History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

As the festive season approaches, we were fascinated to find two stories which involved soldiers in Kilburn at Christmas in 1915. The First World War had been going on for over a year. The men who had signed up enthusiastically in September 1914, confidently believing it would all be over by Christmas, were now bogged down in their trenches in Flanders. The first story concerned Kilburn Lane School . The map below shows the school which opened in 1885, on the corner where Kilburn Lane turned a right angle near the Chamberlayne Road end. Today only the infant school building remains and the Moberley Sports centre has been built on the rest of the site. Kilburn Lane School in 1894 Cookery Class in Kilburn Lane School, about 1898 The Boys band in Kilburn Lane School, about 1898 Christmas 1915 A newspaper in December carried a story about a seven year old unnamed girl in the infant school who said to her teacher, ‘Please Miss, can’t we give the wound...