Edgware Brook - Stanmore Park

Edgware Brook
The Edgware Brook (Stanburn) is joined by tributaries and flows south and east

Post to the north Great Stanmore
Post to the east Stanmore Marsh

Douglas Close
Stanmore Air Cadets. The cadets are in the one building remaining from the Stanmore Park RAF Station.  This is what was the NAAFI building and it now houses various youth and community groups as well as the 2236 ATC Sqn
Stanmore Park Children’s Centre

Elliott Road
Married quarters for personnel at RAF Stanmore

Gordon Avenue
Laid out and built up by Frederick Gordon of Bentley Priory who named it after himself.  Gordon had come from Ross-on-Wye, the eldest son of a decorator. Who had qualified as a solicitor and then built up the largest chain of hotels in the world. He bought Bentley Priory and other land in Stanmore, promoted the railway and the golf club.
2-4 Orme Lodge Day Hospital. A 19th house, Orme Lodge, was used by the Royal Air Force in the Second World War and subsequently in 1946 bought by Middlesex County Council in 1946 as an old people's home. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and become a geriatric unit of Edgware General Hospital with 22 beds. It was later used as a Day Centre for the elderly and for the Harrow Learning Disability Clinic. T closed in 2005 and subsequently sold and is now housing.
Gate Piers to Stanmore Park. 19th stone gate piers, square with decorations.
Stanmore Golf Club. Fredrick Gordon bought the land which is now covered by the golf course and opened it in 1893. It is on the former parkland of Stanmore Park. Landscaping work by the Duke of Chandos in the 18th including heightening a pre-existing mound to create a 'point de vue'.  Belmont was later part of the Stanmore Park estate and the hill is now within the golf course. It was later part of the estate of Andrew Drummond who commissioned further landscaping work. The remains of this landscaping remain on the golf course although there has been subsequent planting. It appears Gordon intended it as a private course for the use of guests at his proposed Bentley priory hotel and his circle of friends. In 1893 working with his friend Thomas Blackwell of Crosse & Blackwell, he turned it into a private club. Originally there were 27 holes, a full length "men's course" and a shorter "ladies course”. Part of the land has since been sold and leaving 18 holes surrounding the Belmont hill in the centre of the course. The club-house was built south of Gordon Avenue in 1971
Stanmore Park RAF used the park at a balloon centre in the Second World War.
Temple Pond – this is a relic of 18th and 19th landscaping created by damming the Stanburn Stream. It was once a fish pond in the Stanmore Park estate.
26-28 Herondale. Built 1891-2, one of a number of large houses built here after the opening of Stanmore station. It is said to be a late work by Alfred Waterhouse in the Norman Shaw manner. It is thought to have been constructed for a railway director along with the associated coach house. It is now ten separate flats.
63 Cheyne Cottage. 1910, by Clough Williams-Ellis with a vast tiled roof. Two cruciform chimneys and central bell cupola with a weathervane

Montrose Walk
Runs east-west along the Edgware Brook, north of the golf clubhouse. Trees include yews, Scots pine, oaks, and horse chestnuts. Montrose was a local house and home of Air Marshall Dowding during the Second World War

Old Church Lane
Stanmore Village Station. Opened in 1890 by the London and North Western Railway through the pressure of Gordon, the owner of Bentley Priory, who wanted to use it as a resort for posh people. There was  Residents’ pressure for a ‘nice’ building here. Built with Gothic elements in red brick it was like a little country church with a clock tower. Inside was a single platform with cast iron and glass and ironwork supports for the awning with the Gordon family arms. Between the junction of Gordon Avenue and Old Church Lane. It was known as ‘The Rattler’ – and from 1950 it was called Stanmore Village to avoid confusion with the nearby London Transport Station.  In 1952  it was closed to passengers only freight for coal and bananas and by 1964 that had all gone too as the Beeching cuts kicked in.. Much of the station was demolished in 1970 but some of it was converted to a private house sadly in such a way as to lose some of the eccentric charm of the building, but there is a plaque.
Goods depot and four sidings. From 1952 the goods shed was a banana warehouse.
Manor house. The first known manor-house was built by John, abbot of St. Albans 1235-60.  Presumably it occupied the moated site in the medieval village, south of the site of St. Mary's church; between Old Church Lane and the Stanburn brook– roughly at the junction of Old church Lane and Wolverton Road.  Four sides of the moat survived in the 1830s on a farm and could still be traced in gardens in the 1930s.
Manor house. The mansion-house' recorded in 1587-8 may have been new, John Burnell was said to have rebuilt his house there. It was taken over by the owners of Canons in the 18th, altered and leased out. It was eventually demolished in 1930.
New Manor House. This was to the south in Old Church Lane opposite the junction with Gordon Avenue. It was a remodelling in 1930 of a 19th house called The Croft by Samuel Wallrock and  old materials were incorporated into it. It was bought by the Ministry of Defence in 1940 and was used as a residence for senior officers in 1971.

September Way
Built on the site of Stanmore Village Station goods yard

Sources
British History, Stanmore. Web site
British Listed buildings. Web site.
Disused Stations. Web site
Jackson. London’s Local Railways
London Borough of Harrow. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North West
Smyth. Citywildspace,
O’Connor. Forgotten stations of London.
Osborne. Defending London
RAF Stanmore. Wikipedia web page
Stanmore Golf club. Web page.
Stanmore Village Station. Web page

Comments

Anonymous said…
Stanmore Golf Club clubhouse was not built in 1971 but is the original timber pavilion from 1893 with a c1980 extension that houses the pro shop and locker rooms.

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