Southall
Encyclopedia : S : SO : SOU : Southall
Southall is a London suburb in the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated 10.7 miles (17.2 km) west of Charing Cross.The name Southall (Southolt) means "southern wood" and separates it from Northolt.
Southall is located on the historic Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) which first linked London with the rest of the growing canal system. It was one of the last canals to carry significant commercial traffic (through the 1950s), and is still open to traffic and used by pleasure craft.
The opening of the canal in 1796 began a commercial boom, intensified by the arrival of the Great Western Railway in 1839, leading to the establishment and growth of brick factories, flour mills and chemical plants which formed the town's commercial base. In 1877, the Martin Brothers set up a ceramics factory in an old soap works next to the canal, and until 1923 produced distinctive ceramics now known and collected as Martinware.
A collection of Martinware - salt-glazed stoneware, grotesque faces, and birds - is on display at Southall Library. The largest collection, however, can be seen at Pitshanger Manor in nearby Ealing and Southall Library.
Southall is primarily an Asian residential district. Southall is informally known as "little India" by the Indians who live there and there were even recent serious attempts by them to officially rename it "Punjabtown."#redirect , though for obvious reasons this never saw the light of day. Over 55% of Southall's population of 70,000 is Indian/Pakistani. The Sikh Southall Gurdwara in Southall won the Ealing Civic Society Architectural Award in 2003. Southall is home to three Hindu temples: the Baba Balaknathji, the Rama Mandir, and the Vishwa Hindu Mandir.
There are few churches and there is one single mosque. The main street in Southall is called The Broadway. Southall contains the largest Asian shopping centre in the London area. Southall Broadway was featured in the film Bend It Like Beckham (in the scene where Jess goes shopping with her sister at the beginning of the film). Southall is also the location of the Glassy Junction, which serves several Indian draught beers and was the first pub in the UK to accept payment in Indian rupees.
"Southall" is also a longstanding English surname, though it is unknown whether the geographical location was the source of the name, as it is common in the Midlands, as well as southeast England.
Nearest places:
Nearest railway station:Related pages
External links
- [Canalside Sculptural Mural, Southall]
- [Southall picture gallery]
- [Website of the Southall's Punjabi-Sikh community]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.