This is a very narrow and grimy old passageway right opposite Ealing Broadway station, and if less yeuky, would be a good shortcut to the shops. But no, really, no, don’t use it.
Haven Place is most inappropriately named, as it’s neither, but takes its name from Ealing Haven, a piece of common land that used to be crossed by a number of unnamed lanes, one of which followed a similar alignment to The Broadway.
When the railway arrived in 1839, housing quickly followed, and the common land was developed into Ealing Broadway town centre.
The alley seems to have emerged around the same time as the shops that front the Broadway, and apart from providing rear access to the shops, there were also two small rows of Victorian terraced houses down here.
OS Map 1915
The smaller, Haven Place, can still be found down here, although the much larger row of Haven Terrace has since been demolished (replaced by the ramp for a rooftop car park of all things). You can see the row of houses at the bottom of this photo.
Apart from the demolition of Haven Terrace, the alley hasn’t changed much over its nearly 200-year history, but the shops and buildings around it have changed a huge amount.
OS map 1969
The most notable change is at the Broadway end, where a row of Victorian shops was cleared to build a 19th-century department store, Eldred Sayers – later owned by Bentalls.
And for Doctor Who fans, you can see the Bentalls store in the background when the mannequins come to life in Spearhead from Space.
Having survived the Autons, the department store was replaced in the 1980s by the Waterglade Shopping Centre, later renamed the Arcadia. That shopping centre was redeveloped in 2013-15, and what was once the entrance to the covered shopping arcade is now the entrance to the Morrisons supermarket.
Further along Broadway, what had long been the WH Smiths (at the time of writing, a Sports Direct) had been the entrance to the Ealing Theatre. Later converted into a cinema, it was upgraded to Ealing’s first talkies cinema in 1929. The cinema closed in 1958, and its marvelous Vicotrian frontage was replaced with a very insipid 1960s block.
Curiously, the rear of the old cinema was also demolished, but then left as an empty plot of land, hidden behind high walls, but visible from above.
Today, the alley slips in between the shopping centre and around the back of the former cinema, lined with high walls on both sides. The short row of houses, Haven Place, is still here, although two of the three are now covered up in wooden hoardings awaiting their own turn at demolition shortly.
Further down, you get to where Haven Terrace used to be next to the railway, and also, it seems a local hangout for people who like to drink outdoors from cheap cans of strong lager.
Further along, walking alongside the railway and the hidden back of the former cinema, you come to a staircase leading up to Ealing Broadway station. And on my visit, stepping around another group of people taken to drinking cans of lager.
And then up the stairs to escape.
It’s not much of a haven these days, but soon you might lose the chance to walk along it, as there’s a plan to sweep away most of the south side of the alley – the side that used to have the cinema, and replace it with a new housing development. At the same time, the alley will be fenced off and made private, so while hardly picturesque, if you ever want to visit it, now is the time to do so.
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