Borehamwood – an overspill town

In times gone by, the bus routes of London were l-o-n-g.

London Transport have shortened routes in more modern days, both for the logistic reasons of bus station/depot placement and the slow speed of traffic-clogged streets. The latter reason causes huge problems in timetable planning. Thus, the modern route 2 does not cross a huge distance from Golders Green to far off south London. Nor does the 15 ply from east to west London.

The 52 route is a shadow of its former self. It always started in Victoria and was the main bus route, as today, plying through the streets of North Kensington. But it didn’t stop at Willesden. It carried on up Blackbird Hill near Wembley, via the back streets of Kingsbury and through Burnt Oak. In later times it terminated at Mill Hill Boradway but in the 1950s and 1960s even further, over Apex and Stirling Corners on the A1 it journeyed and off to the wilds of Borehamwood.

But why are we talking about buses here?

The post-war Labour government had a new plan for London. The overcrowded areas of the inner city were to be given the chance to move to the open country spaces of new estates. The green belt was established but opt outs were made for a series of new towns surrounding London. Some large ones were the likes of Stevenage, Harlow and Milton Keynes. But smaller ones were also planned and built by the London County Council.

One of these was Borehamwood in Hertfordshire – formerly a village called “Boreham Wood”, the name was modernised to fit the new, golden post-war times. Home to a series of film studios called “Elstree”, its rural idyll was, even before the outbreak of war, already being compromised by a series of industrial facilities along a new road called Elstree Way.

Once planned to be a sort of British Hollywood with luxury homes amidst the hills, priorities changed and, with some industry already existing, the film studios plus excellent communications to London by road and rail, the site was chosen for a new suburb.

Some new roads around which a new town would develop were already in place in the 1930s. Post-war, Borehamwood was planned in two sections – the southern half, south of the high street (Shenley Road, a.k.a “The Village), was started in the 1940s. The northern half was built mainly in the 1950s.

The council house stock was built with little variation – some larger council houses along Theobald Street but the rest of the development being very similar throughout. Most new roads, especially in the northern section built later, were named after towns alongside the A1 – Stevenage Crescent, Berwick Road and so forth.

The new town needed a population. Car ownership was very low in the 1940s and 1950s with people relying on buses. In this way, Borehamwood attracted most of its people from places along the 52 bus route, especially from the W10 and NW10 postal codes.

Relocated Borehamwooders could travel back and forth from North Kensington or Kensal Rise.

But this blog, this far, has been long featuring the likes of North Kensington and  Kensal Rise. Today we will take a look at the new town of Borehamwood before the new town was there. These photos all come from the collection of Britain from Above which presents the unique Aerofilms collection of aerial photographs from 1919-1953.

They are copyright Historic England..

Fuzrehill Road and the Horses Home

Fuzrehill Road and the Horses Home

The road at the very bottom of the picture above is Barnet Lane and Furzehill Road can be seen coming to a junction with it. On Furzehill Road, the main buildings we can see are those of the Home of Rest For Horses..

Ripon Way is the white-coloured road running left to right across the scene. Follow this right, and the service road which will host many industrial office buildings is already built but unoccupied save for one building. Ripon Way runs onto the Barnet By Pass which is the main road in the distance. Ripon Way had just been built across the fields in anticipation of development.

Running up to Ripon Way from Furzehill Road to the left of the Horses Home is another new road – the future Ashley Drive is just being laid out with markers – the building of the road is still to come.

The oval area in the corner of Ripon Way and the A1 is the briefly existing “Barnet Grass Speedway” track on top of the site of the modern Saffron Green School. .

Beyond this is a very rough area of ground where Tempford Green now is.

And beyond that, no flyover. Elstree Way and Rowley Lane simply cross the A1. The Thatched Barn is there but way in the distance so cannot really be made out.

The plane flight which captured the photos took place on 30 May 1939.

Borehamwood1-1928

Looking north along Furzehill Road in 1928

A decade earlier, another Aerofilms flight took off in July 1928. Here we look along Furzehill Road, one of the most developed roads in the earlier period of Borehamwood development.

Borehamwood2-1928

Looking north from above the mouth of Elstree tunnel, 1928

A few moments before, the same plane on the same day flew over the mouth of Elstree railway tunnel and took this view looking north.

Borehamwood1-1938

Borehamwood – new roads, 1938

Here we see a view looking east along the line of Elstree Way. The square development is the MGM Film Studios, recently built. The bottommost of the new, white-coloured roads running right (south) from Elstree Way on this photo is Bullhead Road. This road connected Bullbaiters Farm with Elstree Way.

Beyond this is the parallel and longer Manor Way, already with two roundabouts in place. The southernmost (rightmost on the photo) connects with Ripon Way (see first photo) which runs towards the Barnet By Pass (A1) which is the major highway running across the photo, north to south (left to right). The older Rowley Lane meets newer Elstree Way at the A1 and the Thatched Barn is situated at the junction.

Borehamwood2-1938

Borehamwood – new roads, 1938

The view is some of the same area from the previous photo but the top of the photo is now north. Ashley Drive leaves Furzehill Road from the bottom of the photo (see the very first photo), crosses Ripon Way and is the modern Balmoral Drive going north from the small roundabout. The sharp right hand bend will mark out the future Wansford Park. To the north of it, Tempsford Green will one day preserve the green field.

The junction of Manor Way and Ripon Way is marked by a roundabout built right on top of the former Cranes Farm. The farm’s name is remembered in the name of Cranes Way – the other road, which connects the “Bull and Tiger” roundabout and Furzehill Road.

Borehamwood3-1938

Borehamwood – new roads, 1938

And here is another angle of the same scene.

brooklands1949

Brooklands, Theobald Street, 1949.

Our final two photos take the story forward ten years to 1949.

Brooklands was an old farm on Theobald Street, situated just to the north of the junction where Wetherby Road meets Theobald Street.They are making haystacks and seem to have requestioned army vehicles for transporting them. No trace of Brooklands remains.

1949

A steam train enters Elstree Tunnel from the north in 1949

The final photograph is simply here because it’s interesting!

 

5 comments

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    • Elaine phillips on July 8, 2017 at 8:32 am
    • Reply

    Hi,
    Can you tell me why the roads were named after towns on the A1 , and by whom?
    Kind Regards,
    Elaine

    • Bob on April 3, 2021 at 11:07 am
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    It doesn’t make any sence to me why the whole of Borehamwood has not been included in London Boundaries, can you throw any light on this question., please?

    Thank you.

  1. When the new boundaries were conceived in 1965, the thought was that London stopped where the Green Belt began. Hertfordshire lost Barnet to London (urban and contiguous with London) and gained Potters Bar from Middlesex (still a town surrounded by countryside).

    No other changes were made to the boundaries of Hertfordshire

    • Bob on April 4, 2021 at 11:49 am
    • Reply

    Thank you for replying, This decision in 1965 was probably helped by the rapidly falling population in London, a rethink is well overdue and the correction could be up to the M25.
    “Greenbelts don’t prevent urban sprawl; the sprawl just hops over them,” Oxford geographer Danny Dorling says in the New Statesman:
    Kind regards
    Bob.

  2. Indeed Danny Dorling is right. But it’s also amazing that in 1919, London’s urban area had not yet hopped over the railway line at Kensal Rise – beyond was fields. Twenty years later in 1939, solid building in London had reached Canon’s Corner at the bottom of Brockley Hill, Stanmore. 82 years after that, London’s sprawl still stops at Canon’s Corner.

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