Colnbrook with Poyle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colnbrook with Poyle is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Slough in Berkshire, consisting of Colnbrook with Poyle. It is at the eastern end of the borough, and is just to the west of the M25 motorway, which separates the parish from Heathrow Airport in the London Borough of Hillingdon in Greater London. The parish had a population of 5,408.

The parish was formed on April 1, 1995. The Colnbrook part had previously been in the Iver parish of South Bucks in Buckinghamshire, whereas the Poyle part had been in the unparished borough of Spelthorne in Surrey (before 1974 forming part of the Staines Urban District of Surrey which had transferred from Middlesex in 1965). The 1995 transfer meant that Surrey and Buckinghamshire no longer have a border, while Greater London and Berkshire now do.

The Ostrich Inn in Colnbrook is associated is th site of one of first serial murders recorded in the UK. The publican one Jarman and his wife fixed up a bed on a trap door in the best bedroom. Prosperous guests were lodged in this room, and when they were safely asleep Jarman operated a lever which dropped the victim into a vat of boiling ale in the kitchen below. The murderers was eventually apprehended when Thomas Cole's body was found in a local stream and his horse wandering round the village. Both Jarmans were hanged. It is thought they had killed up to 60 people.