LOOKING BACK WITH DR JONATHAN OATES
22 Montpelier Road
The Montpelier Road
Montpelier Road is a
quiet, residential street.
Just over six decades
ago, though, it was the
scene of arguably one of
Ealing’s worst crimes.
50
around ealing
Winter 2016/17
T
he road now has a mixture
of late Victorian detached
houses, as well as more
recently built flats and
smaller houses. The crime occurred at
number 22, where the smaller houses of
Magnolia Place now stand. At the time,
the house was a home for elderly people.
On the morning of 11 February 1954,
the housemaid, Eileen Thorpe, could not
find her employers, Mary Menzies and
her daughter, Mrs Chesney. They were not
in their rooms nor did they appear to have
left the house. Concerned about being
alarmist, she contacted her employers’
relations who lived nearby. They arrived
at the house and searched it, without
initially finding anything untoward.
One room not searched, because it was
locked and presumably in use, was one
of the bathrooms. Eileen saw the key on
the kitchen table and decided to check.
What she saw horrified her. The body of
Mrs Chesney was in the bath, quite dead.