Harrow East - recent local history

Updated January ’12

Harrow Highways

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If you are interested in the history of the area, this section has some historical information about:

a number of major streets
extracts from sales brochures for Laing's estates
bus routes
the unfinished Northern Line extension
shops that once comprised our local parades
finally, there are a few pages of parish magazines from the 1940s: two from St John’s, Stanmore and one from St Lawrence’s, Whitchurch Lane.

Harrow Highways

In the 1970s local historian Ronald S Brown produced a dozen paperback volumes on the history of our area.

Margaret perusing her volumes
Local residents Rona Clayton, John Clayton’s ('Chandos Secondary' and 'Downer Grammar') mum, and Margaret Jenkins, Ray Jenkins' ('Whitefriars' and 'Blackwell') wife, each purchased a couple of volumes at the time, and subsequently a few more have been procured (second-hand). The contents pages of these publications have been scanned and can be accessed below.

The content of the volumes is still within copyright (life + 50 years), so only a limited number of pages can be offered on this site (- click on the underlined links).

Where half-tone images have been reproduced, they have been scanned and then blurred to minimise display artifacts.

Histories of Harrow Weald Highways Volume 1, (Harrow Weald, Stanmore, Wealdstone)
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1974; First Edition
Map of District
p1 - Foreword and Historical Preamble
p5 - Kenton Lane
p8 - Gordon Avenue
p12 - photographs - Wealdstone, The Duck in The Pond, Belmont Halt
p16 - photographs - The Hare, Grim's Dyke Lake, German Bridge Cottages
p22 - Dryden Road
p23 - Old Redding

Histories of Harrow Weald Highways Volume 2, on the Suburban Trail Again
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1975; First Edition
Map of Estates
p1 - Foreword
p4 - The Highway
p6 - Mountside
p8 - Connaught Road
p26-27 - photographs
p36 - Harrow Weald High Road

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 3, from the Weald to Stanmore
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1975; First Edition
p1 - Introduction
p6 - map of farms
p17 - Belmont Circle
p20 - Old Church Lane
p23 - map
p28 - photographs - Belmont Circle, ruined St John's

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 4, Wealdstone and Its Victorian Highways
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1976; First Edition
p4 - Wealdstone map
p5 - Introduction
p30 - Headstone Drive

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 5, from Stanmore Common to Chandos Country
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1976; First Edition
p2 - map of Church Road
p5 - Introduction
p7 - Watford Road & Stanmore Common
p31 - Marsh Lane
p33 - Honeypot Lane
p35 - Whitchurch Lane
p37 - Canons Drive

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 6, Harrow on the Hill
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1977; First Edition

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 7, Exploring Historical Picturesque Pinner
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1977; First Edition

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 8, Down the Roman Road to Edgware
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1978; First Edition
p4, 5 - map - featuring twelve public houses
p7 - Introduction
p12 - Edgware Road
p15 - High Street
p26 - photographs - Edgware Police Station officers 1920; Edgware Station, Great Northern Railway (- looking north-east at the pale, glazed brick, ticket office [built in 1867] in the station forecourt). The platform and track run from the ticket office towards the right, adjacent to a water tower (just out of view). An adequately heated waiting room may have occupied the tiny building.
p31 - Whitchurch
p36 - Station Road

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 9, Kenton Hamlet and District
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1979; First Edition
p4 - Kenton map
p5 - introduction
p7 - preamble

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 10, Harrow Weald Again and Hatch End
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1980; First Edition

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 11, Roaming Round Roxeth and Roxbourne
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1981

Histories of Harrow Highways Volume 12, Going Back to Greenhill
Bishop Ken Residents Association; 1981; First Edition

Laing's Local Estates

Pages from two brochures, undated - but believed to have been printed in about 1934, promoting Laing homes. (Retained and loaned by Chris Cartwright who was reared in Lamorna Grove [close to Chandos Secondary] by his parents who bought their Laing home in about 1937.)

Omitted pages either detail more styles of Laing's houses - or duplicate existing text.

Canons Park
Edgware

Page: 1 (front cover), 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 - sketch map of the estates and their environs (spot the premature assumptions, the LNER Station… and the tram stop), price list, 10 (including a photo of Camrose Elementary), and back cover.

Canons Park
Estate

Page: front cover, 4, 5, 12 (incl. photo of Canons Park parade), 13 (incl. Canons Park Metropolitan Station).

Heating our Laings home - before central heating

My parents moved into their 1936-built Laing home in 1937. It was a 3-bedroom detached home, styled as either an 'Olympia' or 'Jubilee'.

Our house had two downstairs hearths, one in each of the two downstairs living rooms, and two hearths upstairs in the larger bedrooms. A pair of hearths (upstairs plus downstairs) fed into a breast. Just below roof-level, the two breasts combined into a single, four-flue stack. We had grates downstairs and in one of the bedrooms - and burned coal - never coke or wood.

Coal was considered expensive, so my Dad only ever lit one of the two downstairs grates at any time and, rarely, the bedroom grate.

A downstairs grate would be lit in the afternoon. Dad's technique for lighting the upstairs fire was 'interesting'. He would use a red-hot coal from the lit downstairs fire. Following the inevitable dropping of the fiery coal as he transported it upstairs - and the ensuing singeing of the carpet - my mother forbade Dad from lighting the upstairs grate.

Eventually, we used a single, portable, Aladdin 'Pink' paraffin (a BP brand) heater to share between the bedrooms. The heater was refilled from a 1 gallon portable container initially ('charged' at Belmont Catos) … subsequently we employed a 5 gallon storage tank stood in the garden.

Our home included a brick-built coal-bunker but Dad dismantled it as he wanted to build a shed on that spot. Instead, he bought and erected two concrete pre-fabricated bunkers positioning them rather closer to the back door than the original bunker. I was the only one in our household small enough to climb into the bunkers (to attach the nuts onto the fixing bolts) through the 'filling' hatch on the top.

My mother didn't altogether trust tradesmen, so I was charged with counting the number of sacks that coal-men claimed to have delivered.

Hot water was heated by a back-boiler in a coal-fired stove mounted in a corner of the kitchen - so it could have its own external flue. Heated water circulated, by gravity, to a directly heated (no coil) sealed, copper storage-tank in the corner of the bathroom with an airing cupboard 'boxed-in' around it. Pipework was copper.

We also used a portable, upright, two-bar electric fire stood on the hearth of one of the living rooms - but electricity, as now, was considerably more expensive for heating than coal.

Town-gas (coal-gas) entered the house through a 1" main under the stairs. Every room, including the bathroom, was skeletoned with steel gas piping supplying a gas outlet (which, in our house, were all capped-off). The two downstairs living rooms also had bayonet outlets Tee-ed off below the room's capped-off outlet. Bayonets were intended for gas pokers and portable gas appliances and mounted on the skirting boards. But we didn't use any gas appliances.

Eventually, Dad had town-gas central heating installed.

E. B., 2011

London Transport Road Services - Harrow and District - 1940/50s

from Kemps Steet Directories for Harrow

Route	Day of Week	Terminal Points	via
Buses
18	Mon./Sat.	Aldenham - Wembley	Edgware, Sudbury Town
18	Sunday	Edgware - London Bridge	Wealdstone, Wembley, Harlesdon, King's Cross
79A	Daily	Northolt - Edgware	Alperton, Wembley, Kingsbury
98	Daily	Hounslow - North Harrow	Hayes, Ruislip, Pinner
114	Daily	Rayners Lane - Edgware	Harrow, Stanmore
140	Daily	London Airport - Mill Hill	Hayes, Yeading, Northolt, Harrow, Kenton
142	Mon./Sat.	Kilburn Park - Watford	Cricklewood, Hendon, Edgware, Stanmore, Bushey
142	Sunday	Edgware - Watford	Stanmore, Bushey
158	Daily	Ruislip - Watford	South Harrow, Harrow, Bushey Heath
183	Daily	Golders Green - Northwood	Hendon, Kenton, Harrow
187	Daily	South Harrow - Hampstead Heath	Alperton, North Acton, Harlesdon, Maida Vale
209	Mon./Sat.	Harrow Weald - South Harrow	Pinner
220	Daily	Uxbridge - Northwood	Ickenham, Eastcote
230	Daily	Rayners Lane Station - Northwick Park Station	Weadstone, Kenton

Coaches (Green Line)
703	Daily	Wrotham - Amersham	North Harrow, Pinner Green, Northwood
706	Daily	Aylesbury - Westerham	Bushey, Stanmore, Edgware
707	Daily	Aylesbury - Oxted
708	Daily	East Grinstead - Hemel Hempstead

Routes serving fringe areas
92	Daily	Wembley - Ealing Hospital	Wembley Empire Pool, Sudbury, Greenford
92A	rush hours	Wembley - Ealing Hospital	Wembley Trading Estate
107		Queensbury Station - Enfield Lock	Edgware, New Barnet, Elstree, Borehamwood
107A		Queensbury Station - Enfield Lock
306 (coach)		New Barnett Station - Leavesdon	Barnet, Arkley, Borehamwood, Elstree, Bushey Heath, Bushey and Watford
709 (coach)	Daily	Chesham - Caterham	Gerrards Cross, Uxbridge and Oxford Circus

Trolleybuses - trolleys replaced trams in the mid-1930s … more - but required additional wiring in the street (needing two overhead conductors - as opposed to the tram's single overhead conductor. A tram's metal tyres completed the 'return' circuit).
645		Barnet - Canons Park (up Stonegrove)	High Barnet Station, Great North Road, North Finchley, Church End, Golders Green, Cricklewoood, Hendon, Colindale and Edgware
664		Paddington - Edgware	Harrow Road, Willesden, Cricklewood, Hendon
666 (replaced the 664)		Edgware (Station Road) - Hammersmith Broadway	Burnt Oak, Colindale, West Hendon, Staples Corner, Cricklewood, Willesden, Church Road, Harlesden, North Acton, Acton, Acton Vale and Starch Green, with additional Monday to Saturday rush hour journeys between Harrow Road (Scrubs Lane) and Acton (Horn Lane)

Trams (The position of a tram stop [an early terminus?] in Edgware High Street is marked in the map in Laings brochure, page 6 and 7, see above.)
64 (broadly replaced by trolley 664)	Weekdays only	Edgware (High Street)	Cricklewood – Hendon – Edgware
66 (broadly replaced by trolley 666)		(Known as 'country trams', the vehicles were initially open-topped: later the upper deck was enclosed except for the two ends at the top of the stairs. - H/H Vol. 9)	Acton - Harlesden - Cricklewood - Hendon - Edgware - Canons Park (extended along Stonegrove [to Canons Corner] in 1907 - Canons Park Station [initially serving the Metropolitan Line] wasn't opened until 1932)

The Northern Line Extension

During World War II, London Transport's Aldenham Bus Works (seen here in 1956), originally planned as a construction depot for the proposed extension of the Northern Line to Elstree, was used for manufacturing Halifax bombers.

Eventually the buses that Aldenham produced were able to benefit from aircraft manufacturing technology eg. aluminium monocoque construction.

'Northern Heights' arch-iology

The remains of the brick viaduct over which the first station northwards of the 'Northern Heights' extension from Edgware, 'Brockley Hill', was to be built, can be seen, as they are today, on Google 'Maps' here. The arches have collapsed but the footings remain. Zooming out, panning right and down reveals the original, planned route of the track from Edgware Station along, what is now, Sterling Ave and Shelley Close.

Would you believe it?

During World War II the quality of leather deteriorated and it became difficult to come-by so it was rationed. Shoe companies therefore looked to traditional manufacturing materials that weren't rationed from which to make their goods.

Mother-in-law, June, who was a teenager in the Mumbles at the time, relates that, to preserve her precious coupons, she bought shoes at Dolcis, Swansea that had two-part wooden soles joined by a hinge (hinge material? - June can't remember) and lace-up uppers. Although the shoes were more comfortable than clogs, she says that eventually small stones would get trapped in the hinge, wedging it open (at the ball of the foot). So a degree of maintenance was necessary.

A Clark's black and white poster from 1944 for hinged, suede shoes at the bottom of: http://sheepandchick.blogspot.com/2010/02/spring-hats-and-shoes-1944.html . It looks as though the hinge was made from a leather strip glued into the wooden layers of the sole. (Leni was born Angelina Ciofani in Waterbury, CT May 3, 1923. She died New Years Day, 2010. 'Scarf'? I call it a 'hair ribbon'.)

Wartime C & J Clark's, "Wholesale only", poster. Description: Clarks had found a way of making wooden-soled shoes flexible by hinging them - claiming that they "keep the foot warm in winter and cool in summer". "Remember supplies are limited." Photograph by John Hinde. ("Clarks had found a way… " ? - A boast too far methinks - even in the 7th century B.C. the sophisticated Etruscans hinged the two-part wooden sole of their thick-soled sandals with leather, as evident in the carbonised sole in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome.)

… and finally, from Tracy, a magazine item from 1943 about wearing wooden-soled shoes.

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