Even before the coming of the railways, London was expanding around the area of Rhodes Farm. Building had jumped over the New Road (now the Euston Road) though this road had been partly designed to limit the growth of London within it.
Nevertheless, Rhodes Farm was 20 acres in extent in the 1830s. The land was on the east of Hampstead Road, near Cardington Street and Somers Town. At that time, the countryside was open from the back of the British Museum to Kentish Town and further north.
In 1835, parliamentary permission was granted to take the London and Birmingham Railway from its proposed terminus in Chalk Farm a little further south. The Chalk Farm plans were abandoned, and the new terminal building was earmarked for a clearing called ’Euston Grove’ a patch of land which belonged to Rhodes Farm.
According to a contemporary painting, the farm survived until 1844.
