Park of the week

194. Acton Green Common

Acton Green Common, in Ealing, is a triangular area of open land, laid out with perimeter planting, paths and mature trees. It’s an unusual shape as it’s split into two, with a road and crossing in between the two parts. It holds a Green Flag Award. Acton isn’t an area I know, but we are moving farther away from Mill Hill in our search for urban parks and Ealing has quite a few.

Acton Green Common is identified as an “Archaeological Interest Area” within the Ealing Plan for the Environment. There was a medieval hamlet around the Green, the edge of a Roman Road used by legionaries and a Roman settlement in the south. 

The name Acton means Oak Town and is Anglo-Saxon, suggesting that there was a settlement at Acton in Saxon times. Acton’s existence was first recorded in 1181 when it appeared in the Domesday Book. At that time most of the land came under the Manor of Fulham which belonged to the Bishop of London. where it remained until the Reformation. when Henry VIII redistributed the land to the Earl of Bedford.

The common was part of the site of the Battle of Brentford during the Civil War when, on 12 November 1642, the Royalists under Prince Rupert surprised and overcame the Parliamentarian army under Lord Essex. The battle took place on part of Acton Green Common, Turnham Green and on an area once called Chiswick Common Field.
In the late 1880s, horses grazed on the Common, provided the owners had been given the “copyright” to do so. There had been a complaint to the Council in 1888 when an uncopyrighted horse had knocked a child over.

Acton Green, the residential neighbourhood named after Acton Green Common (or perhaps it’s the other way round), was once home to many small laundries (170 by the end of the nineteenth century) and became known as "Soapsuds Island".

The Common has a children's playground but no cafe or toilets.

Judith Field

Acton Green Common, Hardwicke Rd, London W4 5LG