Granville Road, NW6

Road in/near Kilburn Park, existing between the 1860s and now.

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(51.53291 -0.19766, 51.532 -0.197) 
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Road · * · NW6 ·
December
9
2015
Granville Road, NW6 was formerly Pembroke Road.

At the turn of the 1860s, builders laid out Granville Road, then called Pembroke Road in Kilburn Park. Being so close to the Edgware Road, with its good connections to central London, they hoped to attract a higher class of purchaser.

But by 1871 Kilburn was socially mixed - not as high-class as the builders had hoped but still including a few large houses like Kilburn House and streets like Alexandra (later Princess) Road where more than half the houses employed servants.

Commercial travellers, salesmen, and shopkeepers were among the inhabitants. There was still a strong middle-class, mainly professional and commercial, element in the population.

From early on, however, the working classes predominated and contemporaries noted the horrifying conditions in which many of Kilburn’s inhabitants lived. The overall density of 8 persons to a house in 1875 concealed streets like the newly built Pembroke Road in Kilburn Park where each house contained from four to six households.

It lay in the parish of St. John where 7,000 of the 9,000 residents in 1880 were said to be working-class, there were no wealthy people to give money for churches or schools, and in one group of streets 525 families lived in 81 houses.

Sickness was rife, and in 1875 Kilburn was castigated for its chronic pauperism, negligence, ignorance, and lack of cleanliness. The people usually came from similar conditions in Paddington and Marylebone and included, already in 1871 but increasingly during the 20th century, recent Irish immigrants.

They included a shifting population of the temporarily employed, often bachelors working in the building industry and living in overcrowded lodging houses. Social life centred around the public houses, said in 1949 to average one for every 424 people in south Kilburn compared with one to every 2,618 for the rest of Willesden.

The density of population in the whole of Kilburn remained at nearly 8 persons per house until well after the Second World War and in southern Kilburn was consistently over 10 people to a house. In 1881 in St. Luke’s parish it was over 12 people to a house. In south Kilburn in 1921 there were 208 people to an acre. In 1934 Pembroke Road was still notable for its poverty and overcrowding, and the poorest district in Willesden was the group of streets near Kilburn (Park) station.

A beginning was made of slum clearance in 1938 when houses were destroyed in Alpha Place, off Canterbury Road, but the Second World War intervened

Redevelopment after the Second World War split Granville Road into two halves.


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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

Lived here
Brenda Jackson   
Added: 13 Aug 2017 21:39 GMT   

83 Pembroke Road
My Gt Gt grandparents lived at 83 Pembroke Road before it became Granville Road, They were married in 1874, John Tarrant and Maryann Tarrant nee Williamson.

Her brother George Samuel Williamson lived at 95 Pembroke Road with his wife Emily and children in the 1881 Census

Apparently the extended family also lived for many years in Alpha Place, Canterbury Road, Peel Road,

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The Underground Map   
Added: 8 Mar 2021 14:30 GMT   

Kilburn Park - opened 1915
Kilburn Park station was opened at the height of the First World War

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The Underground Map   
Added: 8 Mar 2021 14:49 GMT   

A bit of a lift....
Kilburn Park was the first station to be designed around escalators, rather than lifts.

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Born here
Ron Shepherd   
Added: 18 Sep 2021 17:28 GMT   

More Wisdom
Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London.

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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

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Charles   
Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT   

My House
I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s.

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NH   
Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT   

Telephone House
Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000

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Comment
Paul Cox   
Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT   

War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street
Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there.

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Comment
Diana   
Added: 28 Feb 2024 13:52 GMT   

New Inn Yard, E1
My great grandparents x 6 lived in New Inn Yard. On this date, their son was baptised in nearby St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Source: BDM London, Cripplegate and Shoreditch registers written by church clerk.

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Vic Stanley   
Added: 24 Feb 2024 17:38 GMT   

Postcose
The postcode is SE15, NOT SE1

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Gillian   
Added: 17 Feb 2024 00:08 GMT   

No 36 Upper East Smithfield
My great great grandfather was born at No 36 Upper East Smithfield and spent his early years staring out at a "dead wall" of St Katharine’s Docks. His father was an outfitter and sold clothing for sailors. He describes the place as being backed by tenements in terrible condition and most of the people living there were Irish.

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Kevin Pont   
Added: 16 Feb 2024 20:32 GMT   

Name origin
Interestingly South Lambeth derives its name from the same source as Lambeth itself - a landing place for lambs.

But South Lambeth has no landing place - it is not on the River Thames

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C Hobbs   
Added: 31 Jan 2024 23:53 GMT   

George Gut (1853 - 1861)
George Gut, Master Baker lived with his family in Long Lane.
George was born in Bernbach, Hesse, Germany and came to the UK sometime in the 1840s. In 1849, George married an Englishwoman called Matilda Baker and became a nauralized Englishman. He was given the Freedom of the City of London (by Redemption in the Company of Bakers), in 1853 and was at that time, recorded as living at 3 Long Lane. In the 1861 census, George Gut was living at 11 Long Lane.

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LOCAL PHOTOS
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Mortimer Place, NW6
TUM image id: 1492961898
Licence: CC BY 2.0
Kilburn Wells
TUM image id: 1481201889
Licence: CC BY 2.0

In the neighbourhood...

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The Brownie - a bargain at 5/-
Credit: Kodak
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Waiting for the number 6 bus in Shirland Road, Maida Vale, W9 #stpeterspark
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Barnsdale Road, Paddington lies between Fernhead Road and Walterton Road.
Old London postcard
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91 Fernhead Road, W9 - the birthplace of Norman Wisdom
Credit: City of Westminster
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Kilburn Wells
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Kilburn Park Farm
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The Bell, Kilburn Wells (around 1800)
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The Kilburn tollgate in 1860
Credit: Brent Archives
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Kilburn House
Credit: Brent Archives
Licence: CC BY 2.0




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