Pop . (1901) 11,377 . It has grown into an extensive residential suourb of London . Its situation at the junction of two great roads from the west of England made it an important coaching station, and some 500 coaches formerly passed through it daily, A priory of friars of the Holy Trinity was founded at Hounslow in 1296, and existed till the dissolution of the monasteries . The priory chapel was used as a church till 1830, after which its place was taken by the existing church of the Holy Trinity (1835) . Hounslow Heath, west of the town, had, according to the survey of 1546, an area of 4293 acres . It was the site of Roman and British camps, and in the wars of the 17th century was the scene of several important military rendezvous . It was a favourite resort of highwaymen, whose bodies were exposed on gibbets along the road . In 1784 the base-line of the first trigonometrical survey in England was laid down on the heath . In 1793 large cavalry barracks were erected upon it, and it is also the site of extensive powder mills .

It began to be enclosed towards the end of the reign of

George III . In Osterley Park, N.E. of Hounslow, Sir Thomas Gresham built a mansion in 1577, and this was rebuilt with great magnificence by Francis and Robert Child c . 1770 . Hounslow is divided between the parishes of Heston and Isleworth . Pop. of urban district of Heston and Isleworth (19o1) 30,863 .