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Hillingdon House

Country houses in LondonHouses completed in 1844Houses in the London Borough of HillingdonVictorian architecture in England
Hillingdon House
Hillingdon House

Hillingdon House is a Grade II listed mansion in Hillingdon, Greater London. The original house was built in 1717 as a hunting lodge for the Duke of Schomberg. It was destroyed by fire and the present house was built in its place in 1844. The British Government purchased Hillingdon House in 1915 and it became a military hospital. In 1917, what would become the Royal Air Force station RAF Uxbridge was established within the grounds. In military use, the house has served over time as the first headquarters for No. 11 Group RAF and RAF Bomber Command. The River Pinn passes through the grounds of the house from north to south, splitting the former RAF Uxbridge in two. The Hillingdon House Farm estate to the north of the house includes the Hillingdon Sports and Leisure Complex (formerly Uxbridge Lido). The farm ceased operations in 1965 after the local council served a notice to quit on the tenant. The farmhouse on Honeycroft Hill became a council depot, followed by a plant nursery, before it was sold for residential housing.Under plans approved in early 2011 for the redevelopment of the RAF station, the house will be renovated and converted to include a restaurant. As of 2014 it is not accessible to the public while the site undergoes redevelopment.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Hillingdon House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Hillingdon House
Wren Avenue, London Hillingdon (London Borough of Hillingdon)

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Wikipedia: Hillingdon HouseContinue reading on Wikipedia

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.542819444444 ° E -0.46527777777778 °
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Wren Avenue

Wren Avenue
UB10 0FD London, Hillingdon (London Borough of Hillingdon)
England, United Kingdom
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Hillingdon House
Hillingdon House
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RAF Uxbridge
RAF Uxbridge

RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a 44.6-hectare (110-acre) site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years before the founding of the RAF. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the station was open to the public. The station is best known as the headquarters of No. 11 Group RAF, which was responsible for the aerial defence of London and the south-east of England during the Battle of Britain. Hillingdon House served as the group's headquarters. A bunker, subsequently known as the Battle of Britain Bunker, was built nearby to house the 11 Group Operations Room, which controlled fighter squadrons operating within the group. The Operations Room was also responsible for providing air support during the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 (Operation Dynamo) and the D-Day landings (Operation Overlord). It was here that Winston Churchill first said, "Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed by so many to so few", which he repeated in a speech to Parliament four days later. RAF Uxbridge closed on 31 March 2010 as part of a reduction in the number of Ministry of Defence installations in the Greater London area. Many of its remaining military units were relocated to nearby RAF Northolt the following day. Plans for redevelopment, consisting of a mixture of new residential and commercial properties and the retention of all listed buildings, were approved in January 2011. A small part of the station incorporating the Battle of Britain Bunker retains the RAF Uxbridge name and is owned by Hillingdon Council. The River Pinn runs through the site from north to south, passing Hillingdon House and the Battle of Britain Bunker. The land around the river is mainly wooded and designated as greenbelt, and Hillingdon Golf Course borders the south of the station. A footpath through the site that had closed in 1988 was reopened in 2011.