London W3 area information guide

Area Description
Like Dulwich, Finchley and Wimbledon, Acton is so vast that it has long been split into its consituent geographic parts. But unlike these other London leviathans almost all of Acton fits into one sizeable postcode - W3.

The crossroads of the A4000 (Horn Lane/Gunnersbury Lane) and the A4020 (Uxbridge Road/The Vale) form the original heart of Acton and the centre of modern W3. Retail concerns are concentrated around it today. Traversed by a bewildering display of railway tracks, W3 has as a northern border, the A40 and, not far to the south, the M4. The Hanger Lane Gyratory is at its north-western tip.

Housing
W3 must the ultimate curate's egg when it comes to housing; all posssible styles and conditions can be discovered in this wildly varied postcode. North Acton, bordering Park Royal in NW10, is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Acton, dissected as it is by industrial estates, decaying factories and Western Avenue - the A40. Flats predominate in this area, many of them recent Eighties' and Nineties' creations, still with reasonable price tags. Craven Park Road is this area's high street.

East Acton could not be more different. There is a homogeneity here lacking elsewhere in this postcode, with most of the housing dating from the Twenties, much of it the work of various public organisations. The council and sundry housing associations have a heavy presence here and a residents' parking scheme is in existence; a consultation is under way as to whether to extend such a plan to South Acton.

Red and brown brick facades with shallow bays dominate East Acton, interspersed with stone-clad terraces and the odd gable-ended detached home. Council-built properties sit comfortably with the altruistic housing of other organisations and with its own tube station and a high street along Old Oak Common Lane this is very much a self-contained zone.

West Acton, running south of the A40, was the scene of a property scramble in the early Eighties. Its easterly third, around the North Acton Recreation ground, was built by the Great Western Railway in 1923, sold to the railway workers in later history and the cottages here are still very popular today.

Heading west in the direction of Ealing, we come to the Hanger Hill Garden Estate, a conservation area of large houses designed between 1928-1936 by the architects Douglas, Smith and Barley.

The estate consists of 258 flats in three storey block on Queens Drive, Links Road, and Monks Road and 361 houses in Links Road, Queens Drive, Monks Drive, Vale Lane, Princes Gardens and Tudor Gardens.

The estate is notable for its half-timbered 'mock Tudor' style and landscaped setting - even the blocks of flats were designed to look like a Tudor Manor House standing in its own gardens.

South of West Acton is Acton Central (not to be confused with the train station of the same name, someway to the east - Ealing Common tube is the station here). We are closing in on Ealing here and the prices rise accordingly, many of them paid by folk from the Orient, attracted by the Japanese School in these parts.

Horn Lane and Uxbridge Road are frantic and ugly high roads; but some lovely secluded and winding streets lay off these, with the Creffields Conservation Area and the Ealing Lawn Tennis Club bestowing a sedate air over all.

Residents' parking has just been introduced to accompany these wide and leafy roads with their large semis and detached houses. The northern border here is the railway paralleling Lynton Road, and this is the part of central Acton in which to seek flats.

To the east, around Acton Central station, is Poets' Corner. This is the area's top draw, the conversions are tasteful and the housing, of whatever size, feels gentrified. Workers' terraced houses have mutated into rustic cottages, although larger versions, close to the high street - here called The Vale - have come to the attention of housing associations and others carrying out conversions.

The school for Arab children brings in many from the East here, increasing the popularity of the bigger Victorian edifices close to the high street. Sticking close to the high street, but moving east, new developments of retirement homes are proving a success, even with the juxtaposition of council blocks on the Vale Estate.

South Acton has long been blighted by the South Acton Estate, a vast swathe of low and high rise monoliths dominating the otherwise late Victorian/Edwardian flavour of the area. One block, Barrie House, was demolished in 2001 as structurally unsound, while Beaumaris, Corfe and Harlech towers are all undergoing refurbishment alongside other environmental improvements to the estate. Blackmore tower and Hardy Court are next in line for some tender loving care.

With traffic cut off from the estate by a closed road system, Mill Hill Park, on the west side of South Acton, has the best housing south of the high street. There are several styles of terraced housing here, the streets are leafy and a conservation order has been placed on this zone.

Acton Town, to the west of South Acton, is largely riven by railway tracks, public buildings and a sports ground, but its few residential roads have large and in-demand detached houses with gardens to match. Being next door to the vast Gunnersbury Park also does no harm.

Facilities
Away from London's tourist trails the many facilities of W3 are geared to its diverse population. On a first opening of the A-Z the first obvious virtue of all the Actons is a plethora of small parks and sports grounds.

The exception in size is Gunnersbury Park. This 186-acre monster has sports facilities galore, with fifteen football and rugby pitches, a cricket square, seven tennis courts, two golf courses, two bowling greens and a small athletics track. The garden is listed as Grade II and the "gothick" features of the 18th century include the Bathhouse (for the fashionable cold outdoor bathing of Georgian England) and the Temple, with its portico of Doric columns.

Also in the gardens is the Orangery, added by the Rothschild family in 1840, which can boast a beautiful black and white marble floor and can be hired for parties, promotions or wedding receptions.

Gunnersbury Park also has a two-acre outlying campus for the Enfield-based Capel Manor College. A full range of part and full time courses and lessons can be accessed here, from Alpine gardening and soil science to organic husbandry and, of course, balloon artistry.

The park is a little out of the way for the bulk of the Actons but some fourteen allotment sites exist around East and South Acton and Acton Central. Acton Park, by Acton Central train station, has the Acton Ranger Team which co-ordinates wildlife and nature projects throughout the district. Community spirit showed itself in 1998 with the creation of a garden by local residents in Poets Corner on the site of a fire-damaged property in Chaucer Road.

For those of a more sporting disposition there are the Acton Swimming Baths on Salisbury Street; the Twyford Sports Centre on Twyford Crescent; the Reynolds Sports Centre on Gunnersbury Lane; and Acton Sports Club on Park Place, Gunnersbury Avenue.

Acton has no reputation for eating out but this is unfair; no end of styles and standards can be discovered in W3, all the way to Korean, Mongolian and Syrian outlets. The high street, a short stretch of the A4020 between Uxbridge Road and The Vale, is frantically busy with cars and shoppers and its little side roads can provide a few retail surprises.

Less busy but taking up a commanding spot on the high street is the old Acton Town Hall, now largely quiet but for the occasional social function or storage for the council. Topped by a fine art deco timepiece once beloved of Actonians, its future hangs in the balance, with a variety of suggested uses making their way to the town burghers. The baths and gym behind the hall (on Salisbury Street) show that the people of Acton seem to want their town hall to stay and undergo a successful resurrection.

To the north is the nine-screen multiplex cinema of Warner Village in the Royale Leisure Park on Park Royal Road. Acton also acts as the storeroom for Covent Garden's London Transport Museum, where only a fraction of the museum's collection can ever be displayed at any one time. The old 6,000sq.m. depot here has ample room for everything else, and occasionally it throws its doors open to the public in open weekends and pre-arranged guided tours; some 370,000 artefacts have their home here.

Things are definitely on the up for Acton. Many estates and housing pockets have long since been colonised by those priced away from Chiswick or Ealing and, since 1999, a scheme known as Action Acton has been in place with partnerships between private, public and voluntary sectors sinking some £47m into W3. The town centre, town hall, business investment and the South Acton Estate are receiving particular attention from this programme.

Transport
With lines pointing to all directions of the compass and seven stations all sharing the same name Acton can appear confusing to the uninitiated. Buses will take you west to Ealing, south to Chiswick, north to Harlesden and east to Shepherds Bush, but this is a world of railways and tubes.

Acton Central and South Acton are on the old North London Line, now renamed the Silverlink Metro but still running from Richmond round to North Woolwich.

East Acton, North Acton and West Acton are all on the underground's Central Line, although the latter is on the Ealing Broadway branch only.

Acton Town is a particularly useful tube stop, appearing right on the cusp of a Piccadilly junction where the line splits to head for Heathrow to the south and Rayners Lane to the north. It also serves the Ealing Broadway branch of the District Line.

Acton Main Line is on a major railway, heading east to Paddington and west out to Reading, Bristol and Wales.

With the A40 to the north and the M4 to the south this might be one of the few postcodes with a car-friendly feel, but even in public transport the future is looking bright for Acton. The West London Tram Scheme is slated to run between Uxbridge and Shepherds Bush, via Hanwell, Ealing, Southall and Acton. With a projected cost of £200m and carrying a supposed 50 million passengers a year completion is set for 2009.

Steve Roberts

History
Acton comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'actun' - a settlement among the oaks - but these days the trees are few and far between and The Oaks is a shopping centre on Acton High Street. The Anglo-Saxon name first appears in 1181 and came to describe a village slowly growing along the Uxbridge Road, important then as the chief highway between London and Oxford. By the 14th century inns had sprouted alongside this thoroughfare, catering to the steady trade between the two towns.

East Acton was emerging at the same time, its inhabitants dealing in livestock as the ground here was unsuitable for arable farming. Abundant water came in the form of two rivers heading to the Thames at Hammersmith, Stamford Brook and Bollo ("bull hollow") Brook.

Acton's entry into national history comes with the Civil Wars. The population and garrison of London denied entry to London to King Charles I in 1642 by placing a vast human shield from Turnham Green to Acton, twice the size of the monarch's 12,000-strong army; Charles would never approach London again as a free man. Nine years later 300 coaches would greet Oliver Cromwell here following his success in the Battle of Worcester and the end of the Third Civil War.

Acton then slipped into a genteel phase in its history, acting as a favoured retreat for the wealthy in this ideal location, close to the capital but undeniably rural. This bucolic air was helped by the short-lived popularity of the spa resort of Acton Wells in the 18th century and the development of Gunnersbury Park to the south. In royal hands since the Reformation, the 186 acres of the park became a great favourite of George III's daughter, Princess Amelia.

Much of Amelia's work in the garden survives, notably the Temple and the Bathhouse. In 1801 the Palladian mansion was demolished and two Regency halls put in its place, Gunnersbury House and Gunnersbury Park. The Rothschild family bought the estate piece by piece in the 19th century until purchased by surrounding local authorities for the public good in 1926.

By Georgian times the all-important Uxbridge Road was in need of a complete refit and a turnpike trust was initiated to effect repairs. In 1764 the "Acton Machine" became the first documented stagecoach to run in and out of London. By the middle of the following century Acton was ready for its rapid transformation from agriculture to industry; from 3,000 residents in 1861 Acton would come to possess 38,000 souls by 1901.

The railways, as always, realised the end of a rural area and in 1838, 1853 and 1868 the iron road cut through Acton in a variety of directions and bequeathed the district the slightly schizoid nature it still owns today. These were backed up by horse-buses from the 1850s, a horse-tramway from 1878 and electric trams from 1901.

Myriad industries grew in the area and the cheap housing to accommodate the workers was not far behind. South Acton and its reserves of soft water cornered the market in laundries, with 60 establishments in 1873 serving the hotels of the West End.

The trade grew fast, with 170 of them by 1890 and 205 by 1900. As a consequence, South Acton became known as "Soapsuds Island," and by the 1930s Acton was reckoned to be the largest industrial centre south of Coventry.

Steve Roberts.