History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Opposite Belsize Road, the ground floor of Nos.67-75 Kilburn High Road were occupied from 1956 by Raymond Way Motors. For many years there was also a smaller site with an office and garage at No.10, on the corner of Greville Road . Over time Way had other outlets in the area and a motorcycle department at No.36 Willesden Lane. Site of the Raymond Way showroom, (Dick Weindling, 2012) The famous car and motorcycle company were founded by Douglas Raymond Way (1905-1981), who came to Kilburn in 1933. He was originally based in the old Humber car repair works in Canterbury Road (previously the Saxby and Farmer railway signal factory, which has now been demolished). It was the largest used-car dealership in Europe, selling 2,000 cars and motorbikes a year. ‘Don’t delay, buy your car the Raymond Way ,’ was one of his best known slogans. The firm supplied cars for the television series Z Cars , and even had an aviation department, displaying a Piper aeroplane in the Kilburn sh...

Today there are no swimming baths in Kilburn and the nearest is at Swiss Cottage. If you are old enough you may remember the Granville Road Baths, but there were two older baths which have now been completely forgotten. One was on the Hampstead ( Camden ) side of the Kilburn High Road and the other, on the Willesden (Brent) side. The Kilburn Baths The first to open on 1 April 1868 were in a small building constructed by local builder John Cawley in Osborne Terrace, Goldsmiths Place on the Hampstead side. Today their site lies under the rear of the SO Quartier Maida Vale block at 34a-36 Kilburn High Road, near the Old Bell pub.   Advert for Kilburn Baths (c 1870) In 1870 Dr Dudgeon described the pool as follows: ‘It is 15 yards long by 6 yards wide; constructed of cement rounded off at the angles. Its depth is from 3 to 4 and a half feet. The boxes are at the entrance end, 12 in number, with three quarter doors, plainly painted buff, without mirrors. The flo...

Most people who live here know the local landmark the Kilburn State and its 120 feet tower. When it opened in December 1937 as the Gaumont State, it was the largest purpose built cinema in Europe with 4,004 seats. Today it is a Grade II* listed building. Kilburn State, 2015, (Dick Weindling) What was there before the cinema was built?  Stand and Deliver! Originally there was a large house on the site called The Elms, which was home to a number of wealthy people. These included the widower John Ebbers who moved in with his two daughters in 1832. He was a publisher in Old Bond Street and the manager of the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket (which is now Her Majesty’s Theatre). In 1826 he met a young writer called William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) who had moved to London from Manchester . It was an eventful year for Ainsworth; Ebbers published his first novel ‘Sir John Chiverton’ and he married Ann Frances or ‘Fanny’, Ebbers’ youngest daughter. While liv...

Grace Maud Babb was born in Plaistow West Ham in 1896, the daughter of a boilermaker. In the June quarter of 1915 she married Charles Robert Ewbank Edmundson. This was a marriage of different classes as he was the son of a wealthy solicitor living in Nutwith House, Masham Yorkshire, who was clerk to various councils and organisations. Grace and Charles’ daughter Grace Elizabeth was born on 13 September 1915 in Hitchen, so Grace may have been pregnant when they married.   Charles was educated at Asygarth School and Marlborough College and in 1913 he became a solicitor in his father’s office. When War broke out he joined the York and Lancaster Regiment where he became a Captain in July 1915 and was sent to the Front on 27 August. Aged 24, Charles died on 1 July 1916 , the first day of the battle of Somme . This was the worst day in the history of the British Army when 57,470 men were injured, of whom 19,240 died. He is buried in the Adanac Military Cemetery in Miraumont...