Why the bridge is so crucial...

This is one side of the many railway bridges that straddle the Kilburn High Road - it taken looking south from the footfalls of Shoot-Up-Hill.

This is the main railway bridge of the Metropolitan Line and is gloriously impressive in both it's scale, decor and condition.

One of the crucial elements with this bridge is it is the only one that has beendesigned to be painted and then by reflection has been painted - and though this angle doesn't show it off at it's best the painting is crucial.

Yet the other bridges of Kilburn High Road lays dirty and graffiti'd - there is a growing body of opinion and annoyance at the rail network's inability to maintain their bridges and understand the effect there bridges have on the street environment.

They may have become a magnet for street art, but their lack of maintenance makes them a visual drag on the atmospherics - come on rail networks - get your act together or does it require some street initiative from us to climb up and paint the bridges ourselves?

All roads lead to... Kilburn?

I was down in the City of London for the meeting of the management committees of Hampstead Heath , Keats House and Queen's Park when I spied this little gem.

Ye Olde Watling public house
There's a great summary review here http://ultimatepubguide.com/pubs/info.phtml?pub_id=353
including the much repeated claim that this pub was built on the instruction of Christopher Wren for workers on the St Paul's project...

The picture isn't great quality - I was in a rush and the light was falling and failing, but of course it's also on Watling Street.

The road later (physically and historically), as it heads north, becomes Edgware Road, then Maida Vale, the Kilburn High Road and Shoot Up Hill, Cricklewood Broadway and off into England's shires...

But of course it starts somewhere and as I dashed for my tube to Mansion House I had forgotten that it was in fact here.

Don't worry good readers I didn't delay, but a return visit to the watering hole before emabarking north to Kilburn seems appropriate at some point...

Anyone else want to join me here for a sneaky half one day soon?

Yes, you can visit Kilburn Priory today...

I have wanted to write a post on Kilburn Priory for some time and it's only in the last few days that I have had the time to wander round getting the pictures I needed in order to illustrate the story. It's quite good and there is much more to see than people realise, so here goes...

Early in the 12th century there was a small hermitage - not that unsual - near the Kilburn river (Kilbourne and various other spellings) and prob also on the edge of the wooded area that led from Kilburn up to Shoot-up-Hill.

Amazingly Hermit Place still survives by Kilburn Vale (pictured right) and hints at the probable location of the hermitage - of course the strategic location is very good and is perhaps confirmed by the Kilburn High Road railway station - i.e. this a good place to stop and alight. The hermit was apparently called Godwyn - his existence is placed at the start of the 12th century in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135). Around this arose a community of religious - probably nuns - and in time a priory. The geography is important because this was a major crossing point for the river and for accessing Watling Street (later Edgware Road, the High Road Kilburn, now Kilburn High Road) which was the main road from London to St Albans - a major place of pilgrimage.

Today, three elements survive - Kilburn Grange Park, the Red Lion (now sadly The Westbury - pictured right - you can see the dating claim above the Red Lion itself) founded in 1444 and part of the series of inns that lined the travellers road north and also The Cock Tavern (first licensed in 1486 and boldly emblazoned on the front of the building - pic right).

It is likely that the Priory was founded under Henry's reign - there was something of a growth of religious patronage at this time - the nuns who settled there founded an Augustine community and this is dated to 1134. The Priory grew in size, but rarely in wealth and was dogged by financial problems. However, it was still a significant estate and had a number of elements - church, guesthouse (possibly on the site of the Bell Tavern today - this may even have been the original Red Lion), farmhouse as well as the associated outhouse for animals, grazing, harvest etc - some of these were thought to be on the edge of what is now Grange Park.

Precisely where the Priory itself lay is a little unclear and I have not had the time to sit down and examine archaeological reports for the area, but I have always been under the impression that much/most was on the now Camden side.

However the gem I recently discovered were the actual remains of the priory.

Just down Coventry Close opposite the Bell Inn, are the actual physical remains of the well (below left) and massive lumps of the priory - the story has always been that the priory was poor (financially) and yet looking at the surviving chunks of masonry you realise the massive scale of the building. Sure, it may have had low disposable income (to use modern jargon) but the resources to build it were not spared! I reckon these pics are pretty incredible and don't seem very widely known or recognised.

The Priory, of course, came to an end with the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII - an audit in 1535, full closure in 1536 and demolition soon after. many of the buildings will have survived and been used for other alternatives - apparently part survived until 1790 when it was finally taken down and the stone re-used.

I suspect that the remains we can see today are from the church/prioriy itself rather than the residential parts - i.e. demolished at the time of the dissolution which is why they lay unoticed until the construction of the current estate in the 1950's.

So enjoy one of the little seen and unknown treasures of Kilburn Priory - still visible, still massive and impressive - what else it there out there - I suspect much much more...