IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Upper Butts, BRENTFORD, TW8 8DA

One of a number of stretches of the River Brent that were bypasses when it was canalised to become the Grand Union Canal. It includes a sluice weir (behind the new buildings) to regulate the flow in the canal.

This is the old course of the River Brent, not navigable here.

At the front-garden gate of a Victorian house in the Butts. Structures somewhat like this were not uncommon in Georgian days, but I don't remember ever having seen a Victorian example. The gate-posts themselves appear to be of similar date, though cast iron. I know that a lot of iron railings were sacrificed during World War 2 in the name of the war effort, so I wonder whether this is a rare surviving example of something which was once more common.

A most unexpected corner of west London - or, if you prefer, of old west Middlesex. From Half Acre, the Butts leads south-west, and goes nowhere in particular - linking to a couple of quiet residential streets and a passageway through to the Market Place. Behind the wall seen on the left is St Mary's Convent; beyond that a little terrace of cottages that could be the oldest buildings to survive here - they look as if they could date from before 1700. The other side of the street is mostly Victorian http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4030145 At its western end, the Butts opens out into a square (of sorts) where the houses are mostly Georgian, built on ground that slopes away toward the River Brent and the canal.

The garden wall belongs to a Georgian house toward the west end of The Butts. Where else in London could you find lavender growing in the street?