Carpenders Park and South Oxhey

Post to the south South Oxhey

Ainsdale Road
St.Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School. The school was built to serve the London County Council estate and must date from around 1960, earlier than the church it relates to.

Bridlington Road
The Ox, This was The Pheasant, and Wetherspoons.  It is now a free house
Library. Refurbished and extended 2008-0
Car park – this was originally allotments.

Carpenders Park Estate
This is the area to the east of the railway line. It was the second area owned by the early 19th  Chartist Land Co. Before 1935 it was private parkland and farmland.  It was developed for housing pre-war by St.Meryl Estates and post war by Kebbell Development Ltd. The main part of the estate lies in the square to the east.

Delta Gain
Kebbell House. This was the headquarters of Kebbell Homes founded in 1953 by Thomas Kebbell, and now run by his son. Kebbell Homes first project was the completion of the housing development at Carpenders Park. The premises appears to have also been a trading estate used by a number of engineering and other firms,

Gibbs Couch
Swimming Pool.  This was a private pool at the south end of the road owned by the residents. When they decided not to maintain it, it was closed in 1995.  The site is now flats.

Green Lane
Pavilion Pub. This was previously the Brookdene Arms.
Pavilion Bowls Club. Established in 1974.
South Oxhey Playing Fields. This has six adult football pitches and one junior size football pitch, two tennis courts and outdoor basketball site, a climbing unit with nets and hammock. There is also a Park Run.

Gosforth Lane
Your Community Leisure Centre Three Rivers Sports Network. This includes a gym, pool, recording studio, etc.
Warren Dell School. This primary school was opened in 1949 by Lewis Silkin, then Minister for Town and Country Planning. It was the first junior and infant school to be erected on the South Oxhey estate
All Saints Church. This is a hall, office and church complex built in 2000, replacing a church of 1953.
Oxhey Chapel, This was built on the site of what was probably a monastic church in 1612 by Sir James Altham as the chapel to Oxhey Place. In 1649 after the Battle of Uxbridge it was used by  Parliamentary forces as a barracks using lead from the roof to make ammunition. In 1704 a new roof with a bell cote was added and the interior was restored in 1712,  It was used for worship until 1799, and then became a store, In 1852 was restored again and in 1897 a vestry were added. In the 1960s it again had major repairs and was eventually declared redundant, and in 1977 became part of the Redundant Church Fund,  It is a flint and brick building including the Altham monument from the 17th.
Oxhey Place. This stood in the area of the current leisure centre. It  was the home of the Heydon family in the late 16th. The house was twice demolished - in 1668 and again in 1799 - to be replaced by larger mansions, The last house on the site was owned by the Blackwell family, of Crosse and Blackwell, provision merchants. Following purchase by the London County Council it was used as the estate medical centre from 1953 until its demolition in the 1960, following a fire.

Harrogate Road
Harrogate Club

Hayling Road
Colnbrook School. A specialist primary school for children with learning difficulties, autism and speech & language difficulties This was originally Warren Dell Infants School.

Henbury Way
Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
William Morris Labour Club. Social club and a base for the local Labour Party.
Baden Hall  19th Bushey Oxhey Scout Group. This is likely to be demolished

Oxhey Drive
Oxhey Wood Primary School. The school opened in 1951 built as two separate schools, infants and juniors which were amalgamated in 1969. In 1982 one wing of was closed and used by WRVS,  for Adult Education Classes and practice rooms for the ‘Falcon Marching Band’. In 1993 it began too be used by the school again and much of it rebuilt in 2005. A Children’s Centre was also added to the school site.
85 Oxhey Health Centre
Police Station
St Joseph’s Church. The Roman Catholic Parish of Carpenders Park is part of the Watford Deanery. Founded in 1952, the church was built in 1960 and consecrated in 1981.
39 used as a temporary library in 2008-9 while Bridlington Road library was being refurbished

Prestwick Road
Oxhey Golf Club was opened in 1912 with a match between Ted Ray, the Oxhey professional, and Harry Vardon, from South Herts. Many important matches followed. No lady visitors were allowed at weekend or Bank Holiday. The club closed in 1946 and the London County Council purchased the club and course. A small area remains as a 9-hole pitch and putt course.
Oxhey Park Golf Course . The golf course re-opened in 1991 as a 9-hole course and called Oxhey Park Golf Club.
Warren Dell. This is shown as a gravel pit in the 1890s, It is said to have been named from the large number of rabbits in the area.
Carpenders Park and Oxhey Methodist Church.  Methodists among the early residents of South Oxhey got together in 1944. They rented a converted cow shed called the barn shared with the Social Club and opened it as an undenominational church as a condition of the rent. At the first service it poured with rain and the electricity failed. Soon after a Sunday School was started. Gradually a congregation and contacts were built up. When the London County Council estate was planned it began to be more likely that a site could be acquired for a church, but in Oxhey, not Carpenders Park. a site was obtained, the cost of the building to be provided by a transferred War Damage Grant from the bombed St. John's Wood Methodist Church. Meanwhile services were held in an old Nissen hut used as a canteen for the LCC workmen, In 1951 the Barn was condemned and they had 24 hours to leave but it was burnt down. Services were held in the open air until a room was got in a new infants school. The new building opened eventually in 1953.

St. Andrew’s Road
Pedestrianised shopping area
Murals

Station Approach
Carpenders Park Station  This opened in 1914 by the London & North Western Railway and originally built to serve a golf course, so it was a wooden halt.  It closed in 1917 and reopened in 1919 served only by London Electric Railway – to become London Underground Bakerloo Line. Main line electric trains were reinstated in 1922. It was closed in 1952 and the present station opened slightly to the south. In 1982 the Bakerloo was withdrawn and it now lies between Bushey and Hatch End Stations on London Overground going into Euston.

Station Footpath
Carpenders Park Community Hall Association. This dates from 1990.

The Mead
Partridge Pub

Sources
All Saints Oxhey. Web site
Carpenders Park and Oxhey Methodist Church Web site
Clunn, The Face of London
Day. London Underground
Golf’s Missing Links. Web site
Hertfordshire Churches    
Hertfordshire County Council Web site
Kebbell Homes. Web site
Our Oxhey. Web site.
Oxhey Wood Primay School. Web site
St. Joseph’s Church. Oxhey. Web site
St. Josephs Primary School. Web site
Three Rivers Council. Web site