Bedfont is a district within the London Borough of Hounslow in West London. It is 13 miles west-southwest of Charing Cross and two miles from Heathrow Airport. It contains the area which is informally known as North Feltham and also the neighbourhood of Hatton.
Bedfont is mentioned inside the Domesday Book as ‘Bedefunde’, which is believed to derive from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Bedfunta’, which means ‘bed’s spring’. It states that the manors of Bedfont, Hatton and Stanmore had been all held by William Fitz Other. Just before Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was constructed, just a couple of miles north of Bedfont, archaeologists discovered Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman artefacts, suggesting that individuals were living in and around Bedfont in these periods.
The populace of Bedfont stood at 12,701 at the 2011 census. The amount of inhabitants started to rise when Heathrow Airport was opened in 1946. This caused growing demand for local housing, especially as the village of Heathrow was lost in addition to part of the Hamlet of Hatton.
Bedfont has two surviving manor houses: Pates Manor, once owned by the Page family, and Fawns Manor. Pates Manor is behind the Church of St Mary the Virgin and dates from the late fifteenth century. Fawns Manor is around the south side of the Green and dates from the 16th century, now belonging to the British Airways Housing Association.