7. St Lawrence Church

There’s been a church here since at least the 12th century. The tower dates to about 1480 and it’s the oldest surviving building in Brentford.

Take a watch of this inspiring video of a tour of St Lawrence's Church, led by members of Brentford Voice and Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society.

The video was made as part of Brentford Waterside’s community engagement project.

You can use the trees in the church grounds to help you understand the old photographs as they appear in all the images of the Church and this west end of New Brentford High Street.

The Six Bells pub- which is further west next to Brentford Bridge -was named after the six bells in the tower of St. Lawrence’s Church that were rung for special events and when royalty passed through the town. The Pub frontage dates from 1904 but there was a pub of this name on this spot all the way back to 1722.

1900s wakefields postcard view from st lawrences looking down the high street towards the east howard webb collection
1905 Durham wharf yard drawing by john tavenor perry this wharf was on the lock side of the road before the bridge
1950S 1960s high street the corner of durham wharf the church is out of sight on the right of the image holman hounslow local studies archive

Children and families

  • When you’re home or sitting down try out this incredible map overlay site by National Library of Scotland.
  • Recent excavations by archaeologists have shown that there is lots of evidence of 2 Neolithic period settlements (4,000 to 2,000 BC ) one at this Market Place/St Lawrence’s end of the High St where lots of struck flints and pieces of pot have been found, and another down at Kew bridge where evidence has been found of long barrows -which were long stone monuments to the dead.
  • Look down towards the Market place and compare what you see to the images here… notice anything? We’re lucky enough to have trees in the high street these days whereas in the historical images not a tree in sight apart from those in the Churchyard.