The Preston Story - Part 1

The first part of a new local history series, by Chris Coates of Preston Community Library.      

Preston is often seen as one of the quieter parts of Wembley – just a 20^th century development of suburban housing. This series of articles will look at some of the people, events and social changes that shaped its long history, and produced a 21^st century Preston with as diverse a community as any other area of Brent.

1. Preston Road and its station, part of the 20th century suburb. (Photo by Derrick J. Knight, from an internet blog)

Preston Ward’s political boundaries are a triangle formed by the apex of the Metropolitan and Bakerloo Underground lines, with Wembley Park Drive as the southern border. But Preston as a community stretches north to meet Kingsbury and Kenton and this reflects its origins as a rural area in the parish of Harrow, centred on the cluster of farms and buildings at the junction of what are now Preston Hill, Preston Road and Woodcock Hill, west of the Lidding or Wealdstone Brook. This first article looks at the early period up to 1800.

2.  John Rocque's 1744 map of London and its Environs includes Preston, and the road to it, on its northern edge!

The first definite record of Preston is in 1220, the name coming from the Old English preast and tun, meaning the farm belonging to the priest.  Preston was a township in 1231 but by the mid-15^th century had only 2 farms, and a few cottages. It was linked to an even smaller settlement, Uxendon, on the east bank of the Wealdstone Brook, which was first recorded in 1257 as Woxindon, probably meaning "Wixan's Hill". The Wixan were a 7^th century Saxon tribe from Lincolnshire, who came to settle in what became Middlesex.

Uxendon manor house was located near what is now the junction of Uxendon Hill and Wykeham Hill. During the 14-15^th centuries, the estate was extended to include Preston Farm [also known as Preston Dicket] on the west bank of Wealdstone Brook and another settlement called Pargraves at what is now the junction of Elmstead Ave with Forty Lane – then called Flax Lane. 

Most local landowners accumulated property through inheritance and family connections, but Harrow from early times had also attracted London merchants and courtiers. In 1376, the Uxendon manor passed to Sir Nicholas Brembre, a powerful City of London and national figure, who owned considerable estates elsewhere. He was twice Lord Mayor of London, a customs officer for the Port of London under Geoffrey Chaucer, and a strong supporter of Richard II, knighted for accompanying him to face the rebels at Smithfield during the Peasants Revolt in 1381.

3. King Richard II speaking with the peasants at Smithfield in 1381. (Image from the internet – thanks, BBC Bitesize!)

Nicholas Brembre was Richard’s chief ally in London, but his ties to the ill-fated King ultimately resulted in his downfall. Accused by Richard’s opponents of corruption, tyranny and finally treason, he was executed in 1388 (either by hanging or beheading, it depends on which account you read!). Brembre’s confiscated properties in Uxendon and elsewhere were given to his brother-in-law, Thomas Goodlake, whence they passed by marriage in 1516 to the Bellamy family.

The Bellamy family had remained staunchly Roman Catholic after the Reformation and sheltered Catholic priests on the run. The manor house held a secret chamber under the stairs with an underground escape route to a barn nearby. A priest who died at Uxendon was buried under a pseudonym at Harrow Church. Anthony Babington, identified by security services as a principal conspirator in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth I, was arrested there in 1586 and the Bellamy family were arrested for treason. Catherine Bellamy, the mistress of Uxendon, and two of her sons died in the Tower, and a third son was executed.

A fourth son, Richard, moved to Uxendon to take over the estate, but the family continued to be investigated and in 1592, while imprisoned, his daughter betrayed the presence of a Jesuit priest, Robert Southwell, in the manor. He was arrested and executed.

4. Robert Southwell, Jesuit priest and poet. (Image from the internet)

The family continued to be prosecuted and imprisoned over the next 10 years until Richard Bellamy relented and conformed. The estate, now over-mortgaged to pay recurrent fines, was sold to another local family with Catholic sympathies, the Pages, who had become leading landowners in the Wembley area. Two priests from the wider Page family in Middlesex were also executed.  When a special tax was raised in 1642 to ‘meet the distress of the Army and people in the Northern parts’, Catholics and aliens were required to pay double – but none were found in Harrow. 

From the late 14^th century, the northern farm on Preston Hill [then known as Clay Lane] belonged to the Lyon family and one of the most notable residents from the early period was John Lyon, 1514-1592, the founder of Harrow School. He was a man of considerable wealth, owning land in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Marylebone and Essex. He was active in local affairs and had good political connections – despite managing to stay on good terms with his troubled neighbours, the Bellamys.

5. Rev. Elsley (a local historian whose research aided our knowledge of John Lyon) at Lyon Farm house in 1936.
(From the Wembley History Society Collection - Brent Archives online image 8972)

John Lyon was also a philanthropist and was already paying for the education of 30 poor local boys when in 1572, possibly through his friendship with Elizabeth I’s Attorney-General, he obtained a Royal Charter for the foundation of a free grammar school. He wrote precise detailed instructions about how the School should be administered, even down to what games the boys could play! – and no girls were to be admitted.

Lyon ruled that the poorest applicants should be preferred for entry to the school – but as parents had to provide books, writing materials and candles, as well as ensuring children were well-dressed – most of the rural poor of Wembley and Harrow must have been ruled out! However, the schoolmaster could accept enough fee-paying boys from outside the area to provide his own wages. In time, those students became the majority, changing the nature of the School and thwarting Lyon’s original intentions 

6. A memorial to John Lyon, and a brass commemorating John and Joan Lyon, in St Mary’s Church, Harrow.
(Both images from the internet)

Lyon left his house and lands as an endowment for the foundation and upkeep of the School, plus scholarships for 4 boys to go on to university - though the provisions of the will did not become operative until after death of his wife Joan in 1608. Work on the original School house [which can still be seen on Harrow on the Hill] started then and was completed 1615. Lyon left other charitable bequests for the local poor and for the upkeep of local roads, notably the Harrow and Edgware Roads, and for roads from Preston, to the Harrow Road at Wembley and through Kingsbury to the Edgware Road. The John Lyon’s Charity still makes grants to benefit young people in NW London, but the separate Roads Trust ended in 1991.

After Lyon’s death, the School rented his farmhouse - described in 1547 as a beautiful building - to a succession of farmers [including the Bellamy and Page families], but by the early 18^th century the farmhouse and lands were said to be in poor condition and the farmhouse was rebuilt in red brick. In the mid-19^th century, it was occupied by the wonderfully named Thomas Sneezum.  The mid-20^th century saw the farmhouse gifted by the Perrin farming family to Wembley Borough Council, who demolished it in 1960 and John Perrin Place – a council housing estate – was built on the site.

7. A view of John Perrin Place, c.1966. (Brent Archives online image 10283)

John Lyon’s support in maintaining key routes for the transport of people and goods was crucial at this time when the hamlets in Preston were linked together by rough tracks, whose upkeep was always a bone of contention. Local roads were also constantly shifting course. The enclosure of common land, usually to change its use from arable to meadow for livestock, resulted in many changes - as when Richard Page obstructed the old road and altered the route of Clay Lane (now Preston Hill) through Preston East Field - clearly seen in this map.

8. Preston as it appears on a map from 1819. (Based on the Greenwood map)

During the Civil War, Middlesex generally supported the Parliament and Sir Gilbert Gerard of Harrow on the Hill raised a regiment. However, a Richard Page of Uxendon fought in the Royalist Army at the battle of Newbury 1644, was knighted and then followed the King to Oxford. On 27 April 1646, Charles fled Oxford in disguise and a plaque in Harrow commemorates where he stopped to water his horses – although this seems an unlikely route! 

9. The plaque at the site of King Charles's Well, Grove Hill, Harrow-on-the-Hill. (Image from the internet)

After Charles’s execution, Richard fled to the Court of the future Charles II in The Hague. In the 1660 general election, John Page of Uxendon stood against Gerard who was now campaigning for the return of the monarchy. Following the Restoration, later that year, Uxendon Manor remained in the Page family until 1829. In 1661, Parliament introduced a new tax, assessing wealth by the number of fireplaces in a person’s home. Kenton, Preston and Uxendon were assessed together with only 22 homes liable for Hearth Tax – of these, Mr Page had the largest number – 10 hearths.

Preston grew slowly, in the mid-17^th century, there were 5 buildings, including a new farmhouse, Hillside Farm. 100 years later, there were 9 buildings, including Preston’s first pub! - the Horseshoe Inn, licensed from 1751. Around the same time, a second Uxendon manor farm was built and Forty Farm was expanded at Forty Green. However, the coming of the railways in the 19^th century would change everything – and we will look at that next week.

Please feel free to add your memories, questions or comments in the box below.

Chris Coates.

The Wembley Park Story – Part 2

The second of Philip Grant's series on the history of Wembley Park

 

The first part of this story took us from Saxon times up to the “birth” of Wembley Park in 1793. If you missed it, “click” here.

1. Repton's sketch of his proposed mansion, in its parkland setting. (Extract from a copy at Brent Archives)

Humphry Repton was landscaping the grounds of Wembley Park for Richard Page, but they disagreed over Repton’s proposed “Gothic” designs for the mansion, which were never carried out. By 1795, Page had moved to Flambards, another mansion on Harrow Hill, that he inherited from Mary Herne. This had mature grounds, which had been laid out by Capability Brown around 1770.

When Richard Page died in 1803, his estate was valued at £400,000 (worth over £25 million now). He had never married, and his will left a “life interest” in his estate to his next eldest brother, Francis, and then down the male line. Francis Page did not marry either, nor had the next youngest of the five brothers, John, who died in 1801. The family seemed unaware of the “truth” which Jane Austen was writing about at that time!

2. The opening line from an early edition of Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice". (Image from the internet)

By 1809, Francis Page had sold Wembley Park to John Gray, a wealthy brandy merchant who was a Freeman of the City of London. However, as the Page family’s Wembley Park legacy was to continue into the 20^th century, I need to finish their story. Francis died in 1810, and as he had no children, the Page estate passed to the fourth brother, William. In 1813, he and his surviving brother Henry put the management of their affairs into the hands of their solicitor, Francis Fladgate. 

William Page died, without marrying, in 1824, so Henry Page inherited the estate. He had married in 1813, aged 55, but his wife died five years later, without leaving any children. Henry Young, who as a 14-year old clerk had witnessed William Page’s will, had since married Fladgate’s daughter and taken over the solicitor’s business. Henry Page, who appears to have been feeble minded, and often drunk, allowed Young to draw up his will in 1825. When Henry Page died, four years later, the entire Page family fortune had been left to their solicitor!

3. Wembley Park mansion, "The White House", photographed c.1880. (Brent Archives – W.H.S. Colln,)

From 1811 onwards, John Gray did have the Wembley Park mansion modernised and enlarged, spending around £14,000 in the process. His home became known as the White House, because of its pale stucco finish, and he lived there until his death in 1828. Wembley Park passed to his son, Rev. John Edward Gray, although his father’s will had said that the estate must be put up for sale. It was advertised for auction in 1834, as ‘a beautiful demesne with 272 acres of rich meadow land and pasturage, including plantations’, but it was not sold, and Rev. Gray and his family remained living there for the rest of his life.

4. Wembley Park, from an 1865 Ordnance Survey map. (from Brent Archives – maps collection)

The map above shows Wembley Park and its surrounding area in 1865. Apart from the small community around Wembley Hill, it was mainly farms, with two large Victorian houses along the Harrow Road. These had been built for wealthy men who liked to live in the country, but could take a train to the City from the London & Birmingham Railway’s nearby Sudbury (for Wembley) Station [now Wembley Central], which had opened in 1844.

Wembley Park’s farmland was managed for the Gray family by a bailiff, but there were no public paths across their estate, and they appear to have lived a quiet life. The area did attract some visitors, however. An 1837 guide described the “Green Man” as ‘a favourite Sunday resort for a respectable class of people.’ This popularity continued during Victoria’s reign, with its ‘panoramic view of the surrounding countryside, including the Metropolis and Windsor Castle.’ The picture of the inn below is the earliest known photograph of Wembley, taken in June 1862.

 

5. The "Green Man", Wembley Hill, 1862. (Wembley History Society Colln., Brent Archives online image 714)

In 1879, the Metropolitan Railway from Baker Street had reached Willesden Green, and the company wanted to extend their line. Rev. John Gray had little choice but to sell them a 47- acre strip of land across his estate, and the railway opened to Harrow in August 1880. Seven years later, Gray died, and as he had fathered nine children, his executors sold the Wembley Park estate in 1889, so the proceeds could be shared. It was bought by the Metropolitan Railway’s Chairman, Sir Edward Watkin, for £32,929 18s 7d.

Watkin’s dream was to build a railway from Manchester to Paris - one of his schemes managed to start building a tunnel under the English Channel in 1880! He had seen Eiffel’s new Tower in the French capital, and proposed to build an even taller one in London. His Tower Company leased 124 acres of Wembley Park in late 1889, for use as a pleasure ground, and a competition was organised to design the Wembley Tower that would be its centrepiece.

6. Some of the tower designs from the 1890 competition. (Brent Archives online image 4081)

The tower had to be at least 1200 feet tall, and the first prize of 500 guineas attracted dozens of entries from Britain, Europe and North America. Although the prize was awarded to a British design, the judges thought that it needed some modification, to reduce its construction costs. When work began in 1892, the “winning” octagonal tower design ended up with just four legs, looking a lot like Monsieur Eiffel’s, but planned to be 150 feet higher.

While construction was underway on the tower, the rest of the pleasure ground was being laid out, including a large boating lake, a sports area and gardens. Watkin wanted those coming to enjoy the attractions to use his Metropolitan Railway, so a new station for Wembley Park was built. It was ready for when the pleasure ground opened in May 1894. The map below shows how Wembley Park looked then (compare it with thirty years earlier, above).

7. A map showing Wembley Park and its surrounding area in 1895. (from Brent Archives – maps collection)

It was May 1896 before the first stage of the tower, with a platform 155 feet above the hilltop, was opened to the public. That was as far as it got, owing to a shortage of funds and its feet starting to sink into the underlying clay. Other events to attract visitors included a cricket match against the Australian touring side in 1896, athletics and horse trotting races, and shows in the wooden variety hall, but attendances (120,000 in the 1895 season) were fewer than hoped.

Figure 8. Postcard of the lake and tower, c.1900. (Brent Archives online image 1662)

9. “Benny C”, winning a 10-mile trotting race at Wembley Park in 1902. (Brent Archives online image 7384)

10. A mandolin band at Wembley Park in 1904. (Brent Archives online image 9217)

Wembley Park received some unwelcome visitors in 1900, when a group of protestors tried to claim possession of the land. A Mrs Davey had read about the wealthy family who once owned it, and had persuaded “subscribers” to back her plan to recover “The Page Millions”, in return for a share of the reward that would be due. 

In 1905, a court case, in the name of James Page, distantly related to Richard Page of Wembley Park, was filed against the Metropolitan Railway and Tower Company. It claimed he was the rightful heir, denied his inheritance because of fraud by Henry Young. The case was dismissed in 1906, as anyone who felt they should have inherited the Page estate could have claimed it in 1829, or soon after. The claim would also have failed because Francis Page had sold Wembley Park to John Gray, so that it was not part of the alleged fraud by the solicitor.

The viewing platform of the Tower remained open to the public until 1902, when the lifts were deemed to be unsafe. It had already been nicknamed “Watkin’s Folly”. Sir Edward had died the previous year, but not before one of his other railway companies, the Great Central, had built a line alongside the Metropolitan, and planned a branch line from Neasden to Northolt. The photograph shows it being constructed, past the disused Tower.

11. The Great Central Railway branch line under construction, c.1903. (Brent Archives online image 9253)

The short life of the Wembley Park pleasure grounds was effectively over by 1906. The company running them even had to pay £1,200 to have the Tower dismantled, by Messrs Heenan and Froude who had built it. So what next for Wembley Park? The story will continue in Part 3, next weekend.

If you have any questions, or information on Wembley Park that you would like to share, please use the comments section below.

Philip Grant.

The Fryent Country Park Story - Part 2

The second of a series of guest posts by Wembley History Society member, Philip Grant.

 

Welcome to Part 2 of this weekly journey through the story of our local country park. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

1. An autumn view across the fields to Gotfords Hill, with Kingsbury beyond.

We had reached the late 16^th century, and the map of Kingsbury made for All Souls College in 1597. The extract below marks Hill Farm, on Salmon Street, and shows the trackway separating Harrow from Kingsbury near the top, Kingsbury Road winding its way down the righthand side, and Church Lane (with “Fryarne f. Howse”, or Fryent Farm) at the bottom. You can see the fields as they were at that time, edged green for meadows and brown for ploughed fields where the farmers grew crops, as well as the wooded areas.

2. Part of the 1597 Hovenden Map of Kingsbury.  (© The Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford)

A number of scattered fields on the map show “Mr Skidmore” as the tenant. Thomas Scudamore, who lived at Kingsbury Green, was another interesting character remembered at Old St Andrew’s Church. [Click on the link to discover more about its fascinating history.]

“Wid. Lion” was the tenant of a group of fields at the top right corner of the map. John Lyon of Preston was a wealthy farmer who had died in 1592, leaving money in trust for the maintenance of local roads, and to provide free grammar schooling for boys in Harrow. The school has become famous, as he allowed the trustees to charge fees, to educate “foreigners” from outside the parish. He had land in Harrow, including on Preston Eastfield, as well as 116 acres in Kingsbury, which his widow, Joan, continued to farm until her death in 1608.

On the Harrow side of Eldestrete in the 1590s, there were troubled times at Uxendon Manor Farm, the home of the Bellamy family. They had remained Roman Catholics, despite this branch of Christianity being outlawed in England under Queen Elizabeth I. Some members of the family had already been fined, imprisoned or executed for hiding Catholic priests  before Robert Southwell was arrested in their house in 1592. Richard Bellamy and his family spent time in prison, and the cost of the fines meant them giving up Uxendon Manor to the Page family.

 3. Robert Southwell, in a print from a 1630 book.

Southwell’s fate was worse. He was held in the Tower of London for three years, and tortured to try and force a confession for plotting against the Queen, before he was executed for treason, simply for being a Catholic priest. Who would have imagined then, that four centuries later he would have been declared a saint, with a school named after him on the other side of what would become Fryent Country Park? 

Richard Page of Uxendon also found himself in the middle of conflict in the 1640s. He was an officer in the Royalist army during the English Civil War, and was knighted by King Charles I after his efforts at the second Battle of Newbury in 1644. After the King was executed, Sir Richard went into exile, and was married at The Hague in 1651, where the future Charles II had his court at the time. After the Restoration, Uxendon Manor remained in the Page family.

We have details of the farms in Kingsbury around 1730, from a document produced for the Duke of Chandos, which is now in the London Metropolitan Archives. Chandos was a politician and landowner, who had made a fortune from the public offices he held, and spent huge amounts on his home at Canons in Stanmore. He held some tenancies, under another of his titles, Lord Carnarvon, and may have been looking for the chance to add more!

Lord Carnarvon had an interest in a house and orchard, probably Bush Farm house. The unnamed adjoining farm of 47 acres is listed as a separate letting to Elizabeth Sarsbury, for ’21 years from Lady day 1722’. 34 acres of this were meadow, comprising Great Oldfield (‘with a barn in itt’), Little Oldfield, Great and Little Faytes, Great Cherrylands and Honey Slough. Two other fields, Little Cherrylands and Gaffers (Gotfords) Hill, totalling 13 acres, are described as ‘arrable’.

 4. Looking across Faytes and Cherrylands fields. (A Barn Hill Conservation Group postcard from the 1980s)

In and around the fields of this small farm were 19 acres of hedges and woods, including ‘one parcel almost round Honey Slough – 3 acres, 3 roods and 22 perchs’ (almost four acres). This was part of 55 acres of woodland in Kingsbury let separately to John Haley, the tenant of Hill Farm. His large farm had 107 acres of fields, 79 acres of meadow and 28 acres of ploughed land, in addition to the house, barnyard, garden and orchards.

The agricultural revolution of the late 18^th century saw the invention of new farm machinery. Kingsbury’s heavy clay soil was not suitable for these modern arable methods, and even more of the fields became pasture land. Most of these meadows were used for growing hay. Long grass was cut in the summer, then dried and stored in large stacks, for sale as animal feed throughout the year. London, the rapidly growing capital only a few miles away, was home to thousands of horses, both for riding and for pulling carriages and carts. Kingsbury’s farmers sent their wagons up to the Hay Market, near Piccadilly, with food for the city’s horses, and came back with loads of dung from the stables to fertilise their fields.

 5. Hay wagons at Pipers Field, 1930. (Photo by Stanley Holliday, from the W.H.S. Collection, Brent Archives)

Hay continued to be the main farming crop in Kingsbury well into the twentieth century, as the photograph above shows. But that is jumping forward - I will take up our country park’s story, from the late 1700s, next weekend. As before, if you want to ask any questions, or add some information, please leave a comment below.

Philip Grant

LINKS TO OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 1

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 2

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 3

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 4

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 5

History of Fryent Country Park – Part 6

History of Fryent Country Park – Bunker Special