The grand old country houses in NW6... now extinct?

There was time when the density of population on West End Lane and Kilburn High Road was very different - and not that long ago. Indeed most of both of these roads were lined by large almost county houses...

Maps of the late 19th century show both West End Lane and Kilburn High Road with a series of large detatched houses in garden settings.

So to find the remnants of this still highly visible last weekend was a real treat...

If you're in Kilburn Grange Park looking towards the Kilburn High Road there is a stunning modernist house with a view over the park and then from that house to the main entrance of the park (ie. behind the Black Lion) is a long brick wall with brick built pillars surmounted by large concrete balls.

It clearly isn't part of the park boundary wall and hasn't really been altered since the main High Road was changed into a series of commercial opportunities and rented above the shop blocks. I think this is the old garden wall of Grange House.

As the Kilburn High Road developed so the number of houses dwindled - this was a pretty fast period from the 1860's when the railway boom was underway through to the 1900's as the massive building work of most of the surviving architecture dates from... As I understand the local developments The Grange House, which was a large many bedroomed house, with most of the current Grange Park and more as it's grounds, was one of the last houses to survive.

The economic reality was that such large houses in such high demand development areas gave them high maintenance costs and made them expensive and unfashionable and so over this 50 year period of the second half of the 19th century they were sold, demolished and the arrival of retail and rent...

The Grange House was put up for sale in 1910 and the house was sold almost immediately - the demand to preserve the park was vocal and in 1911 Hampstead and Willesden Council's jointly stepped in and bought the park for preservation.

So that's the context and if you want to see the surviving evidence of the old house - walk into the park and the boundary back wall is there for all to enjoy...