Eastcote House Uncovered: Including Long Meadow
This volume complements our first publication, Eastcote House and Gardens: The People and the Place , as updated in 2022. Eastcote House Uncovered pulls together the most interesting outcomes of the five Heritage Lottery archaeological investigations, which were undertaken between 2012 and 2017. We now have a clearer understanding about the site of the demolished old house and a look back in time to before Eastcote House was first constructed. Eastcote House Uncovered: Including Long Meadow incorporates not only findings from research into the uses to which Long Meadow and adjacent buildings (now demolished) were put, but also features some colourful characters who lived in said dwellings.

Price £10.00

Eastcote's Old Farms
Community Archive 'Eastcote's Old Farms' is now available, painting a picture of Eastcote's rural past with images to complement details of over 20 farms and orchards.

Price £5.00

Eastcote Connections
This book paints a picture of over thirty individuals or families carrying either fame or being notable people that have lived or worked in Eastcote since the times when Eastcote was a hamlet within the parish of Ruislip to the more recent times when Eastcote developed pretty much as we see Eastcote today. This Friends of Eastcote House Gardens Community Archive publication is the first time that a description of such people has been brought together in such a way in a single publication.

Featured are those of historic importance whether that is locally, nationally or indeed internationally. Eastcote has been connected with notable people from all walks of life be they artists, classical or popular musicians, actors, theologians, war time heroes and inventors, diplomats, financial giants sportsmen or sportswomen or from the secret world of intelligence gathering and others as well. 

There is something for everyone and not just those with an interest in history.

Price: £10.00

Once a proud part of Eastcote’s history and heritage, Haydon Hall was demolished in the 1960s just a few years after Eastcote House was pulled down. Haydon Hall and Eastcote House sometimes shared the same history, not surprising given that the grand buildings were just a few hundred yards apart.

The story of Haydon Hall begins in the 1630s for the most colourful of reasons. Lady Alice Dowager Countess of Derby considered it imperative to have a further property built, despite her existing home in Harefield. This book reveals some fascinating details about life at times in Elizabethan England. Haydon Hall underwent two substantial developments and rebuilds and the book captures such details and provides a timeline of the people who lived in Haydon Hall and the estate.

Purchased by the Ruislip Northwood Urban District Council before WWII and scheduled for demolition, the house was saved with the outbreak of war and was used during the war and during the Cold War for civil defence purposes. The grounds of Haydon Hall now serve as the home of Eastcote Cricket Club and the Eastcote Billiards and Snooker Club, as well as providing day nursery facilities. 

Price £5.00

This Friends of Eastcote House Gardens book provides details of when the former Government site in Eastcote [RAF Eastcote] served such an important role as an outstation for the code breaking operations at Bletchley Park in WWII. This includes personal memories from former Wrens when the site was designated as Pembroke V ‘the concrete ship in dry dock’. Eastcote also played a vital role in WWII when Lady Anderson’s house, Eastcote Place was used by RAF Northolt as an Alternative Operations Room and later by the U.S. Army Air Force. Andy Weller is grateful for the generous cooperation of the RAF’s historian at RAF Northolt in bringing this story to life.

After the war RAF Eastcote was the first home for GCHQ during the Cold War. The site then operated in two parts. 

​At the Eastcote Road end all branches of the U.S.military at some time used the site. At the Lime Grove end the site was used for UK Government purposes. These aspects are covered in the book and the author Andy Weller worked on the site in the 1980s.

Price £10.00 

Eastcote House and Gardens: The People and the Place 
Issued in the spring of 2015, this was the first book to be published by the Friends of Eastcote Gardens. The book covers six centuries of recorded history from the days of what was an old farmhouse called Hopkyttes that was gradually incorporated into the old Eastcote House, was demolished in the 1960s.

Whilst it is important to set down the architectural details of Eastcote House and the outbuildings and features such as the walled garden, this book is also about the families and the people who lived there, the individuals who worked there and people’s memories of the old house.

There is also the story to tell about how the walled gardens were rescued from years of neglect and the long journey to where we are now, with the multi- award winning local amenity that we now have at Eastcote House Gardens.

by Andy Weller

Price £10.00