Brentford Ait is one of the two islands in front of Brentford’s Waterman’s Park and nearest to Kew Bridge, the other, Lot’s Ait is nearest to Brentford Dock.
For such a small island, it has a colourful history and is a beautiful wild place, so tantalisingly close and yet, in another unreachable world, where once its peace was disturbed by a notorious tavern called The Three Swans.
There is a channel in the middle known as Hog Hole, which is apparent at higher tides.
The ait was planted with trees in the 1920s to screen Brentford's gasworks from the view of Kew Gardens. It is covered by willows and alders providing the habitat for an interesting range of wildlife including nesting birds, herons, bats and the endangered German Hairy snail.
In 1891 the weather was so cold that the River Thames, in front of Brentford Ait, by The Hollows, froze over, which is captured here on a photo on the Thames Pilot website.
In the 18th century there was a notorious tavern on Brentford Ait called the Three Swans. The Swan Steps lead down to the river at Brentford at the site of the crossing to this pub (the place was roughly opposite to the Music Museum today).
In the book ‘The Thames Highway - Locks and Weirs’ by Fred S. Thacker, 1920, on pages 492-493 he mentions the infamous Three Swans Inn on Brentford Ait.
"In a map by Park after Rocque in the County Hall, Kingston, Brentford Ait is entitled Stevens West. In March 1811 one Robert Hunter of Kew Green described the island to the city as ‘a great Nuisance to this parish and the Neighbourhood on both sides of the River.’ It contained a ‘House of Entertainment, which has long been a Harbour for Men and women of the worst description, where riotous and indecent Scenes were often exhibited during the Summer Months on Sundays.’ He asked permission to fill up thereon ‘a pond for catching fish’ with earth from his premises on the bank of the River; and as an act of grace was allowed to do so.
“Perdita, at rest in Old Windsor churchyard; Perdita would dine here on this island in the years about 1783. The ‘house of entertainment’ was I think, called the Three Swans. Wm. Hickey in his Memoirs speaks in 1780 of having dined upon the Island off the town of Brentford, where there is a house famous for dressing pitchcocked eels, and also for stewing the same fish.’ ”
The Three Swans was even the rendezvous for the Prince of Wales (later King George IV) and Mrs Mary Darby Robinson, the famous actress, in 1779.
On 3 December, 1779, Mary Darby Robinson appeared at Drury Lane in a royal command performance of 'Florizel and Perdita', an adaptation of Shakespeare’s 'Winter’s Tale', in the central role of Perdita, the shepherd girl who falls in love with a handsome prince. The seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales fixed his attention on her, the twenty-two-year- old married actress and afterwards sent to her a letter addressed to “Perdita” from an admirer calling himself “Florizel”.
In the book ‘All For Love’ by Amanda Elyot (2008), about Mrs Robinson, there is a description of this meeting, an extract is here:
“After months of keeping him at arms’ length, Mary finally surrendered her body to the teenage Prince of Wales at the unprepossessing Three Swans Inn, Thames-side near Brentford. The lovers would have more assignations at a small brick house not far from Kew.”
The Three Swans Inn has gone and today, the Ait is a wild, peaceful haven for Cormorants.
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