Friday 4 January 2008

Collapse of the cemetery wall

The collapse of the cemetery wall on Harrow Road is causing a stir, so I popped down at the weekend to have a look around with one of the local residents. It looks very dramatic but it is clear that the cemetery authorities have the matter in hand and indeed I have subsequently learnt that the residents association are on top of the issues.

They can be looked up on their pretty impressive residents association site: http://www.ktra.co.uk/ Kensal Triangle Residents Association.

This bit of Brent and indeed of Hampstread and Kilburn is right on the border - but for me that makes it all the more interesting. So I headed into the William IV pub (great food!) and sure enough it is named after the King which broadly co-incides with the opening of the cemetary - and the pub is reputed to have been the drinking hostelry for the cemetary construction workers.

However, I was struck by some of the adjoining street names: Pember Road, Warfield Road, Berens Road and so when home dived into my local history books...

William Warfield was the landlord of the William IV from 1895-1901, he extended the site of the pub, and so the road next to it bears his name... it's pretty appropriate therefore that the KTRA gathers in an upstairs roon there for it's meetings. Yet to work out Pember and Berens...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Often the roads were just named after the builders who built the houses there.
A little know fact is that the pub called the Washington in Englands Lane in Belsize Park is named after the builder not George Washington the first president of America. That sign hanging outside has it all wrong!
Des.

Anonymous said...

but lots of signs get it wrong
some deliberately
- the queen's head in brighton has freddy mercury... so humour can sometimes win...