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Early 20th century. St Catherine Church of England on the corner of Dudden Hill Lane and Dollis Hill Lane, built 1916. Apart from the railways, Neasden was dominated by agriculture until just before the First World War. In 1911, Neasden's population had swelled to 2,074.
- Early History
- Local Landowners and Life Up to The 1870s
- Railways and The Growth of Neasden
- Religion and Leisure
- Neasden Becomes A Suburb
- The Great Central Railway
- Industry
- The Inter-War Suburb
- Post-War Neasden
- Local History Articles
The name Neasden means ‘the nose -shaped hill’ in Anglo-Saxon. The original Anglo-Saxon settlement was on a well-drained and well-watered site on the western end of the Dollis Hill ridge. A charter of the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan mentioning it is now regarded as a forgery, but it is definitely mentioned in a document of about 1000 AD listing men ...
During the 15th century the Roberts family became the most important landowners in Neasden. Thomas Roberts erected Neasden House (on the site of the modern Clifford Court) in the reign of Henry VIII. In 1651 Sir William Roberts, an active Parliamentarian, bought confiscated Church lands. After the Restoration the estates went back to the Church, bu...
Railways at first increased the need for horses, to move goods to stations. The first railway came to Neasden in 1868. In 1875 it opened a station on Dudden Hill Lane, called ‘Dudding Hill, for Willesden & Neasden’. The spelling Neasden, rather than Neasdon, came with the railways. Unfortunately the station was in the middle of nowhere and the rail...
Railwaymen worked 12-hour days, for which they were paid 42 shillings for a six day week. Unlike the local farmers, most of them voted Liberal. The Metropolitan Railway Temperance Union provided social facilities. In 1883 an Anglican mission chapel, St. Saviour's, was set up in the Village. Its priest, the Reverend James Mills, became an important ...
In August 1880 there were 30 trains a day each way between Baker Street and Harrow. The journey from Neasden to Baker Street took 20 minutes. The railway stimulated development. Farmland was being sold for building as early as 1882. By 1891 Neasden had a population of 930, half of whom lived at Neasden Village. Despite the presence of the Village i...
In the extreme southwest development did not really begin until the turn of the century. The area was so isolated that a sewage farm opened here in 1886, followed by a fever hospital in 1894. In 1893 the Great Central Railway got permission to join up its main line from Nottingham with the Metropolitan. Trains ran on or alongside the Metropolitan t...
Apart from the railways, Neasden was dominated by agriculture until just before the First World War. By 1913 light industry at Church End had spread up Neasden Lane as far as the Metropolitan station. The North Circular Road, opened in 1922 -3, brought more industry. By 1933 British Thomson Houston Co., the Neasden Waxed Paper Co. and the Oxford Un...
The 1924-5 British Empire Exhibition led to road improvements and the introduction of new bus services. Together with the new North Circular, it paved the way for a new residential suburb at Neasden. In 1930 Neasden House was part demolished and part converted into flats. In 1928 Braintcroft School was opened on Warren Road to serve the growing pop...
By 1949 Neasden had a population of 13,808 people. In many people’s eyes it was the typical suburb, provoking criticism from John Betjeman and, later, the satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’, which was printed nearby. But Neasden was never a classic suburb, because of its very industrialised south. After the war some flats were built, but there was li...
Find out more about this area by looking at our local history articles, written by volunteer researchers and members of local history societies: 1. Philip Grant, Neasden's Railway Village(.pdf, 1.04MB) An illustrated history of the Quainton Street area of Neasden since Victorian times
What is it like to live in Neasden, London and should you move there? A frank and honest review by a local resident.
June 1970: the first BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir in the UK was opened in a converted disused church in Islington, North London, by Yogiji Maharaj. [ 25 ] 1982: having outgrown the temple, the congregation moved from the Islington temple to a small, former warehouse in Neasden.
In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Neasden like this: NEASDON, a hamlet in Willesden parish, Middlesex; 3¼ miles W of Hampstead. It belonged to the Attewoods, and passed to the Robertses and the Nicholls.
The first record of a person living in Neasden concerns one John Attewoode who in 1403 lived in a house named Catswoods which occupied the site in Tanfield Avenue where Clifford Court now stands. During the 15th century a family named Roberts became the most important landowners in Neasden, with John Roberts purchasing Catswoods House.
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It worked. Londoners came in their droves to live the suburban dream in new estates in Neasden, Wembley Park, Northwick Park, Eastcote, Rayners Lane, Ruislip, Hillingdon, Pinner, Rickmansworth and Amersham, built by Country Estates, a separate company set up by the Metropolitan Railway in 1919.
