 A poster advertising the opening of the Northern Line Edgware extension. Image from London Transport Museum. One hundred years ago, the new Edgware Underground station was opened. It marked the completion of the tube extension from Golders Green, on the line we now call the Northern, but what was then the Charing Cross. Euston & Hampstead Railway, owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, the forerunner to London Transport. The expansion of the underground in the first 30 or so years of the 20th century helped spur a suburban boom, as improved transport links allowed people to travel more easily for work and live further away from the centre of London. Property developers built numerous speculative estates around the newly built stations, and other buildings followed, for leisure, education and other needs, some modernist-influenced, most not.  Edgware station (in the foreground) and the town as seen shortly after the opening of the station. Image from Britain From Above. Edgware had been a stopping point for journeys to and from London for hundreds of years, with its main industry being farming and hay making. The Great Northern Railway arrived in the second half of the 19th century, but a population boom did not follow. In the early years of the 20th century, speculative builders like George Cross began to build new houses, with the population increasing to just over 1500 by 1921. The arrival of the tube three years later would increase this figure by 350% over the next 10 years. The new station itself was designed by Stanley Heaps, chief architect to the UERL, and later the chief designer for London Transport, although he would be overshadowed by Charles Holden’s input. The station he designed for Edgware continued the suburban theme he used for the previous stations on the extension, at Hendon, Brent Cross and others. The ticket hall was placed in the middle of a U-shaped colonnaded parade containing shops and waiting rooms for bus passengers, with a palette of wooden doors, black & white quarry tiles and iron railings. The streamlined modernity of future stations like Arnos Grove, would have to wait a few years to arrive at the platform.  Sun Trap houses for sale in Old Rectory Gardens. Image from RIBApix. However, there were more modernist designs to be found not far from Heaps’ Neo-Georgian terminus. Just around the corner from the station is Old Rectory Gardens, one of the first art deco influenced speculative house groups to be built in the suburbs. They were designed by the partnership of Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander, who became known for their Sun Trap style, debuted here. The Sun Trap house incorporated moderne elements from modernism and deco such as curved metal windows, decorative tilework and white render finish, whilst still keeping a traditional house shape, usually presented in terraces or semi detached plans. This compromise became very popular with developers and was much imitated, still found lining the streets of Metro-Land and beyond.  A poster for Roger Malcolm of Edgware, developer of many speculative estates in Edgware and beyond. Image from MODA. The Old Rectory Gardens houses were built for developer Roger Malcolm, who built other schemes in the area, also designed by Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander, and can be found at Mill Ridge and St Margarets Road. Other developers followed suit with estates by developers such as John Laing, Wimpey and others quickly filling up any available space. Laing built streets of houses to the north of the new station on the Broadfield Estate, with its Coronation type house, complete with rounded entrance and staircase tower, found at intervals along the new roads. South from there, just across the Edgware Way is a collection of art deco houses by builder and architect Cyril B Heygate on Highview Avenue from 1933. Nos 87-91 still exhibit their colourful decoration with way lines in red between the two floors and beside the upper windows. On the upper end of the speculative market is 2 Broadfields Avenue, a moderne house designed by JE Newberry for Streather and Hogan Builders, an L-shaped house with a curved staircase tower and streamlined balcony.  The Gas Light and Coke showroom on Station Road. Image from RIBApix. Away from housing, there are shopping parades such as the Quadrant Parade, Station Road (1928) and Kings Parade both put up by George Cross, and built in a typically interwar style in red brick with some deco detailing. A similar match of historical and moderne elements was used by Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander for their Gas Light and Coke showroom on Station Road, with deco details such as chunky name sign, streamlined lighting and doors with half moon windows fitted onto the existing Neo-Georgian shop. The building still stands, as a Starbucks at 81 Station Road, but the deco details have long gone.  The Ritz Cinema, Edgware. Image from Cinema Treasures. Also in the centre of this new town was the Ritz Cinema, designed by architect Major WJ King, who designed a number of cinemas around the suburbs. The Ritz opened in May 1932, and its design was quite eye-catching, with the profile of an art deco castle, with an array of tower-like projections on its exterior, Inside, it was decorated in a Spanish garden theme. Complete with painted woodland scenes. The cinema was modernised in 1968 with a blue metal screen installed at the front. It remained as a cinema until 2001, when it closed, being demolished the following year.  John Keble Memorial Church. Image from Coulthard. The most obviously modernist building of the interwar expansion of Edgware was the new church on Deans Lane, the John Keble Memorial Church (1937), designed by D.F. Martin-Smith, who had won the competition for its design, judged by Edward Maufe. It has a square tower with a concrete lantern, constructed of reinforced concrete and yellow stock brick. Inside, the ceiling is constructed in a diagrid pattern, with a diagonal pattern in coffered concrete. The church is now Grade II listed. Certainly not modernist, but definitely worth mentioning, is the Railway Hotel, an “improved” pub of 1931. It was designed by A.E. Sewell for the Truman Hanbury and Buxton brewery, in a Neo-Tudor style with half timbering, decorative brick chimneys and leaded windows. Improved pubs were built by the chain breweries in the 1920s and 30s, seeking to attract a better class of clientele such as families, and designed to include parking facilities, comfortable saloon bars and dining rooms. They were built all around the suburbs, quite often next to or just off the new bypass and circular roads of the era. Some were built in a moderne style, but most harked back to earlier eras, as seen with the Railway Hotel, Unfortunately this example has not been treated well by the 21st century, and is currently in a dilapidated state, despite its listed status. In the postwar years the area continued to become more built up and with modernism becoming the accepted architectural style, a number of tower blocks and offices appeared in the town centre. These in turn have largely been replaced by the 21st century successors as the town undergoes a major redevelopment in a partnership between developers Ballymore and Transport for London, something which has been fought against by locals fearful of the town they know disappearing before their eyes. Many of the houses mentioned here can be found in our Speculative Suburban Houses 1928-38 Mini Guide, available HERE References
Pevsner London North- Cherry and Pevsner Semi Detached London- Jackson Tube Station Anthology 1900-1933- Abbott and Trower
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Anatomy of a House No.19 |
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