In the Summer of 1972, No.41 West End Lane was demolished because of the levels of radioactivity. This is the story of what caused the radioactivity and some of the interesting people who lived in the house previously. The large, detached house, was built in the early 1870s as ‘The Lodge’ towards the Kilburn end of West End Lane. The first person to live there in 1871 was Peter Clarkson Reed. He was a barrister who had qualified in 1859 and practised in Calcutta. He died at the house in 1876 and left £16,000 to his son John Lindsay Reed of Inner Temple, a barrister who at one time lived in Willesden. Patrick John Benson was at ‘The Lodge’ from 1884 until his death in 1895. Benson was a ‘professor of fencing and gymnastics.’ About 1875 he opened ‘Benson’s Gymnasium and School of Arms’ in Orchard Street, Portman Square. This was a successful business, and when he died he left £21,847 (worth about £2.3M today) to his son Charles, who took over the gym. At the time of the 1911 census the
British Homophone was a recording studio behind the present day Sainsbury’s and Superdrug in Kilburn High Road. It later became the famous Irish dance hall The Banba. St Margaret's Before British Homophone opened their recording studio in 1929 this was the site of a large house called St Margaret’s. The last owner and occupier of St Margaret’s was the builder Robert Allen Yerbury who rented the house about 1877. He soon bought the freehold as well as a large piece of land adjoining his grounds. He used the garden in front of the renamed St Margaret’s Lodge as the site for a terrace of shops. Although completely hemmed in by the shops on the High Road, Yerbury was able to rent the house to a series of tenants. By 1903 a hall and conservatory had been added to the back of St Margaret’s Lodge. ‘Professor’ Sidney Bishop ran ‘The Athenaeum’ for dancing there from 1902 to 1914 before moving to nearby Quex Road. During WWI it was used as a Forces recreation room and in the 20s the Hall be