Metro-land

The Metropolitan Railway was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933. The company ran several lines, for instance the Metropolitan District Railway to Richmond -now the District line. Its mainline was to become the railway heading north from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex suburbs around Harrow and Wembley. To remove steam and smoke from the tunnels in central London, the Metropolitan Railway purchased electric locomotives; this electric traction was introduced in 1905. At that time the Metropolitan Railway operated services between Uxbridge, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Baker Street. To improve services, more powerful electric and steam locomotives (at Harrow the electric engines were exchanged for steam locomotives) were purchased in the 1920s. A short branch opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925. After WW2, the 4-mile (6.4 km) long Stanmore branch was built from Wembley Park.

Unlike other railway companies, which were required to dispose of surplus land, the Metropolitan Railway was in a privileged position, allowing it to retain such land that it believed was necessary for future railway use. Initially, the surplus land was managed by the Land Committee. In the 1880s, at the same time as the railway was extending beyond Swiss Cottage tracts of land were developed for housing. At Neasden a workers' estate was built by the railway company. Roads and sewers were built at Willesden Park Estate and the land was subsequently sold to builders for development. Similar developments followed at Cecil Park near Pinner and several plots were sold at Wembley Park.

In 1912 the General Manager Robert Selbie felt that some professionalism was needed to develop estates near the railway and suggested a company be formed to take over from the Surplus Lands Committee. However, World War I delayed these plans. On 5 August 1914 the company was made subject to government control. It wasn't until 1919 before the Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE) was formed. The MRCE went on to develop estates at Kingsbury Garden Village near Neasden, Wembley Park, (the extended) Cecil Park and Grange Estate at Pinner and the Cedars Estate at Rickmansworth and create places such as Harrow Garden Village.

The term "Metro-land" was coined by the Metropolitan Railway's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. This booklet promoted the land served by the railway for the walker, visitor and later the house hunter. Published annually until 1932, the guide extolled the benefits of "The good air of the Chilterns". The dream promoted was of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London. Land development also occurred in central London when in 1929 a large, luxurious block of apartments, "Chiltern Court" opened at Baker Street, designed by the company's architect Charles W. Clark, who was also responsible for the design of a number of station reconstructions in outer "Metro-land" at this time.

This Metro-land comprises of not only housing developed by the MRCE but also of numerous private developments like Northwick Park. The Metro-land guide insisted that Metro-land was "a country with elastic borders that each visitor can draw for himself". The principal features of Metro-land were not unique to the housing developed along the Metropolitan Railway, the term can be used more generically. One only has to think of the several housing estates developed in Haringey en Enfield along the Picadilly Line extension, High Barnet on the Northern Line (Northern Heights), Gunnerbury Park in Brentford and Loughton (on the Central Line). Most however regarded Harrow as the heart of Metro-land, while some describe Wembley as its epitome.

Metro-land in the broadest sense on the map of present-day London. The City of London is shown in the centre (1) with the lines to the suburbs starting at an older station: Baker Street (a), Kings Cross (b) and Stratford (c). In deep purple the Metropolitan Railway which opened up the area around Harrow (2), Wembley (3), Ruislip (4), Kingsbury (5) and Edgeware (6) for suburban development. The housing estates shown in lighter purple are part of the true Metro-land. Other railway lines lead to similar suburbanisation. In dark blue the Picadilly line with the sprawling estates of Muswell Hill, Haringey (7), Southgate (8), East-Barnet (9) and Enfield (10). Similarly in Essex along the Central line we see suburban sprawl in Loughton (11), Chingford (12), Woodford (13), Barkingside and Hainault (14) and Epping (15). Note that the earlier Victorian urban development was confined to the former County of London (now Inner London).

Simply Red

The colour red is a powerful colour that is often used to attract attention. Nature does this for instance by making strawberries, cherries, tomatoes and other fruit a bright red colour to attract mammals to eat the fruit and disperse the seeds. This works in the same way for humans who tend to favour red and orange fruits.

In the urban landscape red is also used to attract attention. Humans are hard wired for that colour after all. It is not surprising that some London icons are red in colour. Just think of the Telephone box, the Double-decker bus, the London Underground sign and the Letterbox.

Northwick Park, a Costin-built suburb

The Palaestra - the name for a wrestling school in ancient Greece - forms the main focus of the Northwick Park Estate. It is located within the central circle and dates from 1923. The architecture follows the then fashionable mixed Arts and Crafts style giving it the appearance of a medieval country seat. It used to house a community hall and sports centre with tennis courts to the side. It is now the seat of the Harrow Freemasons.

The use of black wood beams and whitewashed infill panels refer strongly to the ancient way of construction of timber framed houses. Originally these would be half timbered constructions with a lime washed infill in wattle and daub. Here the use is purely decorative and mostly restricted to the upper elevation. The ground floor is constructed in brick. The result can be best classified as mock Tudor.

Some streets have retained the narrow grass verges with a mixture of trees planted in them. These green verges with trees give the streets an appealing non-urban feel and firmly places the housing estate within the Unwinesk design principles that underpin the Garden City Movement.

In the original situation the front gardens, together with the planted grass verges, created a village-like atmosphere with the houses viewed within a green context. Modern car ownership has meant that most front garden have been paved over and are now used as car parks, which accommodate two but often three or even four cars. 

Northwick Park comprises of long rows of mainly semidetached houses. Only occasionally a detached house is used. Especially on the straight streets the closeness of the buildings make for a rather urban streetscape with seemingly continuous facades. 

Although the houses have been built in just a small number of types the exterior has been designed in a variety of types. This variety works better in the detached houses on the Northwick Park Circle than in the semidetached houses around it. Variety is aided by current home owners for instance painting the wooden shutters a bright blue.

 

 

The detached houses often have a garage on the side. In some cases this garage is original, most often it is a later addition. Some home owners have converted garages into extra living space. The result is always a sea of stone, cement and gravel between the road and the buildings.

The Tudorbethan style of the late nineteenth century transformed during the interwar years into an eclectic vernacular style. Although most houses in Northwick Park have the same floor plan the exterior shows some variety. Within the long rows of houses the decor is alternated to relieve the repetitiveness. These detached houses with a similar floor plan differ greatly in appearance through a clever use of different roof shapes, styles of bay, partially recessing the facade and the placement, colour and treatment of the front door.

 

Most houses are fitted with bays on the front. Some differ from this norm as this example shows to great effect with a jettied, joined double gable that is extended sideways to form a porch in front of the front door.

Northwick Park, a Metro-land suburb

On 2 August 1880 the Metropolitan Railway was extended from Willesden Green via Wembley to Harrow (the station Harrow on the Hill). En route is passed through the Kenton area east of the old town of Harrow. A new station opened on this line on 28 June 1923. It was named Northwick Park and Kenton. In 1937 the station was renamed Northwick Park to better distinguish it from Kenton station (built 1912) on the Bakerloo line. The coming of the railways was soon followed by suburban development, most of Kenton being built between the Wars.

The Kenton area was in the Manor of Harrow, which from 1630 had been owned by the Rushout family, who acquired the Barony of Northwick in 1797. Up until the 20th century much of the land remained in agricultural use. In 1905 Harrow school bought 192 acres of Sheepcote Farm to thwart plans for devel­opment near the school and the fields were converted into a golf course that opened two years later. The rest of the farm - mostly located north of the Metropolitan Railway - was laid out with streets between 1912 and 1914 by the estab­lished owners of the land, the Churchill-​​Rushout family.

The opening of the new station on the Bakerloo line (a contraction of the original name Baker Street & Waterloo Railway) in 1912, provided a strong incentive to develop the area near the station for suburban housing. In that same year following the death of his grandmother, widow of the 3rd Lord Northwick, Captain Edward George Spencer-Churchill (1876-1964) inherited the Kenton estate. Spencer-Churchill's aim was to develop his Northwick Park estate as high class residences with a tennis and social club as the focal point. The housing estate was named after Northwick Park, the family estate in Worcestershire. Captain Spencer-Churchill put up his land for development prior to WWI but the estate was not built until the 1920s and was less ambitious than the original plans.

The Northwick Park Estate is laid out in a formal manner, with the Northwick Circle at its centre. The rest of the streets are laid out along a skewed grid. The street plan includes a number of closes which places the formal layout within the Garden City movement. That esthetic is also noticeable in the buildings. The later extension north of Kenton Road was built by the same building firm and comprises of identical buildings.

Housing was not built until after the opening of the station on the Metropolitan Line in 1923. Captain Spencer-Churchill’s original intention was to create “a unique specimen of town planning, the largest and best laid out estate near London” but the end result was more prosaic. The Northwick Park Estate was laid out as a geometric pattern of streets radiating from Northwick Circle, in the centre of which The Palaestra was built in 1923, forming the focal point and the estate's social and sports centre. The suburban estate of mock-Tudor houses was predominantly built by F & C Costin*, and many of the road names were taken from villages close to Spencer Churchill’s country seats at Northwick Park, Blockley and Gloucester.

* F. & C. Costin was a local building company that built much of Kenton between the wars. Thomas Francis Nash owned other building companies which from the 1920s onward built numerous private housing estates in Kenton, Ruislip and other parts of Metro-land in Middlesex. Local estate agents still use the terms Costin-built and Nash-built to describe properties built by these firms in Kenton.

Londen Underground

London is famous for its underground railway system also known as the Tube. The first of these was the Metropolitan Railway, a passenger and goods railway that connected the mainline railway termini at Paddington, Euston and King's Cross to the City. It was opened on 10 January 1863 and served London to 1933. When, in 1871 plans were presented for an underground railway in Paris, it was called the Métropolitain in imitation of the line in London. The modern word metro is a shortened form of the French word.

The world's first underground railway was soon extended from both ends and northwards via a branch from Baker Street. The Metropolitan Railway reached Hammersmith in 1864, Richmond in 1877 and completed the Inner Circle in 1884. The most important route however became the line north into the Middlesex countryside, where it stimulated the development of new suburbs, also known as Metro-land. The Middlesex town of Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line was gradually extended as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles (80 kilometres) from Baker Street and the centre of London.

The first tunnels were constructed just below the surface of existing roads using a cut and cover method. Later lines were dug through the London Clay at a deeper (sometimes much deeper) level. The platforms of these deep lines can only be reached via long escalators. Some 55% of the Londen Underground runs above ground, often on embankments or in open cuts.