History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Setting the scene Time: late evening. Date: 28 June 1869. Place: Hale Lodge, a large house on Hale Lane, Mill Hill. Introducing the characters ‘Francis, is Elizabeth with you?’ Cecilia called from the living room to her husband who was taking his coat off in the hall.  ‘No’, he replied, ‘I was the only passenger who got off the train, was she supposed to be on it too? It’s the last one this evening’.  ‘Well, she asked us for a day off to visit her family in town and wanted to come back as late as possible. I hope nothing’s happened to her’. The young lady in question was Elizabeth Warburton, in her twenties and employed as a nursery governess to the couple’s young family. Francis Cowley Burnand and his wife Cecilia lived about 10 minutes’ walk from Mill Hill Station. He described their home as ‘prettily situated in a locality innocent of builders’. It was a rural neighbourhood without streetlighting, made up roads or pavements but since 1868, conveniently served by trains on t...

An Act of Parliament was passed in July 1863, authorising the Midland Railway to build an extension from Bedford to a London terminus on Euston Road at St Pancras.  The company acquired a large amount of land along the route, near the village of West End (later, this became West Hampstead). There was no local station when the line opened to traffic in 1868. ‘West End’ station was a later addition, opening on 1st Match 1871 in a converted villa on Iverson Road. Access to trains was via a footbridge over the lines. Despite the absence of a passenger service, the original construction work included building a large area of sidings to the west of West End Lane, to store or tranship goods in wagons. Appropriately, they were given the name of West End Sidings and could hold around 900 wagons. The job of moving wagons and goods was undertaken by railway workers known as ‘shunters’, men assigned to specific sidings. 1915 Map showing West End Sidings and the surrounding stree...