Ruislip Gardens
Ruislip Gardens, Hillingdon
The smallest of Ruislip’s localities, separated from RAF Northolt aerodrome by the Yeading Brook
The manorial landowner, King’s College, Cambridge, created New Pond Farm on West End Road in 1872, and built a farmhouse of the same name.
The fields were spared in the original development plan for Ruislip, but succumbed after the opening of the station on the Great Western Railway’s Birmingham line in 1934, when the Ruislip Gardens estate was laid out, accompanied by the Bell public house and the shops of New Pond Parade. The estate was known to residents as ‘the Gardens’.
Ruislip Gardens school opened in 1939. It was closed after the outbreak of war because of the risks posed by its proximity to RAF Northolt but reopened in 1941.
The Central line was extended to West Ruislip in 1948, on tracks parallel with the main line, and a new station was built at Ruislip Gardens. Mainline services continued to run for another ten years.
At Ruislip Gardens primary school the majority of pupils are white British with the next largest ethnic group being of Indian heritage. Parents based at RAF Northolt often send their children here, which results in a relatively high pupil turnover.
South of the station, flats have been built on a former Ministry of Defence site in Carmichael Close, including affordable homes for key workers.
John Betjeman’s 1954 poem ‘Middlesex’ opens thus: “Gaily into Ruislip Gardens / Runs the red electric train, / With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s / Daintily alights Elaine.”