Guest post by local historian Philip Grant
From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”
From 5am on 10 December 1932, members of the public had the first chance to travel on the Metropolitan Railway’s new branch line, to and from Wembley Park. It was called the Stanmore Line, but you will know it as part of the Jubilee Line. Its 90th anniversary is perhaps a good time to share its story with you.
The 1920s saw the rapid development of suburban housing estates around London, as people moved out of crowded conditions in the more central areas of the capital. Many of the new suburbs grew up around the railway out from Baker Street, in leafy countryside promoted as “Metro-Land” by the railway company. As districts like Wembley Park started to fill up with housing, developers were looking for new areas to build on, but they wanted good transport connections, to attract buyers for their homes.
An advert for Haymills’ Barn Hill Estate. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)
In November 1929, the Metropolitan Railway Company announced that it wanted to build an extension from Wembley Park to Stanmore, which would give local commuters direct trains to London. Within twelve months, plans for the branch line were in place, and a price for the construction work of £168,628-17s-3d had been agreed with the contractors, Walter Scott & Middleton Ltd. The work began in January 1931.
A map showing the new extension to the Metropolitan Railway. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)
The route could not go in a straight line, because Barn Hill was in the way, so the track had to curve around that before heading north-west, roughly parallel to and east of Honeypot Lane. This meant taking the railway along the valley of the Wealdstone Brook, which proved to be one of the project’s biggest problems. The brook meandered to and fro across the planned route, and first a concrete channel had to be constructed to divert the stream, so that it would run alongside the line around the base of the hill.
Diverting the brook, near what later became Uxendon Hill. (From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)
Then, a long embankment had to be built down the valley, to provide a gentle gradient for the track to run along. This involved transporting thousands of tons of clay, dug out from the cutting where Kingsbury Station would be built, down a temporary single-track line. As can be seen in this photograph, a Ruston & Hornsby steam drag-line excavator was used to do the digging, and loading the clay into the trucks, pulled by an old Metropolitan Railway steam locomotive.
The excavator at work in Kingsbury, with Barn Hill in the distance. (From “Meccano Magazine”, 1934)
The work of shaping and compacting the embankment proved difficult. Heavy rain during the second half of 1931 caused delays, particularly because of machinery (including some “new” petrol and diesel excavators) slipping and sinking in the wet clay. And a second embankment had to be built, further up the line, through Canons Park, using the spoil dug out for the site of the station and sidings at Stanmore.
Work on the embankment, with bridges to take The Avenue over the brook
and under the railway.
(From the 1932 edition of “Metro-Land”)
The work on the line had a very tight schedule, as the Metropolitan Railway had promised the Treasury, which was giving financial assistance through an unemployment relief scheme, that it would be open in twenty-one months. The “navvies” building the line worked from 7am to 5.30pm on weekdays, with a half-day to 12 noon on Saturday. For their 49½ hour week (excluding meal breaks) the labourers received 1/6d (one shilling and sixpence) an hour, with the skilled men such as bricklayers and carpenters getting up to 2/2d an hour.
By March 1932 the contractors still had most of the massive cutting between Kingsbury Road and Princes Avenue to excavate, and brought in double shifts. The night men worked from 6pm to 6.30am (with 1½ hours for meal breaks) from Monday to Saturday morning, so that the machinery was working 23 hours a day, with just half an hour between shifts for greasing and maintenance.
Work on the cutting north of
Kingsbury Road, from the “Wembley News”, 12 August 1932.
(Brent Archives – local
newspaper microfilms)
Neighbours in the recently built houses in Berkeley and Brampton Roads were not happy at their sleep being disrupted by the noise, but a deputation to the railway company from Kingsbury Council was told that it was unavoidable. The Treasury had agreed a twelve-week extension to the completion date for the Stanmore Line, and it had to open by December 1932.
On 9 December 1932 a large group of dignitaries and invited guests gathered at Wembley Park station to see the Minister of Transport declare the Stanmore Line open. The Metropolitan Railway’s Chairman, in top hat and tails, pulled a lever in the signal box (still there at the end of platform 3) to open the points, so that a special train could take them all on a tour of the new line and its stations, before returning to Baker Street for a celebratory dinner.
The Minister of Transport and other dignitaries visiting Kingsbury Station (note the design of the Metropolitan Railway sign!) on 9 December 1932. (Courtesy of London Transport Museum)
The total cost of building the Stanmore Line was around half a million pounds (including £142,791 for buying the land, and a separate contract for the signalling), equivalent to around £24.4m now. Paying passengers could travel on the line from the following morning. Stanmore, Canons Park and Kingsbury stations offered passengers 144 electric trains a day. Many were shuttle services to and from Wembley Park, but they included through trains to Baker Street in just 25 minutes. However, local residents complained at how expensive the fares were.
Season ticket prices from Kingsbury, from the “Wembley News”, 16
December 1932.
(Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)
The opening of the Stanmore Line did contribute to suburban development along its route, including a new neighbourhood called Queensbury, for which a station was opened in December 1934. By that time, the Metropolitan Railway lines had been taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board. Over time, this section of the Metropolitan Line became part of the Bakerloo Line (from 1939), before eventually being the northern end of the new Jubilee Line from 1 May 1979.
An advertisement for new homes near Kingsbury “Met” Station in 1934.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip along the history of our local railway line. It could be seen as nostalgia, but it’s also an important part of the story which shaped the northern part of Brent as it is today. And don’t be too jealous of the house prices and train fares of ninety years ago. If you were living then, you’d be comfortably off if your salary was £200 a year!
Philip Grant.
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