Feltham, United Kingdom

However the large manor itself passed 40 years later in 1631 by grant to Francis (Lord) Cottington, established at his new Hanworth Park, who had become Lord Treasurer, ambassador and leader of the pro-Spanish, pro-Roman Catholic faction in the court of Charles I. His nephew sold it, after a major fire and a very temporary loss caused by John Bradshaw, who arranged the King's execution, under the Commonwealth of England, to Sir Thomas Chambers. His son inherited Feltham manor, whose daughter by an empowering marriage to Admiral Vere (created Lord Vere) of Hanworth in the same historic county of Middlesex (created for him 1750) led to its next owner having a very high title and degree of wealth: her son, Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans inherited the manor and a dukedom with considerable land from a cousin. The Duke was a British landowner and a collector of antiquities and works of art, seated occasionally at Hanworth, who funded an excavation in Italy which produced many sculpture artifacts. Parting with much of the Duke's surfeit of large country houses, minor plot sales dividing the two ancient manors took place in the 19th century. Finally in the early 20th century, until death, the land now considered Feltham was either already subdivided by developers and farmers or owned by senior judge Ernest Pollock turned politician, (1st) Viscount Hanworth. He saw the very large Hanworth manor, which covered most of Hanworth parish divided up due to taxation; it became well-placed to cater to the demand for new homes with new intra-Borough transport links.

In this period in 1784 General William Roy set out the baseline of what would become the Ordnance Survey across Hounslow Heath, passing through Feltham. General Roy is commemorated by a local pub. The MOD Defence Geographic Centre maintains a base in Feltham, announced for disposal in the 2015–2020 Parliament.

In 1831, Feltham occupied an area of 2,620 acres (11 km2), stretching into Hounslow Heath and had a population of 924. The Waterloo to Reading Line established a station here from its construction in 1848. From 1894 to 1904 the Felham parish was included in the Staines Rural District. In 1901 the parish had a population of 4,534 and accordingly in 1904 it was split from the rural district to form the Feltham Urban District. In 1932 the parishes of Hanworth and East Bedfont were also transferred from the Staines district to Feltham Urban District.

From the 1860s until late 1920s Feltham was also home to the "Cabbage King", A.W. Smith. Smith was considered one of the most successful market gardeners of the time, and his "Glass City" of greenhouses along Feltham's High street was unmatched. Smith also lived in the Feltham House (now in the middle of MOD site in the town) for a time. His greenhouses have since disappeared, but many of the fields still remain.

Feltham Urban District was disbanded in 1965 along with the Middlesex County Council following the London Government Act 1963, which transferred administrative control over parts of Middlesex to the new county of Greater London.

Although opened in 1910, major expansion took place in a similar period, at the extreme south-west of the post town, at Feltham Young Offenders' Institution or HM Prison Feltham, which is a major such institution providing a range of employments and rehabilitation schemes for young people. It has a border with Ashford and the neighbouring village of East Bedfont.

Famous former resident Freddie Mercury (born Farokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, 1946–1991) of rock band Queen was commemorated by a permanent, Hollywood-style granite star in Feltham's town-centre piazza, unveiled on 24 November 2009 (the eighteenth anniversary of Mercury's death) by Queen guitarist Brian May, alongside Freddie's mother, Jer Bulsara, and his sister. In 2011, owing to neglect and weather damage, Hounslow Council removed the memorial, resolving to substitute a smaller one elsewhere.

Feltham's town centre developed in the period 1860–2010 when the focus of the village moved north from by St Dunstan's Church after the coming of the railway in 1848. For most of the twentieth century, it had a traditional-looking High Street, including more mock tudor shop fronts, and a large medieval manor house which was controversially demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for a car dealership and petrol station. This has since been demolished but replaced with a hardware, carpets and supermarket site Manor Park.