Syon House and Gardens
Syon House and Gardens

BOOK BRENTFORD HOTELS

Rather interesting Brentford facts

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Did you know that the floodlights at Brentford Football Club were donated by Chelsea Football Club ? A further link between the two clubs is that Chelsea reserves play at Griffin Park. The ground is named after an old local brewery which owned the land thereabouts – perhaps explaining the fact that uniquely in English football there is a pub at every corner of the place.

Did you know that the first drawing of the moon made with a telescope, and the first telescopic observations of sunspots, were made at Syon House in Brentford? Thomas Harriot , who had surveyed Virginia with Walter Raleigh , obtained one of the early ‘Dutch trunk’ telescopes and set about making astronomical observations with it, seemingly before Galileo. He was at the time in the pay of the Earl of Northumberland, and lived at the latter’s Syon House by the Thames .

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On this day:
Battle of Towton - 1461, Battle of Alresford - 1644, Albert Hall Opens - 1871, Captain Scott dies - 1912, First London Marathon - 1981
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