Uncovering Kilburn’s History – Part 5

 At the end of Part 4 (“click” if you missed it) I said that we would continue to look at some more churches, but there is much more to uncover this week!

1. St Mary's Church, in the age of horse drawn vehicles. (From the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

We’ve already mentioned St. Paul’s, Kilburn Square (founded in 1829, demolished in 1934). St. Mary’s Church started in 1856, when the developer of the Abbey Farm estate, George Duncan, presented a site for it (on the Hampstead side). It holds the only known relic of the Kilburn Priory – a small brass plate of the prioress Emma de Sancto Omero (you can see a picture of this in Part 1).

 

Quex Road, also to the east of Kilburn High Road, boasted no less than three places of worship, a Wesleyan chapel, a Unitarian Hall and the Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This was designed by Edward Welby Pugin and opened in 1878, with a school for Catholic priests nearby. It served the large Irish community, which expanded rapidly in the 20^th century. 

 

2. St Augustine's Church, Kilburn, in 1909 and 2020. (From: www.images-of-london.co.uk and by Irina Porter)

 

However, the true gem of Kilburn is St. Augustine’s Church in Kilburn Park Road, known as "the Cathedral of North London". Founded in 1870, St. Augustine’s was consecrated in 1880 as an Anglo-Catholic Church of England and is listed as a Grade I building by Historic England. The spire finally crowned the magnificent Gothic Revival building in 1898. It was designed by John Loughborough Pearson, an architect who specialised in ecclesiastical architecture and worked around the world. Some internal work was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (of Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral and the red telephone box fame). The worship followed ‘high’ Anglican tradition, which was closer to Roman Catholicism.

 

At one point the church had four valuable paintings, a Titian among them, given to the church by Viscount Rothermere. One of them was stolen and the church decided to sell the rest because of security issues. The writer Thomas Hardy visited from time to time, when he was in London, to hear the music and admire the magnificent building. The composer Leonard Bernstein conducted an English Bach Festival concert at the church in 1977. The ornate interior of St Augustine's was used in the filming of Young Sherlock Holmes (1985).

 

3. Brondesbury Synagogue, c. 1930. (Image from the internet)

 

Although Christianity was still the main religion in England in late Victorian times, that was beginning to change. One of the first Jews to settle in Willesden was Polish-born Solomon Barnett, a builder and property developer who lived in Brondesbury Road. He invited other local Jewish residents to his home in 1900, and they agreed to build a synagogue. He sold them a site in Chevening Road, at less than cost, and the Brondesbury Synagogue opened in 1905. It had an unusual Moorish design, which was unique in the area at the time, and served the Jewish community in the whole of the Willesden for several decades. It closed after a fire in 1965, and the building was sold to the Iman Al-Khoei Foundation in 1974.

 

The first elementary schools in Kilburn were run by churches. St. Paul’s, Kilburn was the earliest in 1847, and was a “National School” part-funded by National Society for Promoting Religious Education. St. Augustine’s Church also had a school. In 1870 the Education Act was passed, providing for elementary schools, known as Board Schools. Local churches feared that religion would not be taught in these, and by 1882 had set up an association to establish new Church of England schools in poor districts.  Christ Church School in Willesden Lane (built by Solomon Barnett) was one of these, first opening (for infants) in 1889. 

 

4. The modern St Augustine's School building, seen from Cambridge Gardens. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

Small fees were charged in some elementary schools until 1891, when primary education became free. Fees for secondary education were only finally abolished in 1944.

Kilburn Grammar School was founded in 1897 as a boys’ choir school by Dr. George Bonavia Hunt, vicar of St Paul's, Kilburn. This was the time when there was no state provision for secondary education. From one in Willesden Lane it moved a few times to increasingly larger premises, until it founds its permanent purpose-built home at Salusbury Road in 1900.
Dr. Hunt, who taught musical history at the University of London, remained there until 1904.

 

5. Kilburn Grammar School, in the 1920s and a 1900 advertisement. (Brent Archives images 3404 and 6675)

 

In 1907 the school was purchased by the local authority, and became the first state secondary school in Willesden. With the formation of Brent in 1965, the borough policy of closing grammar schools led to the school becoming a comprehensive in 1967, renamed Kilburn Senior High School. In 1973 it merged with the girl’s school on the opposite side of the road to form Brondesbury and Kilburn High School, and in 1989 it moved to a different place and became part of Queen's Park Community School. The Edwardian buildings in Salusbury Road are now Islamia Schools.

 

The original Kilburn Grammar paved the way for university and lead to successful careers in business, academia, civil service, law and arts. Amongst its alumni were Richard Baker, BBC newsreader and broadcaster, Kenneth Howard, an artist who painted for the British Army from the 1970s, the linguist Professor Simeon Potter, who also wrote a history of Willesden, and another distinguished local historian and Brent councillor, Len Snow. Brondesbury and Kilburn High School for Girls produced Lesley Hornby (better known as Twiggy, a famous 60s fashion icon) and Margery Hurst, who founded the Brook Street Bureau employment agency.

 

6. Brondesbury & Kilburn High School for Girls, early 20th century.

 

Kilburn had a large number of private schools. At the time when board schools were regarded as being for the lower classes, those who could afford it preferred to pay for education. Many were on the Hampstead side, such as the Haberdashers’ in Westbere Road.

 

In the 1870s Henley House School at the corner of Kilburn Priory was headed by John Vine Milne, whose son Alan Alexander, author of Winnie the Pooh stories, was born there in 1882. The first science teacher at Henley House, appointed in 1888 was H.G. Wells, the pioneer writer of science fiction.

 

7. A.A. Milne (left) in 1922, and H.G. Wells (photographed by Beresford). (Images from the internet)

 

Kilburn High Road, in the meantime, continued to bustle with trade and entertainment. Kilburn’s position on the old Watling Street ensured a good number of drinking establishments from early times. The public houses were much more than a place for a pint – they were hotels, functions rooms, auction sites, coroners’ inquests premises, even makeshift mortuaries. By 1872 there were 8 pubs in Kilburn High Road, and 13 more in the neighbourhood. There was a brewery and several beer retailers.

 

 

8. Kilburn High Road, with brewery on the left, c.1900. (Image from the internet)

 

The building on the left which looks like a church hall is Kilburn Brewery, built in 1832 by the Verey brothers. They were so successful that by 1853 they had their own wharf on the canal at Lower Place in Harlesden to bring in supplies. The brewery complex consisted of the main building with a fine frontage, a malt house and stabling for horses. In 1866 it was taken over by Michell and Phillips, which later became Michell and Aldous. It closed in 1920, and the building was later used by the Gas, Light and Coke Company. Today the site is occupied by several shops, with the original façade still being seen from numbers 293 to 313 High Road. 

 

 

9. The B.B. Evans store after the 1910 fire, and in a 1920s advert. ( www.images-of-london.co.uk / internet)

 

The High Road was also a main shopping centre for much of the surrounding area. Drapery and furnishing businesses had competing shops - Kilburn Bon Marche, dating from 1880s, the Grange Furnishing Stores at 127-9 High Road, catering for high class customers, and the most famous store in Kilburn, B.B. Evans at 142-162 High Road. It was started as a drapers’ in 1897, by Benjamin Beardmore Evans, who used to work for Willesden Urban District Council. It expanded in 1905, but in 1910 was destroyed by fire and then re-built. When it closed in 1971, it was the only department store in Kilburn. Since then the buildings went through a succession of occupants, and are now Sports Direct, T.K. Maxx and Aldi.

 

 

Speculative builders continued to provide employment opportunities around both sides of Kilburn High Road. John Allen and Sons ran a successful building company – they built many houses on the Hampstead side of Kilburn. At the end of the 19th century the firm took over The Elms, the old mansion house, converted it into offices and built a factory in the grounds called Palmerston Works. In 1901 they built new stands at Ascot Race Course.

 

 

During the First World War Kilburn suffered some bomb damage in a couple of Zeppelin raids near Belsize Road, Oxford Road and Canterbury Road. One of the area’s main contributions to the war effort was the housing of Belgian refugees, of whom 250,000 fled to England after the Germany army invaded their neutral country on its way to attack France. By September 1914, churches and local refugee committees where organising homes and support for refugee families, and Rabbi Lazarus from Brondesbury Synagogue had set up a hostel in Willesden Lane for Jewish refugees from Antwerp.

 

 

10. King Albert Belgian School, Kilburn, by Arthur Dunn, c.1917. (Brent Archives images 2322, 2343, 2345)

 

In 1915, Kilburn Grammar School had eight Belgian boys, who it accepted with reduced fees, but there was a much larger number of refugee children who did not speak any English. In April 1916, the King Albert Belgian School was set up in the Sunday School buildings at Brondesbury Park Congregational Church, jointly funded by Willesden Council and the Belgian Government. It had around 60 pupils, and taught lessons in English, French and Flemish. The School closed in March 1919, by which time most of the families had returned to Belgium.

 

 

In 1916 the grounds of The Elms became home to the Central Aircraft Company (179 Kilburn High Road), the subsidiary of a woodworking business. They built wooden components for aircraft manufacturers, but by the end of the war they had designed their own aeroplane. Their ‘Centaur’ aircraft first flew from a nearby field in Willesden Lane called ‘Kilburn Aerodrome’ in 1919, and was later used at a flying school at Northolt aerodrome.

 

11. A 1919 advert for the flying school, and a Centaur II at Northolt. (Internet: from “Aeroplane” and “Flight”)

 

Their Centaur II was designed to carry six passengers, and could have been one of the world’s first airliners; but only two were ever built, and they were used for pleasure flights over beauty spots in London, Kent, Wales and even the Belgian battlefields. However, the idea that people would be owning planes as they did cars did not take off, and by 1926 the company stopped making aeroplanes and concentrated on furniture. 

 

We will look at the homes where people lived, and the places of entertainment they enjoyed, as we move further into 20^th century Kilburn next time.

Irina Porter,
Willesden Local History Society.

A special thank you to local historian Dick Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .

Uncovering Kilburn's History - Part 4

Welcome back to this fourth article in the Kilburn local history series. If you missed Part 3, you will find it here.

 

Railway lines began crossing Kilburn’s land in 1837, with the coming of the London and Birmingham Railway. Kilburn (now High Road) station opened in 1851. In the 1860s Edgware Road (later Brondesbury) station came on the Hampstead Junction Railway, and Kilburn and Brondesbury (Kilburn today) station was opened on the Metropolitan Railway in 1879.

 

1. Metropolitan Railway Station and Bridge, Kilburn High Road, c.1910. ( www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

The earlier railways, however, did not stimulate a large growth in Kilburn. The main developments were still along the Edgware Road, which was served by horse buses and later trams. In 1856 22 omnibuses a day ran to London Bridge and by 1896 south Kilburn was served by over 45 buses an hour. The start of the 20^th century brought a motorbus service to Oxford Circus, and in 1915 Kilburn Park station on the Electric Railway line was the first underground railway in Kilburn.

 

2. Kilburn Park Underground Station, October 2020. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

In Charles Dicken’s Dictionary of London, published in 1879, Kilburn was described as ‘a newly built district at the far end of the Edgware Road’. Its development, beyond a few large houses, had begun in the south, after Lady Salusbury sold her properties to the Church Commissioners in 1856. The following year the Commissioners made a series of agreements with James Bailey, a builder from Maida Vale, who later moved to Brondesbury Lodge. 

 

In 1859 Bailey had built Brondesbury Terrace and started work in Canterbury Road. By 1867, he had put up about 550 houses, including Cambridge and Oxford Roads, using architectural pattern books, and marketing his development as Kilburn Park. A number of houses he built, along with the Duke of Cambridge and The Brondesbury public houses (both now converted for residential use), are now locally listed buildings within the South Kilburn Conservation Area.

 

3. Cambridge Road, c.1910. (Image from the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

4. Cambridge Gardens, October 2020. (Photo by Irina Porter)

 

Other speculative builders followed Bailey to the area. Speculative building – when houses were built before a buyer or a tenant was found – put developers at risk if they over extended themselves, so many went bust. Through the rest of the 19^th century, local house building expanded northwards. You can see the extent of development in 1875 (when Willesden Local Board was established, with a population of 18,559), and again by 1895 (when it had become Willesden Urban District, with 79,260 people) on this map.

 

5. Development in the east of Willesden parish as at 1875 and 1895. (From “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)

 

By the 1880s, businesses like the United Land Company would purchase plots of land, subdivide them into smaller plots and sell those at auctions, resulting in smaller developers doing the actual building. The names of the roads would often come from old estates in the area (Mapesbury, Brondesbury), or places connected with former landowners. The Salusbury name lives on today, in a road and the school situated on it, as well as a pub, wine store and other local amenities. In another example, the Powell Cottons owned the land on the Shoot Up Hill estate, and the names of the roads there reflected their Kent connections (Fordwych, Minster, and Westbere Roads, etc).

 

One famous resident of Kilburn was the artist Louis Wain (1860 – 1939), who lived at 41 Brondesbury Road. Louis Wain was famous for the drawings of anthropomorphized (with human features) cats. Born in Clerkenwell, Wain studied at the West London School of Art, where he was also assistant master. In 1882 he joined the staff of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and four years later that of the Illustrated London News. 

 

When Wain was 20, his father died, and Louis became the main supporter of his mother and five sisters. At 23 he married the family governess, Emily Richardson, who died of cancer within 3 years of their marriage. During her illness the family took in a stray kitten, named Peter, who cheered her up during her illness and gave Louis a direction for his art, which became his passion. From the 1880s onwards Wain’s cats walked upright in human clothing of the highest fashion, came with all sorts of facial expressions, enjoyed smoking, played musical instruments, hosted tea parties, played games, went fishing and to the theatre. These parodies of human behaviour became immensely popular. 

 

6. Louis Wain, and two of his cat paintings. (Images from the internet – photo by Lascelles & Co.)

 

Despite his popularity and huge output (he could produce up to 600 drawings a year), Wain was not good with money and during the First World War he sank into poverty. He lived with his sisters in Brondesbury Road. Having developed a mental illness, he died at Napsbury Hospital, near St Albans. He is buried in his father's grave at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.

 

At the start of Kilburn’s development, land owners or builders were responsible for the infrastructure of their own developments, including roads and sewers. Gas street lighting was first introduced in Kilburn near the bridge in 1849, and extended in 1861. Kilburn used the Metropolitan Board of Work’s sewers, although Willesden fell outside its area. 

 

So many houses had been built in Kilburn that many could not be sold or let as family homes. It was common to find rooms let out to several families. The poorer areas of Kilburn became overcrowded, in 1894 with 11 persons per house, compared with 6 in the rest of the parish. The death rate for children under 5 in Willesden in 1875 was 45 per 1,000, with Kilburn the worst area, where diarrhoea, tuberculosis and respiratory diseases were prevalent. Healthcare, if you could afford it, was provided by local clinics, but for hospital residents went to St. Mary’s Paddington or New End in Hampstead. 

 

7. Paddington Old Cemetery, Willesden Lane, and its war graves, 2018. (Photos by John & Anne Hill)

 

The large estates’ lands still had some farms, which mainly produced hay for London horses, as well as providing grazing for cattle, and there were also several nurseries. But each successive decade saw less farmland. In 1855 Paddington Burial Board bought 22 acres of a farm off Willesden Lane and set up a civic cemetery. Today it is run by Brent and is Grade II listed. The cemetery includes 213 graves for casualties of the First and Second World Wars.

 

8. Willesden Town Hall, Dyne Road, in the 1920s. (Brent Archives online image 657)

 

Local government only developed gradually. The local authority for Kilburn was originally the Willesden Parish vestry (and Hampstead vestry, respectively east of the High Road). This organised a vote in 1875, that set up the Willesden Local Board, which in turn was succeed by Willesden Urban District Council in 1894. Willesden Town Hall was built in Dyne Road, on the site of Waterloo Farm, and opened in 1891. (The building was demolished in 1970, after the newly formed Brent Council had chosen Wembley’s more modern Town Hall as its headquarters.)

 

9. Willesden Volunteer Fire Brigade, 1874. (Brent Archives online image 732)

 

A volunteer fire service was formed after the fire at Mapesbury Mill on Shoot Up Hill in 1863, with headquarters in Bridge Street, near the tollgate. A new station, under the control of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was opened in Salusbury Road in 1884, which covered the Kilburn area until the Second World War. The fire station was next to Kilburn Library, the first public library to be opened in Willesden in January 1894, which was enlarged in 1908.

 

10. Kilburn Library (right) and Fire Station (centre), c.1910. (Brent Archives online image 10773)

 

11. Salusbury Road and the Police Station, c.1900. (From the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

The police station, as shown on the photo above, is on the corner of Salusbury Road and Harvist Road, - still a police station today, although the building has been completely re-built in the 1970s.

 

12. High Road, Kilburn, in 1886, by local photographer A. Mackie. (Brent Archives online image 226)

 

Kilburn became a thriving commercial centre, with the Edgware Road through it, featuring a continuous line of shops by the 1860s. It gained the name Kilburn High Road in the 1880s. Foyle's bookshop started in Kilburn, moving to Charing Cross Road in 1926. By 1909 there were 300 shops here, many owned by foreigners, some of them Jewish immigrants.

 

13. Kilburn High Road, 1905. (From the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

Industry was here, too. There was tile making in Kilburn as early as the 16th century. In 1862 a railway signal factory was built in Kilburn Lane (later called Canterbury Road). The Saxby & Farmer works became the largest employer in Kilburn, although it moved to a larger site in Chippenham, Wiltshire, around 1906, after taking over a similar business there. 

 

14. Kelly & Craven's works in Willesden Lane, 1884, and Kelly's tombstone. (Images from John Hill)

 

By 1890 there were coachbuilders, bicycle manufacturers, and monumental masons (for Paddington Cemetery). Kelly & Craven’s Cemetery Stone Works in Willesden Lane did plenty of business, as most people were buried (cremation did not become common until the 20^th century). Unfortunately for Mr Kelly, the stone dust from his work was a health hazard, and he was just 51 years old when he was laid to rest.  Light engineering and printing were also established by 1914.

 

With the rapid increase in population came a rise in the number of churches. We’ve already seen St Paul’s Church in Part 3, and non-conformist ministries were quick to follow the housing developments such as those by James Bailey. St James’s Episcopalian Church was built in Cambridge Avenue in 1863, using a prefabricated corrugated iron system. Commonly known as ‘the tin tabernacle’, it is surprisingly still there today, and although no longer a church, and officially called Cambridge Hall, it is a Grade II listed building. In 1865 the Reverend Thomas Hall had West Kilburn Baptist Church built, to designs by his brother, who was an architect. After more than 150 years, that is still in use, and a locally listed building.

 

15. Cambridge Hall (Kilburn's "tin tabernacle") and West Kilburn Baptist Church. (Images from the internet)

 

Next week we will continue to look at local churches, schools and much more, as Kilburn’s story continues into the 20^th century.

 

Irina Porter,
Willesden Local History Society.

 

A special thank you to local historian Dick Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .

Uncovering Kilburn’s History – Part 3

In Part 2 (“click” on the link if you missed it) of our look at Kilburn’s past, we had reached the early years of the 19^th century. This week, we’ll venture further into that century.

 

Before 1800 Kilburn was mostly rural, with some houses and cottages, as well as a number of inns catering for travellers and stage coach services, along the main road. Although several houses (mainly on the Hampstead side) had been built in the area in the 17th century, the road conditions were bad, and highway robbers were at large. Money from trusts set up by benevolent gentlemen like William Kempe, Edward Harvist and John Lyon were not enough to improve the roads. 

 

1. The Kilburn tollgate in 1860, and 1819 list of toll charges. (Brent Archives online images 2519 & 2023)

A new source of funds was needed to maintain the highway, and in 1710 a turnpike (an old form of toll road) was created, with a toll gate at Kilburn Bridge to charge road users at the entrance to Willesden parish. This place is now near the Queen's Arms at Maida Vale. Later it was moved to Shoot Up Hill, and the turnpike was abolished in 1872.

#

2. Kilburn Park Farm, 1865. (Image from the internet)

 

Kilburn Park Farm, shown above in 1865, lay "nearly opposite the ’Old Red Lion’ Edgware Road, Paddington, and immediately adjoining Verey Brewery." The path seen in front of the barn carried on to Willesden. The part of Kilburn on the Willesden side belonged to the manors of Bounds, Brondesbury and Mapesbury. These manors were all the property of St. Paul's Cathedral. Mapesbury (named after Walter Map, an early medieval writer, courtier and priest) and Brondesbury ('Brand's manor') were respectively situated north and south of Mapes (later Willesden) Lane. Local estates in the south of the area included Abbey Farm, which covered the former Kilburn Priory.

 

3. St Paul's Church, Kilburn Square, from the High Road. (From the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

Some houses were built on the Kilburn Priory estate and at Kilburn Square, around St. Paul’s Chapel (built in 1835, demolished in 1934, St. Paul’s was the only church along the front of Edgware Road from Marble Arch to Edgware). The rural tranquillity of the early 19^th century Kilburn attracted middle class professionals who liked to live in ‘beautiful villas’, scattered along the Edgware Road. We are going to look at some houses of note and their occupants. (If you would like to see maps showing estate boundaries and the locations of the major houses, please refer to ‘Kilburn and West Hampstead Past’ by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms, which you can borrow from Brent Libraries, ref. 942.142)

 

The first large house to be seen on entering Kilburn from the south was the Willesden Manor House, on a site between today’s Oxford and Cambridge Roads. There was a 16^th century estate of 160 acres, with a farmhouse in this area. In 1649 it was recorded as a house of six rooms. By 1788, it was owned by Lady Sarah Salusbury, the widow of Sir Thomas Salusbury, a judge of the High Court of Admiralty. 

 

She settled the estate in trust for her husband’s nephew, the Rev. Lynch Salusbury, and when he died in 1837, it passed to his daughter Lady Elizabeth May Salusbury, who had married her cousin Sir Thomas Robert Salusbury (there were other occupants there later). Lady Salusbury sold her properties to the Church Commissioners in 1856, and we will look at what happened to them in the next part of Kilburn’s story (although the Salusbury name may give you a clue).

 

From around the middle of the 18^th century, a house called The Elms, or Elm Lodge, stood on the site of the present day Gaumont State Cinema, at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Willesden Lane. Following a number of owners and occupiers (one of whom was Lady Salusbury in 1799), Mrs. Pickersgill was rated for the house from 1829 until 1832. She was probably the wife of Henry William Pickersgill R.A., an eminent portrait painter, who among his many works painted the writer W.H. Ainsworth, who later lived in the house. She was running a school for ‘female education’. 

 

4. The Elms, Kilburn, with decorators at work in late Victorian times. (Brent Archives online image 2046)

 

In 1832 John Ebers, a widower with two daughters moved into The Elms. He was a theatre manager and had a publishing business in Old Bond Street. In 1826 he had met a young man called William Harrison Ainsworth, who was to become his son-in-law, marrying his youngest daughter Fanny (both aged 21). Ainsworth came to London to study law, but soon gave it up and became a writer. Ebers introduced him into theatrical and literary circles, as well as publishing one of his early novels. 

 

5. William Harrison Ainsworth, by Daniel Maclise, and an illiustration from "Rookwood". (From the internet)

 

Ainsworth and his wife first lived near Regent’s Park, but later moved to Kilburn. It was here that he began writing his first famous novel “Rookwood”, about the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin. Although the inn where Dick met his accomplices is based on The Cock in Kilburn, the story is fiction and there’s no historical evidence to link Dick Turpin to Kilburn. As we saw in an article about Church End, Ainsworth often used Willesden locations in his stories! It is from “Rookwood” that the widely held legend originates, of Turpin riding his horse, Black Bess, all the away from London to York (again, a fiction).

 

Ainsworth’s marriage was not successful, and in 1835 he separated from his wife and moved with his three young daughters to Kensal Lodge. His next home, Kensal Manor House, offered hospitality to famous literary figures of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray. Ainsworth published 39 novels, which enjoyed great success in Victorian England. He is buried at Kensal Green cemetery. 

 

Another grand house with a famous Victorian resident, Kilburn House, was situated north of today’s Kilburn Square near Priory Park Road. At the beginning of 19^th century, Kilburn House was a pleasant suburban villa with extensive grounds. For most of its previous history it was leased to wealthy tenants, who usually stayed only a few years. Between 1839 and 1856 the newsagent and future politician W.H. Smith lived here with his father, when they moved the family home from their offices in Strand.

 

William Henry Smith senior was a newspaper proprietor, who also ran a successful newspaper distribution business. He worked so hard that he became ill, and the family moved to Kilburn for a more restful residence. However, every weekday he, together with this son, also William Henry, got up at 4 am for the one hour journey of 5 miles to his Strand office! In 1846 the son became a partner, and W.H. Smith & Son was born. 

 

 

6. W.H. Smith, M.P., as First Lord of the Admiralty in a "Punch" cartoon from 1877, and an 1878 parody.
    (Main image from “Kilburn and West Hampstead Past”, with others from the internet)

 

William Henry the younger took the business to a new level, when, capitalising on the railway boom, he negotiated with various railway companies the running of book stalls at stations. Later he became an M.P. and served in senior government and ministerial posts, including his appointment, by Benjamin Disraeli in 1877, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, despite him having no naval experience. He was parodied as the character Sir Joseph Porter, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1878 light opera “H.M.S. Pinafore”, with a famous song in which he tells how he became ‘the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy’ by never going to sea, and because:

 

‘I always voted at my party’s call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.’

 

The start of building development in the area annoyed the Smiths, and in 1856 the family moved from Kilburn to Hertfordshire.

 

 

7. The Grange, Kilburn. (From “Kilburn and West Hampstead Past” by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms)

 

Among other notable grand houses were The Grange, on the Camden side, a ‘Gothic-style House’, occupied by the Peters family. Thomas Peters was a coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria, and his widow Ada run a literary saloon at the house. Hampstead Council bought the estate in 1911 to turn it into a park, but the grand house did not survive. The Grange Cinema opened on the site in 1914 (more about the cinema later).

 

 

8. Before and after views of the grounds at Brondesbury by Humphry Repton. (Images from the internet)

 

Brondesbury Manor House was on the southern side of Willesden Lane, at the western edge of Kilburn. The estate was first mentioned in the 13^th century, and the moated manor house was rebuilt in the 18^th century as a three-storeyed villa, becoming the main home of Lady Sarah Salusbury. In 1789, she had the grounds landscaped by Humphry Repton (who also designed Wembley Park), and following his wishes it became known as Brondesbury Park.

 

Repton’s “red book” for Brandsbury still exists, and he reproduced his before and after views (replacing the fence with a “ha-ha”) in his 1794 book “Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening”. Among the house’s other famous later occupiers were the bankers Sir Coutts Trotter and Charles Hambro, and Lady Elizabeth Salusbury.

 

Mapesbury House was part of the 300-acre estate on the northern side of Willesden Lane. A 17^th century two-storeyed house was leased in 1828 to a horse dealer named William Anderson, who set up a horse training centre there. That continued as its main use until the house was demolished in 1925.

 

Mon Abri, No. 27 Shoot Up Hill, was the home of Senor Manuel Garcia, a renowned Victorian singing teacher and the inventor of laryngoscope, born in Madrid in 1805. Among his pupils was the famous Jenny Lind. 

 

Having looked at some of the grander Kilburn homes, next week will bring us to the growth of the local area and its community from Victorian times into the early 20^th century. I hope you will join me again then.

 

Irina Porter, Willesden Local History Society.

 

A special thank you to local historian Dick Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .