History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Walking through the park today, I thought how fortunate we are to have this green space in Kilburn.  One hundred and ten years ago, on 1 May 1913, the gates to Kilburn Grange Park were thrown open to the public for the first time, but without any fanfare or celebration. The fact that we have the park owes more to good luck than careful planning, as this story shows.  The park takes its name from a large mansion, The Grange, which was built in 1831, despite claims about it being a much older property. The house stood facing Kilburn High Road, where the Grange Cinema, now used by the Universal Church, stands today.    Kilburn 1893 showing The Grange and its grounds The Peters family were there from 1843. Thomas Peters was a successful and wealthy coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria. The last occupant was Mrs Ada Peters, the widow of his son John Winpenny Peters. Ada died in the house on 5 February 1910. For more information about Ada and her lover the Mar...

This is a story about the creator of the famous Bentley car, and the Cricklewood factory they built on the corner of Oxgate Lane and the Edgware Road.  Walter Owen Bentley, or as he liked to be known ‘W.O.’, was born on 16 September 1888 at 78 Avenue Road, a large 14-room house in Hampstead. (It was destroyed by a landmine in 1940 and the site has been absorbed into the school complex at the corner of Avenue and Adelaide Roads). Walter was the youngest in the family of six sons and three daughters of Alfred Bentley, a successful businessman and his wife, Emily Waterhouse who was born in Adelaide. Her father was a Yorkshireman, who had gone to Australia and made his fortune in mining and banking before returning to England. After prep school in Bracknell, Walter, like his five brothers, attended Clifton College, an independent boarding school in Bristol. In 1905, aged sixteen he left to begin an apprenticeship with the Great Northern Railway locomotive works at Doncaster. He and his...