Guest post by Philip Grant in a personal capacity
The new building on 2 February 2024.
It was September 2016 when Brent’s Cabinet decided to redevelop the former Preston Road Library site in Carlton Avenue East for a block of flats, with space for a community library on the ground floor. In November 2022, a Council press release celebrated the topping-out ceremony, “New community library and 12 council homes rise up out of the ground”, attended by Cllr. Muhammed Butt, who ‘accepted an engraved trowel on behalf of Brent Council gifted to him by John Bolton, director of Kier Construction’, and some of his Cabinet colleagues.
Now it finally looks as if the building, which has a controversial history, is nearing completion! However, it is not that history, or the architectural merits (or otherwise?) of the new block in its 1930s suburban setting, which is the main point of this article. It is the name of the building that I want to share with you - Henry Cooper House.
Why name the building after a famous British boxer? I’m sure it must be because
he lived in the Preston Road area for fifteen years from 1960 to 1975, a time
which included the height of his boxing career. He is mentioned in Part 4 of The Preston Road Story (published on Wembley Matters in 2020), along with information about the
library and Preston Community Library, which began with the support of the
hundreds of local residents who had objected to Brent Council’s plans to close
six of its twelve public libraries in 2011.
Henry Cooper in 1966. (Photo from “Henry Cooper – the authorised biography”)
Back in November 2018, Wembley Matters shared the news that a blue plaque to Sir Henry Cooper hand been unveiled above the shop at 4 Ealing Road, where he’d owned and run a greengrocer’s shop between 1965 and 1968.
Henry Cooper at his shop, and the blue plaque now above it.
As a result of Wembley History Society being asked to support the efforts of a local resident, who was successful in commemorating Sir Henry with this blue plaque, I researched and wrote about his life and local links, and also gave an illustrated talk about them last year, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his legendary boxing match against Cassius Clay (now better known as Muhammed Ali).
A ticket for the Clay v Cooper fight at Wembley Stadium in June 1963. (Image from the internet)
But Henry did not only live in Wembley, at 5 Ledway Drive, for fifteen years. With his wife, Albina, they raised a family here. I wonder whether they took their sons, Henry Marco and John Pietro to their local Preston Road Library, after it opened in 1964?
Albina and Henry at home with their sons in, late 1960s. (Image from the internet)
The naming of the new building as Henry Cooper House was news to me. I only found out last week, when a local resident tipped me off about it, but it came as a pleasant surprise. I hope that all twelve of the new Council homes there will be let to local people in housing need at genuinely affordable rents!
And I wonder if Brent Council will invite Henry and John Cooper to the official opening of the building named after their father?
Philip Grant
