Hounslow Heath

It is a local nature reserve in the London Borough of Hounslow, preserving heathland with acid grassland and other wildlife habitat. The reserve is open to the public and is a small surviving fragment of a much larger historic heath.

Yes, Hounslow Heath Aerodrome operated on the site in the 1910s, including military flying during World War I. Britain's first scheduled international commercial flights left from there in 1919 bound for Paris, before Croydon took over as London's main airport by around 1920.

The heath was notorious for highwaymen in the 17th and 18th centuries, and Dick Turpin is popularly linked to it, though much of his legend is romanticized. What is well documented is that travelers crossing the heath west of London were prime targets for mounted robbers.

The historic heath stretched across a large area of west Middlesex toward Bushy Park and the land that later became Heathrow. Today's nature reserve covers only a small remnant of that once-vast open heath.