What a lovely thread - Bring on the memory dumps please.
I was too little to recall Northside in operations.
Our first stints out to London Airport where in 1964 when Dad booked a holiday to the Costa Brava with Lunn Poly/Everyman Holidays who flew most of their package passengers on British Eagle Britannia's then from LON/LAP
(what was the 3 letter code>? I gather it was LON then)
We would have drives out to the airport on a Sunday afternoon 'to have a look' before we went on our Hols.
We used the British Eagle coach from their Knightsbridge air terminal in the end to join the flight at the Europa Building.
Re the Bath Road A4 -
AFAIK it has always been the A4 (not the A3) right into Earls Court and beyond to Westminster & Holborn Circus.
Along the A4 was the Berkeley Arms Hotel in Cranford Hounslow opposite the Jolly Waggoner.
The Master Robert Hotel was further along towards Osterley.
The Three Magpies was formerly The Three Magpies Tavern. There has been a pub on this site since the 16th century and is the last pub left on the Bath Road.
Built 150 years ago, there is some interesting wood panelling. There was also the Old Magpies pub too.
All part of the Hamlet of Heathrow in the Harmondsworth Parish.
The lovely pub in Longford on the original Bath Road is the White Horse Inn.
(The avoiding Colnbrook by-pass was built early in the 1950's)
Back along the old Bath Road from the White Horse was the Peggy Bedford Hotel situated at 400 Bath Road. Previously known as The Kings Head, it closed in 1994 to make way for a McDonald's. The original Peggy Bedford, lived in a house known as The Stables in the village of Longford on the A4. It is believed that Peggy was the daughter of a landlord of the coaching inn then called the Kings Head and she ran the inn after her fathers death. In her honour the inn was renamed.
My pal Shirley who was Wafic Said's stewardess (Yes, Mrs Thatcher's pal) on his private BAC 1-11, then his 727 and she bought a lovely thatched cottage on the Island in Longford on the river there. Cute place which, if the 3rd runway build goes ahead will be all knocked down)