Gillette Corner is a crossroads in west London. It is where a straightened medieval route Syon Lane (B454) crosses the triple carriageway of the Great West Road A4 and is the western end of the West Cross business district (which has an older, more ambiguous name, the Golden Mile). A disused name for the neighbourhood is Syon Hill.

Place name

It is very locally used as a placename (toponym) interchangeably with Syon Lane and formerly, for a time, Syon Hill.'Heston and Isleworth: Introduction', in ''A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3'' ed. Susan Reynolds (London, 1962), pp. 85-94. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/pp85-94. As with

Osterley Osterley ( ) is an affluent district of Isleworth in west London, England, from Charing Cross in the London Borough of Hounslow. Most of its land use is mixed agricultural and aesthetic parkland at Osterley House (National Trust), charity-r ...

to the east and north these terms are the upper hinterland of the historic parish of

Isleworth Isleworth ( ) is a suburban town in the London Borough of Hounslow, West London, England. It lies immediately east of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane, London, River Crane. Isleworth's original area of ...

, centred to the south. A projection of

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West (London sub region), West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the River Thames, Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has dive ...

begins a short distance to the south-east. Osterley is increasingly seized upon (over a wider area), due to its associations with and origins in the elaborate, very verdant traditional home of the

Earls of Jersey Earl of Jersey is a title in the Peerage of England. It is held by a branch of the Villiers family, which since 1819 has been the Child Villiers family. History The earldom was created in 1697 for the statesman Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of J ...

Osterley Park Osterley Park is a Georgian era, Georgian country estate in west London, which straddles the London boroughs of London Borough of Ealing, Ealing and London Borough of Hounslow, Hounslow. Originally dating from the 1570s, the estate contains a ...

Syon Lane

Syon Lane was turnpiked in 1767 and straightened twelve years later. A map seeking to show the early 19th century layout of Cranford, Heston and Isleworth moments before their large central and north-western open fields were, as documented, legally privatised (enclosed), in the ''Victoria County History'' shows the various lanes and extent of settlement, which was focussed on the Roman London-westward road, kept up as a road locally today. The accompanying narrative states the lanes were all medieval linking the several hamlets. Syon Lane ran past land featuring Wyke House then after a fork, stately Osterley Park on its east side to

Southall Southall () is a large suburban town in West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided ...

, the parish to the north. The fork to the north was for a winding lane west, via the depopulated hamlet of Scrattage (today residential

) towards Heston. Syon Lane here had its own hamlet of a perhaps depleted estimate of eight buildings, Syon Hill, which lay just south of Gillette Corner.

Land use and architecture

Gillette Corner marks the western end of the Great West Road's landmark manufacturing sites and office headquarters – dubbed the " Golden Mile" of the 1930s, with

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

and

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

design features. It was adapted for the dystopian ''

Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hier ...

'' of that decade. Directly north east set behind the main road's characteristic sparse but long line of trees is the 'Gillette Building'. It is a

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

style office with workshop floors and outbuildings, designed by Sir

Banister Fletcher Sir Banister Flight Fletcher (15 February 1866 – 17 August 1953) was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher. They wrote the standard textbook ''A History of Architecture'' ...

, incorporating a high brick tower surmounted by a four-faced neon-illuminated clock. As this tall structure sits on high ground it represents a prominent local landmark and can be seen from afar, day and night. From the early 1930s until the early 21st century it was the European headquarters of the

Gillette Company Gillette is an American brand of safety razors and other personal care products including shaving supplies, owned by the multi-national corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G). Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was owned by The Gil ...

, of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts. In 1958 the buildings employed over 1,000 people. Beyond it is a

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

hypermarket A hypermarket or superstore is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In ...

, several buildings east is the headquarters of media company

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

. On the Northwest corner of the junction, now a petrol station site, stood the Better 'Ole transport cafe from the 1920s to the 1950s. This was named after and contained a mural based on a World War 1 cartoon series by artist Bruce Bairnsfather. https://www.flickr.com/photos/finlandia_175/4863699681/in/photostream/lightbox/

Public transport

South is

Syon Lane railway station Syon Lane railway station in Travelcard Zone 4 is on the Hounslow Loop Line and borders the Spring Grove and New Brentford neighbourhoods of the London Borough of Hounslow in west London. The office and light industrial zone to the north-eas ...

. The nearest tube stations are

Boston Manor Boston Manor House is an English Jacobean manor house built in 1622 with internal alterations, intensively restored in later centuries. It was the manor house of one of the early medieval-founded manors in Middlesex. Since 1965 the manor's ...

and

, and it is regularly served by H91 and H28 buses.

Gillette building

The Bonnington Group was granted planning permission by the

London Borough of Hounslow The London Borough of Hounslow ( ) is a London borough in west London, England, forming part of Outer London. It is governed by Hounslow London Borough Council. The borough stretches from near Central London in the east (Chiswick) to the b ...

to develop the building into a hotel and small business park, which will add to the West Cross area, of which Gillette Corner forms the western end. Work has not yet started and the site was sold to a holding company, Gillette Corner Holdings, in 2013.

Gallery

File:Great_West_Road_at_Osterley._-_geograph.org.uk_-_667032.jpg, Image from the western approach, in 1958. Image:Gillettecorner-front.JPG, The renowned and illuminated clock tower set in the centre of the former Gillette building.

References and footnotes

{{notelist

External links

Map from Google Maps
Areas of London Art Deco architecture in London Brentford, London Transport in the London Borough of Hounslow Road junctions in London