Uncovering the history of Church End and Chapel End, Willesden – Part 1

Responding to readers' requests, after the popular local history series by Philip Grant, for some local history of the south of the borough this is the first of a new local history series, by Margaret Pratt of Willesden Local History Society.

Church End, in the Parish of Willesden, has grown from a small medieval hamlet surrounding the church of St. Mary, Willesden. The main routes to other parts of the Parish converge here. Church Road, leading to Harlesden, meets Neasden Lane (to Neasden!), and Willesden Lane (later the High Road) to Willesden Green and Kilburn.

1.     A pictorial map of Willesden in 1840. (Based on a map in “The Willesden Survey, 1949”)

Other villages in Willesden (“the hill of the spring”), such as Neasden (“the nose-shaped hill”), Oxgate, and Harlesden (“Herewulf’s farm”), date from the Anglo-Saxon period, and were already established settlements at the time of the Norman Conquest. Willesden and Harlesden are mentioned in the “Domesday Book”, commissioned by King William I in AD1086, to record all his newly acquired lands, and the tithes, or taxes, due to be paid.

2.    A copy of the entry for Willesden in the Domesday Book. (From “Brent: A Pictorial History” by Len Snow)

There is no mention of any church in the Domesday survey. The reason could be that Willesden lands were already under the control of St. Paul’s Cathedral, at Ludgate Hill in the City of London. St. Paul’s had been gifted the Willesden lands in late Anglo-Saxon times, and now “farmed” them. Farming, in the medieval period, also meant the collecting of tithes (one tenth of the income and produce of land that was owned), to provide the monks and Canons of the Cathedral (‘canonici S. pauli’) with their food and living expenses. 

The tithes collected would not appear on King William’s list, nor would most churches, as they did not pay any taxes. There could have been a small wooden Saxon church on the site at Church End, a base for the priests who would minister to the 300 or so parishioners of Willesden at the time. However, there is no documentary evidence to prove it.

What is a matter of record is that a small rectangular stone church was built by AD1181, when an “Inquistion,” or visitation, from St. Paul’s records the church and its contents. The church had been built on the rising land to the east of the marshy ground bordering the River Brent, and fed by the Mitchell and Harlesden Brooks. It was soon increased in size, by around AD1200, when side aisles and a tower were added to the original structure, and was known as St Mary’s Church by 1280.

3.     St Mary's Church, Willesden, in a print by E. Orme, 1799. (Brent Archives online image 703)

Willesden is rich in sand, gravel, clay and flint, like many places in the Thames Valley, but has no building stone. The loads of ragstone used in the construction of the church must have been brought for some distance, probably from Kent. The stone could have been shipped up the Thames, and then hauled up the River Brent from Brentford, on flat-bottomed rafts. Ingenious engineers of the time could have dammed off sections of the Brent to form ponds to make their task easier - unfortunately this is just conjecture! 

The 800-year history of St. Mary’s has been well documented (though not online) by our best local historians. Suffice it to say here that the church has weathered storms, wars, plagues, famines, times of social turmoil, pilgrimages, the depredations of Henry VIII, neglect, restorations, and calls for its demolition. It still stands firmly on its plot, surrounded by the churchyard which is the resting place of untold thousands of Willesden people.

In 1830, the author Harrison Ainsworth, who lived at Kensal Manor, on the Harrow Road, described Church End as: “A very retired little village, with its church, rectory and vicarage, and about twenty cottages, housing , among  others, a bricklayer, a butcher and a general dealer; also a group of wooden poorhouse dwellings in the churchyard.”  Ainsworth used Willesden and its church as the setting for his novel about the 18^th century highwayman, Jack Sheppard. His “very retired little village” was to go through great changes as the century progressed.

4.    Jack Sheppard, thieving in the church, arrested in the churchyard and escaping from the Round House.
(Illustrations by George Cruikshank from Ainsworth’s 1839 novel “Jack Sheppard”: Brent Archives no, 1696/97/98)

The opening of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, across the fields to the south of Willesden, in 1801, brought new transport opportunities to the area, and industries such as brickworks, gasworks, and rubbish removal appeared alongside the canal. The Great Western, and London to Birmingham Railways appeared, again to the south of Willesden, in 1838. The first railway to be built across Church End was the Acton branch of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway in 1868, which cut off the village from the farmland to the north. 

Chapel End came into being when a brick chapel was built by non-conformist villagers in 1820. This was to the east of the Church End settlement, at the corner of Willesden Lane and Dudden Hill Lane. The name “Chapel End” was soon in use, and the residents felt themselves to be different from the people of Church End. A few years later the name “Queenstown” was also used, supposedly commemorating a visit by Queen Victoria. There does not seem to be any record of such a visit, so perhaps it was simply an attempt to commemorate Victoria’s Accession in 1837!

5.     Willesden's Fire Brigade, passing the 1820 Willesden Chapel, c.1900 (Brent Archives online image 1265)

The Queens Town name was used well into the 20^th century. The small original chapel, at the Dudden Hill Lane corner, was replaced around 1890 by a much larger Congregational Chapel, on the corner opposite Pound Lane, of the soon to be renamed Willesden High Road. The old chapel was used as a Sunday School, then demolished for road-widening in 1908.

6.     The Congregational Chapel, High Road, Chapel End, c.1900. (From “Willesden” by Adam Spencer, 1996)

During the 19^th century, people were attracted to Church End and Chapel End to find work, and needed somewhere to live. In 1810 the ownership of land in Willesden, and legal boundaries, were finally settled by the passing of an Act of Inclosure.  Landowners began to see the profit which could be made by selling off acres of farmland to developers for building houses. 

The land at Church End was part of the old Manor of Willesden’s Rectory Estate. John Nicoll of Neasden had purchased this Estate back in 1738, and after passing through several hands in the early 19^th Century, it was sold to The United Land Company, in 1869. In the same year, the company bought some land at Chapel End from the daughters of James Henry Read, who had died. This would later become the Meyrick Road estate. “Land for Sale” notices began to appear in the district, and developers and builders purchased plots at auction.

7.     Bramley's Farm, just north of Chapel End, c.1880 – one of the farms lost to housing in the late 19^th century.
(Photograph by Stanley Ball – Brent Archives online image 1261)

8.     Beaconsfield Road, Chapel End, 1960. (Brent Archives online image 2570)

Nine acres at Church End Paddocks were sold in 1873, then Church Farm Estate went up for sale in 1875. This consisted of 4 acres next to the White Horse, and became the Cobbold Road estate. Roads and building plots were also laid out at Beaconsfield Road. House building on The United Land Company’s estates was finished by the mid-1890s. Southward expansion from Chapel End was prevented by the opening of the Jewish Cemetery (1873), and Willesden New Cemetery in 1893, because St Mary’s churchyard was no longer large enough.

9.     Willesden New Cemetery, early 20th century postcard. (Brent Archives online image 7255)

To the disappointment of the directors of The United Land Company, Church End and Chapel End did not provide them with big profits. Their stated aim was to build first-class estates which would attract investors, but the plots of land were small in size, so small houses were built, and the area became working-class. It was Church End Ward that elected the first Socialist member of Willesden Council, in 1904! The quality of the building work varied, but many of the terraces of small houses have survived into the 21^st Century, and have stood up well to being modernised and extended.

Amenities such as shops and laundries flourished, especially along Church Road and Willesden High Road. Other buildings such as public houses, meeting rooms, schools and cinemas were put in place alongside the housing, and some of these landmarks have survived to the present day, while others live on in people’s memories. We will explore these landmarks in Part 2, next weekend.

Margaret Pratt.

Vaccines – and a little piece of Sudbury’s history

A special guest post by Philip Grant

In recent months, vaccines have been in the news – both the quest for a vaccine to protect against Covid-19, and the threat to the fight against common diseases across the world caused by the pandemic’s disruption of vaccination programmes. The news sometimes reminds me about stories from local history that may not be well known, and this is one of them. Some readers may find parts of this article upsetting, but I hope the information in it will help your understanding of issues around science and health.

Smallpox was an infectious disease of humans, which had existed since prehistoric times. Caused by a virus, it killed up to 30% of people who caught it, and left those who survived badly scarred and often blinded. It is estimated to have killed around 400,000 people across Europe every year in the 18^th century. At the time, it was usual for scientists to give discoveries names derived from the Latin language. Vaccine comes from the Latin word Vacca, a cow. 

1. A milkmaid at work, in the 1890s. (From an old book of pre-WW1 country photographs)

Edward Jenner was a doctor in Gloucestershire, who realised a rumour, that milkmaids who had caught cowpox did not get smallpox, was not just an “old wives’ tale”. He experimented in 1796, by giving pus from a cowpox blister to an 8-year old boy, then exposing him to smallpox. The boy was immune to the more serious disease. Further tests of this method also proved successful, and vaccination was born. Many were horrified by the practice and opposed it, as this satirical cartoon from 1802 (supposedly published by the Anti-Vaccine Society) illustrates.

 2. A cartoon, lampooning Edward Jenner's inoculations, and their imagined results! (From the internet)

Moving on a century, Sudbury was a small village with a number of farms. Some of these had become dairy farms during Victorian times, but one small farm, Poplars, was to have a different use. The British Institute for Preventive Medicine had been set up as a charity in 1891, and its first laboratory was in Great Russell Street. German medical researchers, the previous year, had found that antibodies to fight human diseases could be made by infecting guinea pigs. To produce these in quantity required larger animals, and by 1894 the Institute had bought Poplars Farm, quite easily reached by train from Euston, to Sudbury and Wembley Station.

3. A postcard view of the centre of Sudbury village, c.1900. (Brent Archives online image 10831)

The Institute undertook scientific research into the causes, prevention and treatment of disease (like that set up by Louis Pasteur in Paris, in 1887), and produced vaccines and antitoxins to help prevent or cure diseases. In Sudbury, they kept healthy horses in the fields, which were infected with disease bacteria. As their bodies produced the antibody serum, it was drained from them. The horses were put down when they became unwell from the infection. Tom the pony (pictured below) was used in this way to help produce Britain's first diphtheria anti-toxin.

4. Tom the pony, at Poplars Farm, and a vial of diphtheria anti-toxin, c.1895. (Images from the internet)

Diphtheria was once a common contagious disease, which particularly affected the young, and could be fatal. When Willesden’s Medical Officer reported ‘a most decided improvement in the matter of Infant Mortality’ in 1887 (only 55.2% of total deaths in the district had been infants aged 0-5, compared to 62.5% the previous year!), measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever and diphtheria had been significant causes of death. Alfred Salter was a bacteriologist who worked at Poplars Farm in the 1890s, and wrote a paper for “The Lancet” on the diphtheria antitoxin.

Salter had been a brilliant young medical student at Guy’s Hospital, and had to defend the work that he did for the Institute (renamed the Jenner Institute for Preventive Medicine in 1898). It’s activities at Sudbury brought protests from the National Anti-Vivisection Society, but his response was that thousands of human lives were saved through the use of their anti-toxins, and that the horses were put out of their misery quickly once symptoms developed.

Although this is an “aside” from my main theme, Alfred Salter left the Institute after he got married in 1900. He set up a medical practice in Bermondsey, and worked with his wife to fight against poverty and poor living conditions in that area. He served as a Labour M.P. for West Bermondsey between 1922 and 1945, and his wife, Ada, became the first woman Mayor in London, actively using her role to promote green socialist policies in their borough.

5. The site of Poplars Farm, on an extract from George H. Ward’s map of Wembley, 1908. (Brent Archives)

The work of the Institute continued in Sudbury, including the production of the first anti-rabies vaccine, but change was coming to the area. The District Railway (now Piccadilly Line) opened in 1903, and the Great Central Railway began building a branch line that would run through the Poplars Farm fields. In 1903, the Institute moved to a different farm, in Elstree, where it was renamed the Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine, after one of its founders, Dr Joseph Lister. The land and its main house, The Poplars, was sold. 

6. The Poplars, with a "For Sale" sign outside it, c.1904. (Brent Archives online image 528)

Now, I have to correct the normally reliable local history book, “A History of Wembley” (written by Wembley History Society members, and published by Brent Libraries in 1979)! It says that the house was ‘once used by Dr Martin, a vivisectionist, and the home of the Epizootic Abortion Committee.’ Dr Charles Martin was appointed Director of the Institute in 1903, so would have been involved in selling Poplars Farm. There were probably reports in the “Harrow Observer” of anti-vivisection protests then (during lockdown, I can’t check that), but there is no evidence that Dr Martin was a vivisectionist. He may have been a member of the Government’s Board of Agriculture committee, which investigated the tick-borne cattle disease of that name!

The Poplars was bought by Edwin Butler, who had a small shop and sub-post office near “The Swan”. He converted the ground floor of the house into “Butler’s Emporium”, and lived on the first floor above it. He served as a Wembley councillor for 40 years, representing Sudbury. In 1920 he campaigned for the Council to buy the last remaining part of the old Sudbury Common for public recreation. When Wembley became a borough in 1937, he served as its first Mayor, and after his death in 1945, the open space he helped to save was named Butler’s Green.

7. Edwin Butler, proudly wearing his regalia as Charter Mayor of Wembley, 1937. (Brent Archives no. 7653)

By 1911, new shops had been built on either side of The Poplars, as part of a parade called Canterbury Place. If you compare the photo of The Poplars above with the one below, taken in 2015, you can still identify the upstairs windows and chimneys of the original farmhouse! This is one of many pairs of images from the “Sudbury – Then and Now” project, which you can still see online, to discover more about the local history of this part of Brent.

8. What was The Poplars, but by 2015 the Sudbury Supermarket, and a hairdressers, with a flat above.

Although the Institute was producing the diphtheria anti-toxin from the 1890s onwards, medicine would be mainly “private” in this country for another 50 years. When Kingsbury (popn. c.800) U.D.C.’s Medical Officer made his report for the last quarter of 1902, there had only been one infectious disease case. A child, Samuel Noad, had died of diphtheria at “Poplars”, a house that was part of a cluster of buildings at Blackbird Farm. Luckily, as ‘every precaution as regards disinfection of all articles and room was taken, … no further case has occurred.’

9. The families of Thomas Noad and his brother, in the garden of "Poplars", Blackbird Farm, c.1898.

By chance, a photograph of the Noad family in the late 1890s was shared with me a few years ago. Although I don’t know the names of everyone shown, Thomas Noad, the farmer, is the man standing in the centre, with his wife, and youngest child Gertrude, in front of him. His younger brother, who lived at “Poplars”, is on Thomas’s left. It may be his wife, sitting with their baby (quite possibly Samuel). Every sudden death from disease has its own tragic story.

When Kingsbury merged with Wembley in 1934, the newly combined Council brought in a scheme for immunising people against diphtheria, free of charge to the patient. There was still no immunisation at this time against measles, chicken-pox or whooping cough, which were all prevalent among children at local schools. Then, in 1941, Britain’s wartime government introduced free immunisation against diphtheria for everyone. 

10. A boy being immunised, and a poster for a diphtheria immunisation programme. (From the internet.)

I was a post-war baby, born after the N.H.S. was set up in 1948. The note of my medical history, that my Mum gave me when I first left home, shows that I had injections against diphtheria, whooping cough and smallpox when I was a baby, with boosters for the first two before I started school in 1954. It also shows that I caught measles and chicken-pox in 1952/53 (after my older sister started school) and mumps in 1955! There were no vaccinations against those then.

After global efforts, co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation, smallpox has been eradicated, with the last reported case in 1977. Similar efforts have reduced diphtheria to just 4,500 reported cases worldwide in 2015, although 2,100 of those were fatal, mainly in children. While we wait for a vaccine that can have the same effect against Covid-19, I hope that this look at vaccines and health, through local history, has given you some food for thought.

This is my last “local history in lockdown” story for a while, but a new series, by a friend from Willesden Local History Society, will begin next weekend. Please join her, to find out which area from the south of the borough you can discover more about!

Philip Grant.

Thank you Philip.  Your lockdown local histories have been very popular and I am sure have led many people to take more of an interest in the area in which they live.  I look forward to publishing many more of your well-researched and informative articles in the future.

Martin Francis

Brent Council consults on Neighbourhood CIL spending priorities

Brent Council is consulting residents on the Neighbourhood priorties of the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy. This is 15-25% of the levy paid by developers towards infrastructure in the borough. The grants are based around  CIL neighbourhoods and this is the funding available for each:

Harlesden £1,075,000
Kilburn and Kensal £1,075,000
Kingsbury and Kenton £1,075,000
Wembley £4,300,000
Willesden £1,075,000

THE CONSULTATION

Overview

• The council collects money from new eligible developments in the Borough through the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). CIL is a charge used to help local authorities to deliver the infrastructure needed to support development.   

• Up to 15 % (or up to 25% where there is a neighbourhood plan in place) of the CIL money collected is available to fund infrastructure, which, among other criteria, is aligned with priorities expressed by local communities, called Neighbourhood Priorities. This proportion of the CIL money is the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) and is applied for by residents and organisations who would like to see more localised, community led, projects being delivered.  

• It can be spent on the provision, improvement, replacement, operation or maintenance of infrastructure, or anything else that is concerned with addressing the demands that development places on an area. Infrastructure includes buildings and services that leave a legacy to an area. For example, NCIL has funded the refurbishment of community spaces and the funding of youth projects. For a list of previous NCIL projects please visit the NCIL webpage.

• Please note, NCIL cannot fund events, festivals or anything commercially focused. Further, NCIL cannot fund projects where there is already a council budget allocated. For more information on our criteria please visit the NCIL webpage.

Why We Are Consulting

• We need your views on what should be the next neighbourhood priorities for your local area. Applications for NCIL funding will need to state how their proposal meets the neighbourhood priorities of the area that the infrastructure will be delivered in or will benefit.    

• The current neighbourhood priorities are the same across all five neighbourhoods however this consultation will be to determine neighbourhood specific priorities. The current neighbourhood priorities are: Town centres and High streets, Transport & Roads, Community Spaces & Cultural Facilities and Parks and Green Spaces.

• The five neighbourhoods areas are the same as the Brent Connect areas: Harlesden, Kilburn, Kingsbury and Kenton, Wembley and Willesden.

• Please get involved and choose your top priorities for NCIL funding in your neighbourhood. The new neighbourhood priorities will be approved by Cabinet and will inform the expenditure of NCIL from 2020-2023. In three years’ time we will consult again on what the priorities should be.

• This consultation ends 27^th January 2020. LINK to the consultation survey  

Previous NCIL project receiving money (Click bottom right corner for full size version). Note: It is worth noting the proportion of applications that were made by community groups, departments of Brent Council and councillors.

Details of next round of Brent Connects meetings - all residents welcome. Get on your soapbox and air your concerns to Brent Council

From Brent Council

Kilburn	Harlesden	Wembley	Willesden	Kingsbury & Kenton
Tuesday 26 March 2019 7pm to 9pm	Tuesday 2 April 2019 7pm to 9pm	Wednesday 3 April 2019 7pm to 9pm	Wednesday 17 April 2019 7pm to 9pm	Tuesday 23 April 2019 7pm to 9pm
Front Room Granville Centre, 140 Carlton Vale, London NW6 5HE	Tavistock Hall, Main Hall, 25 High Street, Harlesden NW10 4NE	Patidar House 22 London Road, Wembley HA9 7EX	The Library at Willesden Green, The Performance Space, 95 High Road, Willesden NW10 2SF	Kingsbury High School, Main Hall, Upper School, Princes Avenue, Kingsbury NW9 9JR

The Brent Connects forum meetings offer a great opportunity for residents to hear about what the

 Council are doing in your area and get involved in the decisions the Council makes. Each meeting is

chaired by a Councillor and attended by your local Councillors, Council officers and partner agencies

such as the police and health authority.

At each meeting residents also have an opportunity to express their views and concerns

on an issue of their choice through the ‘soapbox slot’.

You don’t need to register, just come along. Light refreshments will be provided.

Vigil tonight after 'Nazi graffiti' found in Willesden Green

Local residents are invited to take part in a vigil at the bus shelter at the junction of Peters Avenue/Donnington Road, Willesden after what is apparently Nazi graffiti was found. The vigil will take place from 7.30-8pm.

An alternative explanation is that the graffiti refers to controversy surrounding BP Oil and is calling the company 'Nazi' and 'scum'.

TfL have been contacted to clean off the graffiti.

Details on the Kilburn Times website HERE

Wembley reduced to 50% share of Neighbourhood CIL from 83% in new Cabinet proposals

EXISTING DISTRIBUTION

PROPOSED DISTRIBUTION

Widespread complaints about the unequal distribution of Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy monies have resulted in a proposal going before the January 14th Cabinet that will reduce Wembley's share of Neighbourhood CIL from the present 83% to 50% of the total fund - that is a proposed total of £4.23m versus what would have been £7.06m using the existing distribution method.

Wembley retains the lion's share with other areas getting an equal share of the remainder but significantly more for the most part than they get now.  This is Option 4 in the table below:

 The report provides the following commentary on the options:

.        Option 1 (Retain existing distribution). This would be unpopular in light of the review. A significant number of the focus groups and interviews saw the distribution of NCIL funds and concentration of money in Wembley as unfair. Wembley stakeholders were keen to retain a significant sum of NCIL as they are impacted the most by development in the area. However, based on current and future projections, the gap in NCIL funds available to Wembley and the remaining four ClL neighbourhoods is set to increase. 


.        Option 2 (No distribution). NCIL receipts could be used anywhere across the borough. Bidders could propose projects to access funds irrespective of where the funds were generated. This would be easiest method of distribution and would allow equal access to

.        Option 2 could also help mitigate any impact felt by a different community beyond the NCIL boundary. However greater monitoring would still be required to ensure that one part of the borough was not disproportionately allocated funding. The disadvantages of this option are that the areas more greatly affected by development will lose out on the total value of NCIL receipts that would have been allocated if the existing distribution model were retained.

.        Option 3 (Equal Distribution). NCIL receipts would be redistributed equally across the five CIL Neighbourhoods. This would be appealing to areas that do not currently attract significant development. However this approach may disadvantage communities that are impacted most by development. 


.        Option 4 (Wembley 50% cap – other areas equal). Wembley’s NCIL fund would be capped at 50% of the total NCIL receipts generated in the borough. The remaining 50% would be divided equally between the remaining four CIL Neighbourhoods. This option would ensure that a greater proportion of NCIL Funds is allocated to the Wembley Neighbourhood where the majority of development currently takes place but also ensure that wider impacts of development are addressed elsewhere. 


.        Option 5 (Wembley 50% cap – other areas proportional). Wembley’s NCIL fund would be capped at 50% of the total NCIL receipts generated. The value of NCIL available in the remaining four CIL Neighbourhoods is set proportionally based on the amount of NCIL raised in their area. Based on current NCIL receipts the proportion would be Harlesden 41.86%, Kilburn 21.05%, Kingsbury 20.63% and Willesden 16.46%. This option would ensure that a greater proportion of CIL Funds is allocated to the Wembley Neighbourhood, however in the future, areas where there is less development will receive fewer NCIL funds. 


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Other proposed changes are minor and subject to change when a decision is made on ward boundaries except for a proposal to enlarge the decision making group evaluating proposals to four (Option 4):

Comments welcome.