The Twickenham Museum
Exhibitions : Villages on the River

Whitton
Whitton is first mentioned around 1200.

Whitton Place in 1786
Whitton is not mentioned separately in the Domesday survey of 1086, but it is estimated that the population then was about five households. Whitton is first mentioned around 1200 in a document listing land converted to arable use, although it had probably been settled in the 10th or 11th centuries. By the 13th century Whitton's limits were defined. These boundaries were confirmed with the founding of Whitton parish and its church of St Philip and St James, built in 1862.

17th century maps show Whitton as a hamlet centred on the crossroads where the present Nelson and Kneller Roads and Whitton Dene meet.

Whitton was included in the Local Board for Twickenham in 1868 and this became the Urban District Council in 1895.

There was no central shopping street in Whitton until 1932. In the 19th century a few shops had opened in Hounslow, Nelson and Kneller Roads. Expansion started with the opening of a railway station in 1930 and in the following decade most of the present housing stock was built. To cater for the enormous population increase, the stretch of Percy Road from the Nelson public house to the railway, until then a quiet country lane, was planned as a new High Street. The first shops were opened in 1931 and at the outbreak of the second world war in 1939 there were 96 businesses in operation. Further development of vacant plots took place, after the war.

back to top