History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In July 1907 the Daily Express ran a series of front page articles about a woman in West Hampstead who they dubbed the ‘Queen of Madagascar’. She was Elizabeth Horne who had lived with her husband Frederick at 18 Greencroft Gardens since the late 1880s. Elizabeth was the daughter of Alexander Cowie, a Scotsman who had opened a boys’ school in Box Villa, Marlborough Road St. John’s Wood in 1829. They were a very religious family and her brother William became the Archbishop of Auckland in New Zealand . Elizabeth was born in 1837 and she married Frederick Warlters Horne in Hampstead in 1879. Born in Norwood in 1854, Frederick worked in a merchant firm set up by his father who traded goods with Spain and Portugal . The 1907 Exposé The Daily Express said that, ‘As a result of an exhaustive inquiry made by a special representative of the Express, the public are now placed for the first time in possession of the full facts’. The articles revealed a ‘secret syndicate’ where M...

What began as a prank in the run up to Guy Fawkes Night, ended in tragedy a few minutes before midnight on 4 th November in 1961.   Alpha House, 1961 Thirty-seven year old Fred Burtenshaw had been the caretaker at Alpha House in Canterbury Road, South Kilburn, for over ten years. He had spent much of that evening trying to prevent youngsters from causing damage and setting off fireworks. Fred was relaxing in his armchair and watching television when suddenly there was a loud explosion and the window behind him shattered. A bomb inside an old car dynamo had been placed outside on the window sill and a piece of the casing hit Fred on the back of the head. His wife, who had been putting their son to bed, heard a terrifically loud bang and ran downstairs to see what had happened. She said: I found the lounge in darkness. Clouds of smoke and dust filled the whole room.  At first I couldn’t see, but then I found Fred sitting still on the settee. I shouted to him,...

On the corner of Belsize Road and Kilburn Vale, opposite the Priory Tavern, is a large building which has been refurbished to house modern offices. If you look up at the roof you can see on the two parapets signs for ‘LGOC’ and ‘1892’. This is the date when the London General Omnibus Company stables were built. Omni House today Today the building is numbered as 252 Belsize Road but it was previously called Priory Mews. In 1866 Thomas M’Craken had a small livery stables called Priory Yard in the road. The 1871 census showed Alfred Richards in Priory Mews as an omnibus proprietor employing four men. The stables and yard were run by several owners until the LGOC took it over in 1890. It was a good site for horse cabs and omnibuses as it was opposite Kilburn Station, which at this time had its main entrance in Belsize Road . The first railway passed through Kilburn in 1838 en route from the Midlands to Euston, but a station was only opened in 1852, with the entrance in Belsiz...

Oliver Sacks died of cancer at his apartment in Greenwich Village New York on 30 August 2015 , aged 82. He was the famous neurologist who wrote the best-selling books, ‘Awakenings’ and ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat’, which were based on case studies of his American patients. Mapesbury Road He wrote the first part of his autobiography which he called ‘Uncle Tungsten’ after his uncle Dave who had a light bulb factory in Farringdon. The book is a delightful intertwined account of his family and his love of chemistry. It was while I was reading this in 2003 that I was startled to find that Oliver had lived in Kilburn. In ‘Uncle Tungsten’ Oliver talks about his love of history and old photos: I loved old photos of our neighbourhood and of London . They seemed to me like an extension of my own memory and identity, helping to moor me, anchor me in space and time, as an English boy born in the 1930s. Marianne and I had recently published a book of old photos abo...

On 3 September 1939 the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced on the radio that Britain was now at war with Germany . People expected air raids, but nothing happened until the Blitz began in September 1940. This was the period that came to be known as the ‘phoney war’, but while Britain waited there was considerable public concern and rumours about German spies. A German Spy Ring On the 30 Sept 1939 , 27 year old Wilfred Ronald Ward who lived with his parents at 187 Heathfield Road , Handsworth, appeared at the Birmingham Police Court. He was charged with demanding £500 from a man, never named but referred to as ‘Mr X’ throughout the proceedings. Unless the money was paid, Wilfred had threatened to expose Mr X as a German spy. Mr X had received a letter on 5 September signed by ‘Jim Rickards’ and had gone to the police. They had listened in when Ward, using the name Rickards, telephoned and repeated the threat but Mr X had lost his temper and the call was ended...