River Brent - Brent Cross

River Brent
The Brent flows south westwards and it joined by the Clitterhouse Brook from the south
TQ 23545 87949

The horrors of the junction of the North Circular Road with the A5, the M1 and the A41 plus a mega shopping mall.  Under all this is the remains of an interesting area with industries and some railway infrastructure. There still are open spaces and homes but they are a bit swamped.


Post to the east Golders Green

Post to the south Cricklewood


Brent Cross
‘Cross roads at the village of Brent’. This is an intersection created in the 1920s with the creation of Hendon Way and the North Circular.  It is near to the old hamlet of Brent Street
Renters Farm.  The site of Brent Cross Shopping Centre was Renters Farm, owned by Geoffrey de Renter in 1309. This was a woodland area with 16th charcoal manufacture
Brent Cross Shopping Centre. In 1959, Hammerson and Standard Life Group found what they saw as 52 semi derelict acres on the intersection of main roads. Much of the area had, until the 1920s, been an eastern arm of the Brent Reservoir, it had later been used for allotments and industry. Construction began in 1972 on a shopping complex of two storeys, 610 ft long with initially 82 shops. It was first built in a dumbbell shape running parallel to the North Circular Road, with the largest stores at the ends The 600 foot main hall was finished in Cremona and Lido marble. Originally it was planned to include a boating lake, covered swimming pool and a bowling centre but this never happened. It was expanded in 1995, with more shops and restaurants on an extension running north from the centre. It has one of the largest incomes per unit area of retail space in the UK.
Multi Storey Car Park. Initially it had free 5,217 parking spaces but a multi-storey car park replaced the open parking area to the north in 1995.
Stadium Car Park. Site of the Hendon Greyhound Stadium. Opened by the Welsh Harp Stadium Company in 1934.  Closed and demolished in 1972.
Shooting ground, Hendon Rifle Club

Brent Terrace
112 Jesus House. The church was founded as a branch of Freedom Hall, part of the a parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), in Lagos, Nigeria in April 1994,
115 Preservation House, Ward Dampproofing, family run business dating from 1977
Nightingale Works. Solid waste transfer station and skip hire
RAC House

Brentfield gardens
Motorway slip and apparently part of the A41

Claremont Road.
Built by the Midland Railway on the land of Clitterhouse Farm in the 1860s
Hendon Corporation Sewage Farm.  An outfall works was built on land of Renters farm in 1886 and a main drainage works built the following year. It was later extended into some of the area which had been Clitterhouse Farm which Hendon UDC bought in 1905.  A new sewage disposal works was built in 1914 but by 1935 sewage was processed at the new works at Mogden.
Whitefield School. 1954 Barnet secondary school reclad and extended 1993 and 1967. Specialist Sports College since 1999 and hosts a Football Academy, having academy status. Whitefield School was built 1953-1954 on the site of the disused Hendon sewage water treatment works. A Secondary Modern school, it opened in the autumn of 1954
Hendon Football Club, Loot Stadium. Originally formed as Christ Church Hampstead football club in 1908, following other name changes they became Hendon Football Club In 1946 as they were using the Hendon ground. The ground was opened in 1926 with bench seats were only replaced in 1993. It was also used by London Crusaders Rugby Club and as a location films and TV programmes. It was sold to a developer in 2006 and the club were forced in 2008.
Brent Farm Cottage – one of two remains of Brent Farm
Clarefield Park – small local park of previously unused land. Likely to be regenerated out of existence.

Claremont Way
Rose Freedman Centre. Care home.
Little St. Peter’s Church, with decorative brickwork St.Peter by John Salmon. The church was opened in 1958 and closed in 1983. It is now part of the care home.
Claremont Way Industrial Estate – industrial and trading units, scrap and waste processing
Acre Metals – scrap business
Brent Cross Service Centre- export vehicles to Sri Lanka.

Clitterhouse Road
Surrounded by inter war Hendon council housing. 

Clitterhouse Fields
The old fields of Clitterhouse Farm – although much of them lay to the south of this area. Playing Fields and also likely to be regenerated.

Hendon Way
Extension of the Finchley Road.
Brent Cross Flyover carries Hendon Way over the North Circular Road, with a compact three-level interchange, the first of its type in Britain. Built in 1962-5, by Bruce White, Wolfe Barry and Partners, consulting architects Robert Atkinson & Partners. New high-intensity lighting was used, on 100-ft- high tubular masts.
335 Johnsons of Hendon. Chemical works on the site of Brent Cross Shopping Centre. Johnsons of Hendon Limited began with a goldsmith named Richard Wright with a business in 1743 in Maiden Lane in the City. John Johnson took over the business and was the first independent Assayer in the City. In 1839 Johnson and Sons began making chemical salts of silver and gold for Fox Talbot’s photographic process. This business grew and in 1927 the moved to Hendon.  In 1941 they took over Ensign, Ltd and over the next thirty years, Johnsons of Hendon they concentrated on photographic equipment and imported German cameras. In 1972, Johnsons of Hendon was acquired by the Hestair Company abandoned chemical production in 1974 and the Hendon site was a sold.

Highfield Avenue
Brent Cross Station.  Opened in 1923 it lies between Hendon Central and Golders Green on the Northern Line. . Built on the tube line of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway -later called the Northern line.  It was the first station of the extension of what was then known as the Hampstead & Highgate Line, which had first been planned before the Great War when the station had been due to be called Woodstock. It was renamed from Brent to its Brent Cross in 1976 opening of the shopping centre. It was the site of two passing loops used briefly to allow non-stop trains to pass slow trains at platforms but these tracks were removed in the 1930s. The bridges over Highfield Avenue reflect this extra width, although both north and south of the station the alignment narrows again.

Marble Drive
Hendon Leisure Centre – indoor sports facilities, run by GLL.
Isolation Hospital A small fever hospital built in 1890 on Renters Lane, adjacent to the Hendon Sewage Works (off a footpath which is now Hendon Way), replaced in 1929. Replaced by housing estate. Some of the original wall may remain on the A41
Mural. Painted 2004 by Charlotte Gerrard where local children drew around one another standing in front of a wall, and then used different patterns and colours to fill in the outlines

Prayle Grove
Two storey prefabricated housing built post war by Austrian prisoners of war captured in the Channel Islands.  Later additions after 1945 include shallow pitched roofs and painted ribbed cladding.

River Brent
Enclosed in concrete channels along the North Circular
Weir. It has been speculated this is a remains of the sewage works
An aqueduct used to lie over the Brent carrying sewage to the works site on the south bank.
An aqueduct ran across the river carrying waste is said to be seen at the north end of the west car park

Sturgess Park
Local authority park with some sports facilities

Templehof Avenue
The main access road to Brent Cross Shopping Centre. Barnet Borough is twinned with Templehof.

Tilling Road
Tesco.  Built 1993 in Pale brick
Hendon Youth Centre. It looks Like Tesco’s. Built by Sleeman & Hoare using the same materials. 
Macadam Works. The site became a scrap car dump. It was the only remains of the gas works built by Midland Railway to supply Brent Yard

Sources
Badsley Ellis. The Hampstead Tube
Behind the Blue Plaques
Blue Plaque Guide
Brent Cross. Wikipedia Web site
Brent Cross Station. Wikipedia Web site
Day. London Underground
Derelict London. Web site
Field. London Place Names 
GLIAS Newsletter
Hendon History. Web site.
Johnsons of Hendon. Web site.
London Borough of Barnet. Web site.
London Encyclopaedia
London Night and Day
MiddlesexCountyCouncil. Web site.
Petrie. Hendon and Golders Green Past
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Ventures in Topography. Web site
Whitefield School. Wikipedia. Web site

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bromley by Bow

South Norwood

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town