The newspaper article (see below) in my post of few days ago was from the year 1765. Despite being published on 1st April it is extremely unlikely that this was written as an April Fool joke. Another newspaper article from later that year noted that "some houses in Old Brentford are to be purchased, and pulled down, in order to make a view from Richmond Gardens to Ealing".In 1862 Old Brentford was noted for its "heathenism, and degradation, and immorality, and poverty ... It is notorious, and has long been notorious, for its vice, its drunkenness, its squalor, and its poverty ... An overall wretchedness, unsurpassed even in the east of London, pervades the whole town, mainly attributable to an almost universal habit of intemperance".In 1870 it was written that "The ill repute of Brentford is such that the mere prospect of the bridge spanning the Thames being freed from toll lately threw the quiet inhabitants of the opposite village (Kew) into a state of consternation, the halfpenny exacted from each passenger having hitherto operated as an effectual check to the inroads of their vagabond neighbours".In 1900 the mortality rate in Brentford among children aged under one year was 187.1 per thousand. The rate in England is now about 3.5. --------------------------------------------"It is said that the houses, on the side next the Thames, in Old Brentford (at present the ugliest and filthiest town in England) will soon be pulled down, in order to make it the handsomest place in the kingdom; the natural advantages of the beautiful spot on which it stands being perhaps equal to any situation in the universe: the river, the island, the opposite shore, all conspiring to form a view extremely rural and elegant, though now totally veiled from the sight of those numerous passengers, continually crowding the great wester road, by a long range of old huts and ruined buildings, the receptacles of wretchedness, and a disgrace to the opulent county of Middlesex." (Salisbury and Wiltshire Journal, 1st April 1765)
Jim Storrar ● 2680d