The “blasted oak”, and other history around Barn Hill

Many thanks to Philip Grant for this fascinating guest blog.
 

Martin’s recent report on the sad loss of the “Blasted Oak” on Barn Hill LINK  said that the tree ‘had been there for well over 100 years’. I think that it may have been part of the local landscape for well over 200 years, and it gives me the excuse to share a little more local history with you.

The area around Barn Hill today looks a lot different from what it was 100 years ago. This extract from the Ordnance Survey map (reproduced from the 1920 edition of the 6 inch to one mile map of Middlesex, Sheet XI) was surveyed just before the First World War. I have added an arrow to indicate roughly where the “Blasted Oak” would have stood at the time, and you can see that it was part of a belt of trees across the lower slope of Barn Hill, before the open fields of the surrounding farmland began, with the footpath (F.P.) running beside it.

click on image to enlarge

That belt of trees, which then ran south along the boundary between the Urban Districts of Wembley and Kingsbury as far as Wembley Park Station (and had been the boundary between Harrow and Kingsbury parishes since Saxon times), was part of the design by landscape gardener, Humphry Repton, for the Page family’s Wembley Park estate, which was planted out in 1793. Some of the oak trees on and around Barn Hill from that time still survive, and their high branches provide a popular perching place for the hill’s resident parakeets.
 

As you will see from the map, Barn Hill 100 years ago was the site of a golf course, but there were some other interesting sporting facilities close by. For a time up until the First World War, there was a polo ground where today you will find the houses of Greenhill and Greenhill Way. It is no coincidence that the road built around 1930, across the former fields where the polo ponies were kept, is called The Paddocks.

The fields to the west of Barn Hill are marked as a shooting ground. Uxendon Shooting Club was the venue for the “Clay Bird” (clay pigeon) shooting events at the 1908 London Olympic Games, as this grainy photograph (from a microfilm copy of the “Evening Standard” for 11 July 1908) shows, with another belt of trees on Barn Hill in the distance:

As Uxendon Farm had very poor road access in 1908, the Metropolitan Railway built Preston Road Station so that competitors and spectators could get to the event. The temporary wooden platforms for this “halt” (the trains stopped “by request” only) were used until the current station was built, on the opposite side of Preston Road, as part of a 1930’s suburban development. West Hill, Uxendon Hill and the roads between them were built around the same time on the site of the shooting ground, after the farm was demolished to make way for a railway extension to Stanmore, which opened in 1932 and is now the Jubilee Line.

Uxendon Farm’s history has provided the names for two local primary schools. At the time of our first Queen Elizabeth, it was the main house and farm of Uxendon Manor, the home of the Bellamy family. They were Roman Catholics, and often provided shelter for visiting priests. One who was arrested there around 1590 was Robert Southwell, who at a time of religious intolerance was tortured, charged with treason and horribly executed for the “crime” of being a Jesuit. He was one of forty “English Martyrs” chosen by the Catholic Church in the 20^th century, to represent many more who had been killed for their faith in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Half a mile to the east, Hill (or Hillhouse) Farm in Salmon Street was the main manor farm of Kingsbury Parish, from the 1300’s up until 1950. Old St Andrew’s Church has a remarkable record of the Shepard family, the farmers there in Tudor times. A memorial brass to John Shepard, who died in 1520, shows him with his two wives, Anne and Maude. He must have remarried when his first wife died, after bearing him seven sons and three daughters, while his second wife gave him a further five sons and three daughters, all depicted in brass (in their “Sunday best” clothes) on his tombstone.

The trees and fields of Fryent Country Park, and its adjoining areas now built on, have so many stories to tell. I hope you have enjoyed discovering a few of them, as the result of the loss of just one such tree. Happy New Year!

Philip Grant

Residents enraged as Planning Committee approves controversial applications

Increase in schoool size to more than 1,000 pupils

Doubled in size to more than 840 pupils

Temporary  (2 year) 4 storey school

Retrospective permission for 2.4m fence aroud public space

361 dwelling tower blocks next to Civic Centre/Olympic Way

Last night's Planning Committee had a ridiculously heavy agenda with Chair Cllr Marquis, like a teacher  bravely concealing her irritation with councillors (pupils) who at times were sleepy and clearly wishing they were somewhere else, and at other times making rambling contributions way off the point,  struggled to make progress. Meanwhile the clock ticked away.

As always residents attending their first Planning Committee because of a local issue, this time the Uxendon Manor and Byron Court school expansions,  were enraged when they thought their concerns were being ignored. There were cries of 'Is this democracy?', 'Are we in North Korea?'. 'You are a disgrace.'

Byron Court  took up most time  (see posting below).  Cllr Keith Perrin made a presentation on behalf of residents. When Cllr Marquis asked if he had been approached by anyone about the application he answered 'between 1,000 and 2,000 residents'.  About 1,400 of those who had put their addresses on a joint letter about the application had not been contacted by the Council about the officer's report on the planning application. He derided the plans to use the Northwick Park car park for parents describing its impracticalities and producing the numbers to back this up. At one point the officer's response made him put his head in his hands in despair. His mood wasn't  helped when Cllr Marquis failed to give  committee members a chance to ask him questions about his presentation although this was remedied later.

Several members of the Committee declared that they had received phone calls about the application from Barry Gardiner MP that afternoon. The application was narrowly approved. I made it four for, 3 against and 1 abstention.  Loose ends will be tied up by officers regarding some of the conditions requested by Cllr Perrin. Members of the audience were reprimanded by Cllr Marquis when they scoffed in disbelief at Byron Court's Executive (she insisted on the title) Head Teacher's claim that the school travel plan was working well and that the revised plan, when the school had over a thousand primary pupils, would be equally effective.

The increased traffic arising from school expansion was also a major concern of residents around Uxendon Manor in an area with poor public transport links and questions were asked for each application regarding the need for additional school places in that particular area. The response was far from clear. In addition there were questions about overflowing sewers at Uxendon voiced by John Poole a long-time resident that were shrugged off by the development agent.

Cllr John Warren spoke for residents about the  Marylebone Boys School temporary building in Brondesbury Park and he also raised the issue of flawed school travel plans and estimates of impact on public transport.  He raised the issue of the height of the building (4 storeys) and its design being out of character with the neighbourhood as well as the noise with an increase from160 to 480 pupils on the site.

Marylebone Boys School application to fence in public space around its existing building in the former Kilburn branch of the College of North west London was approved without any representations.

It wasn't until about 10.30pm that the innocuous sounding 'Yellow Car Park' application was heard.  Actually a huge development next to the Civic Centre with 361 rabbit hutch style  dwellings and retail and community space the only query  from members was about the possible provision of a nursery in one of the units. There were no public representations and a short presentation from Quintain. It went through in about 10 minutes in contrast to the earlier item.

There will be  134 one bedroomd, 109 2 bedroomed and 52 3 bedroomed flats at market rents. 8 one bedroomed, 10 2 bedroomed and 21 3 bedroomed at social rent.  12 one bedroomed, 9 two bedroomed and 6 3 bedroomed at 'intermediate' which the report states will be 'affordable'.