Silkstream - Edgware
Deans Brook
Deans Brook flows south and is met from the north west by the Edgwarebury Brook and from the west by the Edgware Brook from which confluence it is known as the Silkstream
Busy urban area around the centre of Edgware. Some important industry, including manufacture of musical instruments
Post to the north Edgware
Post to the west Little Stanmore
Post to the east Watling Estate
Bakery Path
This footpath runs from Edgware Station to Brook Avenue and is also called Stream Lane
Edgware Masorti Synagogue. The community was established in 1984 by nine families as the Conservative Synagogue of North-West London. It was later changed to the first Masorti-branded community in Europe. It moved in 1996 to Bakery Path where a synagogue and community centre were built
Barnstock Road
Houses with prefabricated steel frames and steel clad houses from the early 1920s one of several designs developed to overcome shortages of materials and skills after the First World War when building 'homes for heroes'.
Brook Avenue
Footpath and bridge over Deans Brook to Farm Road
Cycle path and bridge to Farm Road and West Way
Burnt Oak Broadway
This is a section of Watling Street, the Roman road from London to St. Albans and in the Middle Ages, various tolls were raised for tis repair
Edgware Bridge. This is where Watling Street, A5m crosses the Edgware Brook. The bridge has always been important and in the 14th was managed by St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield and was a wooden bridge and in his default a toll was installed. It is also likely that there was a ford alongside. The name of Edgware appears to be a Saxon word about a weir belonging someone called Ecgi' and this is likely to have been here on the Edgware Brook. In the 10th there was a weir at this point called by a Saxon word meaning ‘the stony stream’.
Edgware Turnpike, this was there in the 19th and there is said to be a blue plaque put up at the junction of Deansbrook Road by Hendon Council. In 1711 the Edgware-Kilburn turnpike trust was established. The 'Edgware' tollgate was actually situated in Hendon, 200 yards south of the Edgware parish boundary. The trust became part of the Metropolitan Turnpike Roads Trust in 1827 and the road was disturnpiked in 1872.
453 Premier Inn. On the site of the White Lion pub
White Lion Pub. Licensed in 1751, demolished 1997. In its latter days it was a music pub where acts, including The Who, played
White Lion football ground. This lay behind the pub and was used by Edgware Town Football Club which was formed in 1939 by workers from William Moss & Sons who had taken over a sports ground formerly used by Edgware Rugby Club. In 1979 Floodlights were installed in 1979 and following a fire in 1984 a new concrete and metal stand was built. In 2007 the ground was bought Barratt Homes and got planning consent for housing. The site is now derelict and the football club has closed down.
391 Edgware House 18th house in brick. In 1851 it was a commercial school, with 40 boys aged 7 to 15. Now in office use.
Stables. Early 19th building attached to, but set back from the front of Edgware House. It is in brick with a clock turret and a weather vane.
Union School built in 1859 for 150 pauper children. In 1930 it became Redhill Lodge, a men's home. It has now been demolished
Edgware Community Hospital – on the site of Edgware General Hospital. In 1838 the Hendon Board of Guardians opened Redhill House as a workhouse. In 1865, an infirmary was built next door and in in 1924. The Hendon Union Infirmary opened in 1927 behind the school. It had an administrative block with pavilion ward blocks on either side. There was also an operating theatre, a Nurses' Home and a mortuary. In 1930 Middlesex County Council took the complex over and it became the Redhill Public Assistance Institution and Redhill Hospital. The Hospital was then enlarged with a maternity unit and a medical block. In 1948 it joined the NHS and was renamed Edgware General Hospital and by 1954 had 651 beds and continued to expand in succeeding years. Despite public resistance, it closed in 1997. Much of it has now been demolished. Although the central administration block remains. The Edgware Community Hospital opened on the site in 2005 but it is mainly outpatient. The rest of the site was sold to developers for housing.
Deansbrook/Edgware Brook. The confluence of the two streams is now in the hospital complex.
Edgware Ex Service men’s club. This club is on the corner of Bacon Lane which is sometimes given as the address. In the 1890s this was the site of a public house called the Load of Hay
Lawson’s Timber and Fencing Co. Lawson and Son was established in 1921 in North London and from the 1950s John Lawson, son and grandson of the founders developed the fencing business. Lawson’s now have branches throughout London and the Home Counties also acting as general builders’ merchants, however this site is shown as a Timber Mill and Saw Mill in the 1930s
Milestone. In cast iron
Church Way
This path once formed the southern boundary of the closed Great Northern Line railway.
Iron posts in the ground marked GNR
Deansbrook Bridge.
The bridge over Deans Brook for the defunct Great Northern Railway line lies between Church Way and the bus depot. It is a three arched structure of 1867 and some original Great Northern Railway railings remained. Some other structures remained into the 1990s – for example, on one of the bridge piers were a gantry for a colour light signal beside the line.
Deansbrook Road
Territorial Centre
The original hospital gate post at the side entrance and much cluttered signage.
Bridge in pretty decorative ironwork where the Edgware Brook passed under the road
Sonorous Works. Boosey & Hawkes factory. In the 1930s Boosey and Hawkes merged to become one firm. They also had links, or had taken over a series of companies involved in the manufacture and improvement of musical instruments and music publishers. Boosey & Hawkes became Britain's largest maker of musical instruments making a vast range and having bought up many trade names. During the Second World War, the Edgware factory made components for Lancaster and Spitfire aircraft. In the 1960s, the firm employed over 700 people here and produced over 1,000 instruments a week which were exported round the world. The factory, by then called Besson, closed in 2001 and was bought out in 2006 by the French instrument maker Buffet Crampon. Boosey & Hawkes continue as music publishers. An 8 feet tall tuba, made by Besson and displayed on their wall in Euston Road was moved to the main entrance at Edgware in 1948 and is now on loan to the Horniman Museum
East Road
Built on the site of Burnt Oak Field. In 1844 a Mr. Essex bought the field and laid out North, East, and South Streets, naming the development Burnt Oak. The name has spread to cover a much larger area to the south and east. Barnet Council later cleared this area for new housing.
The Croft. Used for homeless families
Garden City
Houses designed by E. Appleton and built in 1910 inspired by Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Garratt Road
The area around this road was used for the local fairs after they left the back yard of the George and which had been used for buying and selling horses and cattle. The field here was called and which later became known as fair field. This fair was held in the first week of August with sack races, and pulling faces through a horse collar. It was last held in 1904.
St.Anthony of Padua. Roman Catholic Church built in 1931.It is in brick and there have been additions on several occasions since its original construction. Inside is an icon of Our Lady and the Christ Child, commissioned for the Millennium and five stone statues of saints. The Stations of the Cross in the church are hand-carved and there is a pipe organ made by the John Compton Organ Company Ltd.
Presbytery. Next door to the church
Edgware Methodist church
Green Lane
This was previously Piper’s Green Lane and in the 16th joined Watling Street north of its current junction.
Handel Way
Handel – the Duke's famous guest is commemorated in Handel Way. Was the Harmonious Blacksmith buried in the churchyard ground nearby or did Handel write it while sheltering from the rain. Probably he just played it here.
Heming Road
The Edgware Brook intercepts the road at its southern end and runs alongside it, behind railings, to Deansbrook Road
Edgware Junior School. Built in 1895 by the Edgware and Little Stanmore School Board. It is almost impossible to see what the school is like now but there was originally a clock turret over the entrance. It is said to be a rural Board School like those designed by Ernest George.
Air raid shelter. A concrete structure was uncovered on the playing field of the school and has since been excavated and recorded by archaeologists. The shelters were built in 1939 by Lavender, McMillan Ltd. of Worcester Park. Shelters were fitted with electric lighting, wooden seating and chemical toilets. A year later heating, ventilation and better lights were installed so that teaching could continue in the shelters uninterrupted. In 1946 the thirteen air-raid shelters were sealed with reinforced concrete.
High Street
This covers the old village centre along Watling Street and extends into Little Stanmore. In the 17th it was called Edgware Highway.
1 Grosvenor House. Office block
18-24 Berkeley House. Office block
21 Change of Hart Pub was the White Hart. 17th building with 19th stucco outside. Inside is timber from around 1500
25-27 Gemini House. Shishu Bhavan, This was set up in 1976. Shishukunj is a Sanskrit word meaning a garden of children. This is a child development institute dedicated run entirely
63/67 Casa Bucoviheaha. Timber hall house from about 1500. It has a long, low outline and Part of it has a 19th shop front
75 Masons Arms. Rebuilt here in the 1930s
War Memorial. Erected in 1920 it is a Celtic cross in Cornish granite within nine small granite posts. It lists Edgware's 55 Great War casualties with 'Let us here highly resolve that these heroic dead shall not have died in vain' and 'Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for a friend'. And 'He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it'
99- 101 17th inn with a covered wagon entrance. This was once the Sawyers Arms dated as 1650
105 Handel Smithy. Little timbered building used by a memorial company. There is a story that Handel sheltered in a blacksmith's shop here and the shop was later reconstructed and turned into a shop
113 Zanzibar. This was once a pub called The Beehive.
The Boot and Spur. First recorded in 1753 this was later known as the Boot. It was demolished in 1965. A well stood in front of it.
Boot Parade –white art deco parade with curved corner building. Built on the site of the Boot and Spur pub 1960s
Cage. In the 18th there was a small lock up confining prisoners to be tried close to the Boot Inn.
The Chandos Arms. This pub stood south of Whitchurch Lane. In the early 19th it was used as the local magistrates’ court and where hustings took place. The Court closed in 1913 when Hendon Courthouse opened and the Old Court House was demolished in 1964. The pub was once known as The Crane and reputedly the oldest pub in England. However the first reference to it is in 1600 and there are stories of secret tunnels and so on. In the 17th it was a coaching inn and closed in 1929. It became a motor coach station during the 1930s.
Fire station. In 1896 a small fire engine house was built behind the Chandos Arms run by a volunteer brigade of 10 men. The original horse drawn engine was replaced with a motor engine by 1914 but it was burnt down in 1933.
Edgware Infant School
Imperial Works. Now a tyre workshop, in the 1920s this was the works of the Watmel Wireless Co
Gate piers to Canons Drive. Built originally as the entrance to Canons Park
Edgware Court. Built in the 1930s on the corner of Canons Drive
The George. This inn was on the east side of the road and was said to date from 1454. It also served as the manorial court house and the local fair developed from its back yard.
Mann Road
Developed by George Mann
Manor Park Crescent
Edgware Constitutional Club, with a hall hosting comedy and other events
Ida Court. Flats over shops with a tower.
Meads Road
The Mead has terraces of houses dating back to 1902 and 1903
Leto Photo Company. This was on the north side in 1905 and made photographic paper under Seltona trade name.
Wellington & Ward. Made bromide paper and other photographic materials from about 1923.
Harper & Tunstall, makers of drawing office supplies were here from 1968
Methuen Way
Flash Musicals, youth theatre founded in 1997. They used a church hall until the current site was rented and converted to a theatre in 2005.
North Road
North Road Community Centre
School – this was an annexe t The Annunciation Roman Catholic School, in Thirleby Road.
Old Rectory Gardens
Rodger Molcolm Ltd built Old Rectory Gardens estate, with its Suntrap windows, in 1933
Pavilion Way
Burnt Oak Sports Ground, London Transport Executive with tennis, cricket and bowls. Partly converted to housing.
Rectory Lane
The Larches. A charity established in 1995 by families for young people and adults with learning disabilities and/or autism
Station Road
The road was now known Church Lane in the 19th and previously Hale Lane. It is shown on a map of 1597. It comprises the crossing of Watling Street with the route to Mill Hill and is now part of a shopping centre around the station.
St. Margaret of Antioch. The parish church was first recorded in 1375 and rebuilt in 1765, 1845, and 1928. It is said to have been part of a monastery connected to St. John of Jerusalem with a nearby hostel for rhea monks of St. Albans. The tower late medieval tower of the usual Middlesex type of ragstone and embattled with a clock and six bells – these date from 1769 and were cast in the churchyard by Thomas Janaway. The clock darted from 1756 and was an eight-day ting-tang clock with the striking mechanism disabled in the early 20th. The sanctuary and transepts date from 1845, by Charles Barry Jun. there is a gallery installed for Sunday School children in 1791. There are Commandment boards and an 18th marble font which was moved and replaced by a stove. In 1816 there was a barrel organ, with a choice of thirty tunes and in 1850 it was converted to manual operation with a limited range. A new organ was built in 1915 using the old pipes. In 1907 the church was closed when three feet of water was discovered under the nave and subsequently excavations revealed foundations of an older building. It was reopened and enlarged considerably in the 1920s.
Churchyard. This was walled in 1597 replaced by a fence in 1792. There are many monuments including one from 1943 in the ‘Gill tradition’. A monument of 1908 marks the re-interment of those burials removed from inside the church when it flooded in 1907. A plaque on the gate piers remembers George Whitehouse whose widow had the wall and gates built. A flower bed with a plaque commemorates the Aberfan disaster
Truth Hall. Built in 1833 as a church school and now used as the church hall. On it, facing the road is the word 'Truth' in large white letters.
Shopping parade with date plaques for 1923 and 1925,
Quadrant. Shops built by Cowen and Cross in 1928
Premier House. This was formerly Green Shield House built in 1962 by Morgan and Branch.
Broadwalk Shopping Centre. Built in the 1980s on the site of the goods yard and terminus of the Great Northern Station.
Original bus garage. Built by the London General Omnibus Company in 1925 with space for 24 buses. This was moved in 1939 to allow the Elstree extension to be built, which if course didn’t happen.
Bus garage. Built in 1939 alongside the London and North Eastern station plus a parking area for trolley buses. Part of it covered a recreation ground which had been between the two stations.
Bus garage built in 1984 on the site of the closed LNER station at the rear of the shops and the Broadwalk Centre. Leased in the 1990s to Transdev and Metroline. In 1993 a new washing facility was opened and some of the garage was leased by London Sovereign, part of Transdev, who set it up as a maintenance depot.
Edgware Station. This was opened in 1867 having been built by the Edgware Highgate and London Railway from Finsbury Park, and was intended as an intermediate station on a line to Watford. The line was never extended from here and the through platforms were demolished. There was a station house on the main platform with a side platform, which was never used. Considerable works were done here for the New Works scheme under which this station would have closed. It was on the site of what are now Premier House and the Boardwalk shopping centre. In 1939 it was closed and in 1961 it was demolished. The disused platform still stood in 1973 as part of a junk yard.
Goods yard was adjacent to the station on the south west. It had four sidings and brick goods shed. The goods depot remained open after the station had closed and was not itself closed until 1964. Part of this later became a scrap yard and the goods shed remained there into the 1970s.
Engine shed and sidings which stood to the north of the line. The engine shed was blown down in the blizzard of 1881. Nearby was a water tower and coaling station.
Edgware Station. This was opened in 1924 the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway as their Edgware extension of the Northern Line of which it was the terminus. The station design was by Stanley Heaps, architect of London Underground Electric Railways. It is of a rural stations design and the frint has a colonnade of paired columns. The building is set back from the road with a circular service road in front. Platform one was built for the never finished Elstree extension. In 1986 the station was rebuilt and modernised.
Railway extension line. Under the New Works programme of the 1930s London Passenger Transport Board planned to extend the line from here to Elstree and to make the whole line part of the Northern Line. The Underground Group had purchased the Watford and Edgware Company in 1922. It was planned that Edgware station would have extra platforms for the Bushey Heath services. Thus Edgware would have had six platforms serving five tracks - three platforms for trains terminating at Edgware and three for trains to and from Bushey Heath. The extension would have passed under Station Road, and into a cutting. A rail car shed was built alongside the station and opened in 1924. It was demolished in 1961. The whole scheme was halted because of the Second World War and was never restarted. It was officially abandoned in 1954.
Embankment built to join the New Works line from Mill Hill to Edgware Underground Station. This lies the east of the bus station. Sections of the concrete bridge survived into the 1990 but have now gone.
Edgware Underground Depot. The entrance to it stands on the site of the line into defunct Edgware station
Railway Hotel 1931. Truman Hanbury and Buxton and designed by A.E Sewell architect. neo-Tudor inn, complete with half-timbering, clustered brick stacks, carved bargeboard, iron sun dial and decorative rainwater heads. Closed.
67 Ritz Cinema. This was built for and Major W.J. King and designed by hims. It was immediately taken over by Associated British Cinemas. It opened in 1932 and was to be called the Citadel Cinema. The facade designed like a fortress but inside it had a Spanish garden theme with stone-clad walls and painted woodland settings. Designed by F.L. Philie. It had a Compton 3Manual/6Ranks theatre organ. There were four dressing rooms for variety artistes. It was re-named ABC in 1962 and closed in 1968 when the internal decoration was covering with blue metal sheeting by C.J. Foster. In It 1973 it became a three screen cinema and wads taken over by Cannon and renamed by them. It closed in 1993 but re-opened as the Belle-Vue Cinema in 1993. In 2000 it was re-named Cinemax showing Bollywood films. It was demolished in 2001 and is now a health centre and shops
Thorn bank
Charles Wright Ltd. In 1900 the firm of Charles Wright Ltd moved here from Clerkenwell. This was a pressed sheet metal into factory making medals in the First World War, and car number plates in the 1960s – and it is still mandatory for car number plates to use the font developed by Wrights in 1935. Closed 1972
West Way
Play area near the junction with Farm Road. This is close to what was the proposed junction where the line diverged to go to Edgware Underground station for the proposed line to Bushey Heath
Whitchurch Lane
Edgware Police Station was established in here in 1865 and replaced in 1892 and again in 1932.
Sources
British History. Edgware. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor Forgotten Stations
Day. The London Underground
Disused stations. Web site.
Field. London Place Names
GLIAS Newsletter
Larches. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
London Lost Hospitals. Web site
London Railway Record
Masorti Synagogue. Web site
Middlesex Churches
Middlesex County Council. History of Middlesex
Northern Wastes
Pevsner and Cherry, London North
Pevsner and Cherry, London North West
Smyth. Citywildspace
St.Anthony of Padua. Web site
Stevenson, Middlesex
Walford .Village London
Deans Brook flows south and is met from the north west by the Edgwarebury Brook and from the west by the Edgware Brook from which confluence it is known as the Silkstream
Busy urban area around the centre of Edgware. Some important industry, including manufacture of musical instruments
Bakery Path
This footpath runs from Edgware Station to Brook Avenue and is also called Stream Lane
Edgware Masorti Synagogue. The community was established in 1984 by nine families as the Conservative Synagogue of North-West London. It was later changed to the first Masorti-branded community in Europe. It moved in 1996 to Bakery Path where a synagogue and community centre were built
Barnstock Road
Houses with prefabricated steel frames and steel clad houses from the early 1920s one of several designs developed to overcome shortages of materials and skills after the First World War when building 'homes for heroes'.
Brook Avenue
Footpath and bridge over Deans Brook to Farm Road
Cycle path and bridge to Farm Road and West Way
Burnt Oak Broadway
This is a section of Watling Street, the Roman road from London to St. Albans and in the Middle Ages, various tolls were raised for tis repair
Edgware Bridge. This is where Watling Street, A5m crosses the Edgware Brook. The bridge has always been important and in the 14th was managed by St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield and was a wooden bridge and in his default a toll was installed. It is also likely that there was a ford alongside. The name of Edgware appears to be a Saxon word about a weir belonging someone called Ecgi' and this is likely to have been here on the Edgware Brook. In the 10th there was a weir at this point called by a Saxon word meaning ‘the stony stream’.
Edgware Turnpike, this was there in the 19th and there is said to be a blue plaque put up at the junction of Deansbrook Road by Hendon Council. In 1711 the Edgware-Kilburn turnpike trust was established. The 'Edgware' tollgate was actually situated in Hendon, 200 yards south of the Edgware parish boundary. The trust became part of the Metropolitan Turnpike Roads Trust in 1827 and the road was disturnpiked in 1872.
453 Premier Inn. On the site of the White Lion pub
White Lion Pub. Licensed in 1751, demolished 1997. In its latter days it was a music pub where acts, including The Who, played
White Lion football ground. This lay behind the pub and was used by Edgware Town Football Club which was formed in 1939 by workers from William Moss & Sons who had taken over a sports ground formerly used by Edgware Rugby Club. In 1979 Floodlights were installed in 1979 and following a fire in 1984 a new concrete and metal stand was built. In 2007 the ground was bought Barratt Homes and got planning consent for housing. The site is now derelict and the football club has closed down.
391 Edgware House 18th house in brick. In 1851 it was a commercial school, with 40 boys aged 7 to 15. Now in office use.
Stables. Early 19th building attached to, but set back from the front of Edgware House. It is in brick with a clock turret and a weather vane.
Union School built in 1859 for 150 pauper children. In 1930 it became Redhill Lodge, a men's home. It has now been demolished
Edgware Community Hospital – on the site of Edgware General Hospital. In 1838 the Hendon Board of Guardians opened Redhill House as a workhouse. In 1865, an infirmary was built next door and in in 1924. The Hendon Union Infirmary opened in 1927 behind the school. It had an administrative block with pavilion ward blocks on either side. There was also an operating theatre, a Nurses' Home and a mortuary. In 1930 Middlesex County Council took the complex over and it became the Redhill Public Assistance Institution and Redhill Hospital. The Hospital was then enlarged with a maternity unit and a medical block. In 1948 it joined the NHS and was renamed Edgware General Hospital and by 1954 had 651 beds and continued to expand in succeeding years. Despite public resistance, it closed in 1997. Much of it has now been demolished. Although the central administration block remains. The Edgware Community Hospital opened on the site in 2005 but it is mainly outpatient. The rest of the site was sold to developers for housing.
Deansbrook/Edgware Brook. The confluence of the two streams is now in the hospital complex.
Edgware Ex Service men’s club. This club is on the corner of Bacon Lane which is sometimes given as the address. In the 1890s this was the site of a public house called the Load of Hay
Lawson’s Timber and Fencing Co. Lawson and Son was established in 1921 in North London and from the 1950s John Lawson, son and grandson of the founders developed the fencing business. Lawson’s now have branches throughout London and the Home Counties also acting as general builders’ merchants, however this site is shown as a Timber Mill and Saw Mill in the 1930s
Milestone. In cast iron
Church Way
This path once formed the southern boundary of the closed Great Northern Line railway.
Iron posts in the ground marked GNR
Deansbrook Bridge.
The bridge over Deans Brook for the defunct Great Northern Railway line lies between Church Way and the bus depot. It is a three arched structure of 1867 and some original Great Northern Railway railings remained. Some other structures remained into the 1990s – for example, on one of the bridge piers were a gantry for a colour light signal beside the line.
Deansbrook Road
Territorial Centre
The original hospital gate post at the side entrance and much cluttered signage.
Bridge in pretty decorative ironwork where the Edgware Brook passed under the road
Sonorous Works. Boosey & Hawkes factory. In the 1930s Boosey and Hawkes merged to become one firm. They also had links, or had taken over a series of companies involved in the manufacture and improvement of musical instruments and music publishers. Boosey & Hawkes became Britain's largest maker of musical instruments making a vast range and having bought up many trade names. During the Second World War, the Edgware factory made components for Lancaster and Spitfire aircraft. In the 1960s, the firm employed over 700 people here and produced over 1,000 instruments a week which were exported round the world. The factory, by then called Besson, closed in 2001 and was bought out in 2006 by the French instrument maker Buffet Crampon. Boosey & Hawkes continue as music publishers. An 8 feet tall tuba, made by Besson and displayed on their wall in Euston Road was moved to the main entrance at Edgware in 1948 and is now on loan to the Horniman Museum
East Road
Built on the site of Burnt Oak Field. In 1844 a Mr. Essex bought the field and laid out North, East, and South Streets, naming the development Burnt Oak. The name has spread to cover a much larger area to the south and east. Barnet Council later cleared this area for new housing.
The Croft. Used for homeless families
Garden City
Houses designed by E. Appleton and built in 1910 inspired by Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Garratt Road
The area around this road was used for the local fairs after they left the back yard of the George and which had been used for buying and selling horses and cattle. The field here was called and which later became known as fair field. This fair was held in the first week of August with sack races, and pulling faces through a horse collar. It was last held in 1904.
St.Anthony of Padua. Roman Catholic Church built in 1931.It is in brick and there have been additions on several occasions since its original construction. Inside is an icon of Our Lady and the Christ Child, commissioned for the Millennium and five stone statues of saints. The Stations of the Cross in the church are hand-carved and there is a pipe organ made by the John Compton Organ Company Ltd.
Presbytery. Next door to the church
Edgware Methodist church
Green Lane
This was previously Piper’s Green Lane and in the 16th joined Watling Street north of its current junction.
Handel Way
Handel – the Duke's famous guest is commemorated in Handel Way. Was the Harmonious Blacksmith buried in the churchyard ground nearby or did Handel write it while sheltering from the rain. Probably he just played it here.
Heming Road
The Edgware Brook intercepts the road at its southern end and runs alongside it, behind railings, to Deansbrook Road
Edgware Junior School. Built in 1895 by the Edgware and Little Stanmore School Board. It is almost impossible to see what the school is like now but there was originally a clock turret over the entrance. It is said to be a rural Board School like those designed by Ernest George.
Air raid shelter. A concrete structure was uncovered on the playing field of the school and has since been excavated and recorded by archaeologists. The shelters were built in 1939 by Lavender, McMillan Ltd. of Worcester Park. Shelters were fitted with electric lighting, wooden seating and chemical toilets. A year later heating, ventilation and better lights were installed so that teaching could continue in the shelters uninterrupted. In 1946 the thirteen air-raid shelters were sealed with reinforced concrete.
High Street
This covers the old village centre along Watling Street and extends into Little Stanmore. In the 17th it was called Edgware Highway.
1 Grosvenor House. Office block
18-24 Berkeley House. Office block
21 Change of Hart Pub was the White Hart. 17th building with 19th stucco outside. Inside is timber from around 1500
25-27 Gemini House. Shishu Bhavan, This was set up in 1976. Shishukunj is a Sanskrit word meaning a garden of children. This is a child development institute dedicated run entirely
63/67 Casa Bucoviheaha. Timber hall house from about 1500. It has a long, low outline and Part of it has a 19th shop front
75 Masons Arms. Rebuilt here in the 1930s
War Memorial. Erected in 1920 it is a Celtic cross in Cornish granite within nine small granite posts. It lists Edgware's 55 Great War casualties with 'Let us here highly resolve that these heroic dead shall not have died in vain' and 'Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for a friend'. And 'He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it'
99- 101 17th inn with a covered wagon entrance. This was once the Sawyers Arms dated as 1650
105 Handel Smithy. Little timbered building used by a memorial company. There is a story that Handel sheltered in a blacksmith's shop here and the shop was later reconstructed and turned into a shop
113 Zanzibar. This was once a pub called The Beehive.
The Boot and Spur. First recorded in 1753 this was later known as the Boot. It was demolished in 1965. A well stood in front of it.
Boot Parade –white art deco parade with curved corner building. Built on the site of the Boot and Spur pub 1960s
Cage. In the 18th there was a small lock up confining prisoners to be tried close to the Boot Inn.
The Chandos Arms. This pub stood south of Whitchurch Lane. In the early 19th it was used as the local magistrates’ court and where hustings took place. The Court closed in 1913 when Hendon Courthouse opened and the Old Court House was demolished in 1964. The pub was once known as The Crane and reputedly the oldest pub in England. However the first reference to it is in 1600 and there are stories of secret tunnels and so on. In the 17th it was a coaching inn and closed in 1929. It became a motor coach station during the 1930s.
Fire station. In 1896 a small fire engine house was built behind the Chandos Arms run by a volunteer brigade of 10 men. The original horse drawn engine was replaced with a motor engine by 1914 but it was burnt down in 1933.
Edgware Infant School
Imperial Works. Now a tyre workshop, in the 1920s this was the works of the Watmel Wireless Co
Gate piers to Canons Drive. Built originally as the entrance to Canons Park
Edgware Court. Built in the 1930s on the corner of Canons Drive
The George. This inn was on the east side of the road and was said to date from 1454. It also served as the manorial court house and the local fair developed from its back yard.
Mann Road
Developed by George Mann
Manor Park Crescent
Edgware Constitutional Club, with a hall hosting comedy and other events
Ida Court. Flats over shops with a tower.
Meads Road
The Mead has terraces of houses dating back to 1902 and 1903
Leto Photo Company. This was on the north side in 1905 and made photographic paper under Seltona trade name.
Wellington & Ward. Made bromide paper and other photographic materials from about 1923.
Harper & Tunstall, makers of drawing office supplies were here from 1968
Methuen Way
Flash Musicals, youth theatre founded in 1997. They used a church hall until the current site was rented and converted to a theatre in 2005.
North Road
North Road Community Centre
School – this was an annexe t The Annunciation Roman Catholic School, in Thirleby Road.
Old Rectory Gardens
Rodger Molcolm Ltd built Old Rectory Gardens estate, with its Suntrap windows, in 1933
Pavilion Way
Burnt Oak Sports Ground, London Transport Executive with tennis, cricket and bowls. Partly converted to housing.
Rectory Lane
The Larches. A charity established in 1995 by families for young people and adults with learning disabilities and/or autism
Station Road
The road was now known Church Lane in the 19th and previously Hale Lane. It is shown on a map of 1597. It comprises the crossing of Watling Street with the route to Mill Hill and is now part of a shopping centre around the station.
St. Margaret of Antioch. The parish church was first recorded in 1375 and rebuilt in 1765, 1845, and 1928. It is said to have been part of a monastery connected to St. John of Jerusalem with a nearby hostel for rhea monks of St. Albans. The tower late medieval tower of the usual Middlesex type of ragstone and embattled with a clock and six bells – these date from 1769 and were cast in the churchyard by Thomas Janaway. The clock darted from 1756 and was an eight-day ting-tang clock with the striking mechanism disabled in the early 20th. The sanctuary and transepts date from 1845, by Charles Barry Jun. there is a gallery installed for Sunday School children in 1791. There are Commandment boards and an 18th marble font which was moved and replaced by a stove. In 1816 there was a barrel organ, with a choice of thirty tunes and in 1850 it was converted to manual operation with a limited range. A new organ was built in 1915 using the old pipes. In 1907 the church was closed when three feet of water was discovered under the nave and subsequently excavations revealed foundations of an older building. It was reopened and enlarged considerably in the 1920s.
Churchyard. This was walled in 1597 replaced by a fence in 1792. There are many monuments including one from 1943 in the ‘Gill tradition’. A monument of 1908 marks the re-interment of those burials removed from inside the church when it flooded in 1907. A plaque on the gate piers remembers George Whitehouse whose widow had the wall and gates built. A flower bed with a plaque commemorates the Aberfan disaster
Truth Hall. Built in 1833 as a church school and now used as the church hall. On it, facing the road is the word 'Truth' in large white letters.
Shopping parade with date plaques for 1923 and 1925,
Quadrant. Shops built by Cowen and Cross in 1928
Premier House. This was formerly Green Shield House built in 1962 by Morgan and Branch.
Broadwalk Shopping Centre. Built in the 1980s on the site of the goods yard and terminus of the Great Northern Station.
Original bus garage. Built by the London General Omnibus Company in 1925 with space for 24 buses. This was moved in 1939 to allow the Elstree extension to be built, which if course didn’t happen.
Bus garage. Built in 1939 alongside the London and North Eastern station plus a parking area for trolley buses. Part of it covered a recreation ground which had been between the two stations.
Bus garage built in 1984 on the site of the closed LNER station at the rear of the shops and the Broadwalk Centre. Leased in the 1990s to Transdev and Metroline. In 1993 a new washing facility was opened and some of the garage was leased by London Sovereign, part of Transdev, who set it up as a maintenance depot.
Edgware Station. This was opened in 1867 having been built by the Edgware Highgate and London Railway from Finsbury Park, and was intended as an intermediate station on a line to Watford. The line was never extended from here and the through platforms were demolished. There was a station house on the main platform with a side platform, which was never used. Considerable works were done here for the New Works scheme under which this station would have closed. It was on the site of what are now Premier House and the Boardwalk shopping centre. In 1939 it was closed and in 1961 it was demolished. The disused platform still stood in 1973 as part of a junk yard.
Goods yard was adjacent to the station on the south west. It had four sidings and brick goods shed. The goods depot remained open after the station had closed and was not itself closed until 1964. Part of this later became a scrap yard and the goods shed remained there into the 1970s.
Engine shed and sidings which stood to the north of the line. The engine shed was blown down in the blizzard of 1881. Nearby was a water tower and coaling station.
Edgware Station. This was opened in 1924 the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway as their Edgware extension of the Northern Line of which it was the terminus. The station design was by Stanley Heaps, architect of London Underground Electric Railways. It is of a rural stations design and the frint has a colonnade of paired columns. The building is set back from the road with a circular service road in front. Platform one was built for the never finished Elstree extension. In 1986 the station was rebuilt and modernised.
Railway extension line. Under the New Works programme of the 1930s London Passenger Transport Board planned to extend the line from here to Elstree and to make the whole line part of the Northern Line. The Underground Group had purchased the Watford and Edgware Company in 1922. It was planned that Edgware station would have extra platforms for the Bushey Heath services. Thus Edgware would have had six platforms serving five tracks - three platforms for trains terminating at Edgware and three for trains to and from Bushey Heath. The extension would have passed under Station Road, and into a cutting. A rail car shed was built alongside the station and opened in 1924. It was demolished in 1961. The whole scheme was halted because of the Second World War and was never restarted. It was officially abandoned in 1954.
Embankment built to join the New Works line from Mill Hill to Edgware Underground Station. This lies the east of the bus station. Sections of the concrete bridge survived into the 1990 but have now gone.
Edgware Underground Depot. The entrance to it stands on the site of the line into defunct Edgware station
Railway Hotel 1931. Truman Hanbury and Buxton and designed by A.E Sewell architect. neo-Tudor inn, complete with half-timbering, clustered brick stacks, carved bargeboard, iron sun dial and decorative rainwater heads. Closed.
67 Ritz Cinema. This was built for and Major W.J. King and designed by hims. It was immediately taken over by Associated British Cinemas. It opened in 1932 and was to be called the Citadel Cinema. The facade designed like a fortress but inside it had a Spanish garden theme with stone-clad walls and painted woodland settings. Designed by F.L. Philie. It had a Compton 3Manual/6Ranks theatre organ. There were four dressing rooms for variety artistes. It was re-named ABC in 1962 and closed in 1968 when the internal decoration was covering with blue metal sheeting by C.J. Foster. In It 1973 it became a three screen cinema and wads taken over by Cannon and renamed by them. It closed in 1993 but re-opened as the Belle-Vue Cinema in 1993. In 2000 it was re-named Cinemax showing Bollywood films. It was demolished in 2001 and is now a health centre and shops
Thorn bank
Charles Wright Ltd. In 1900 the firm of Charles Wright Ltd moved here from Clerkenwell. This was a pressed sheet metal into factory making medals in the First World War, and car number plates in the 1960s – and it is still mandatory for car number plates to use the font developed by Wrights in 1935. Closed 1972
West Way
Play area near the junction with Farm Road. This is close to what was the proposed junction where the line diverged to go to Edgware Underground station for the proposed line to Bushey Heath
Whitchurch Lane
Edgware Police Station was established in here in 1865 and replaced in 1892 and again in 1932.
Sources
British History. Edgware. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Connor Forgotten Stations
Day. The London Underground
Disused stations. Web site.
Field. London Place Names
GLIAS Newsletter
Larches. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
London Lost Hospitals. Web site
London Railway Record
Masorti Synagogue. Web site
Middlesex Churches
Middlesex County Council. History of Middlesex
Northern Wastes
Pevsner and Cherry, London North
Pevsner and Cherry, London North West
Smyth. Citywildspace
St.Anthony of Padua. Web site
Stevenson, Middlesex
Walford .Village London
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