As part of a regular fixture history graduate, Sally Henfield, looks into the background of road names across the borough...

During the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, Hounslow Heath became infamous as a haunt of highwaymen and footpads - robbers and murderers who went on foot rather than by horse.

The heath occupied perhaps 25 square miles, but no one was really certain where its boundaries lay, and no one cared, for it was a tract of country to be crossed as quickly as possible.

Legend has it that Dick Turpin would often gallop on Black Bess across the heath and is credited with having stayed in most old pubs in the Hounslow area, but in fact he mostly confined his activities to Essex, North London and Yorkshire.

He has, however, given his name to a local street - Dick Turpin's Way, Feltham, which lies on the perimeters of Heathrow airport (Heathrow is actually named after a small hamlet, or row, of cottages that stood at the end of the heath.)

While Turpin's link to the area is really only a minor one, there were many other devious men and women who made their living plundering travellers across the grassy plains.

Unperturbed by the row of gibbets that lined the London to Bath route, Claude Duval, a highwayman of French origin, is said to have danced on the heath with an admiring lady victim.

Meanwhile, Moll Cutpurse was not only unique in being the Heath's only highwaywoman, but also in that she managed to avoid the gallows upon capture, unlike her male counterparts.