ABOUT THE AREA

The South Kenton and Preston Park estate is an attractive and pleasant inter-war suburban estate. As a planned residential suburb with its own church, park, school, shopping parades and pub. It is a clearly defined cohesive estate of relatively unspoilt two-storey, semidetached design. The street and front garden landscaping have matured over the years to provide a special and pleasant setting.

The chief influence on Preston's development has been the Metropolitan Railway, which opened through Wembley Park and Preston from Willesden to Harrow in 1880. As a small rural community situated largely on Preston Hill, Preston initially benefited only from the conversion of its farmlands to golf courses and to the sports fields of City businesses, who found that a railway provided easy access to the countryside for their employees.

Clay pigeon shooting came to Forty Farm and rifle shooting to Uxendon at Preston and such was the renown of the latter that it was chosen as the rifle shooting venue for the Olympic Games of 1908. For this a halt was established at Preston Road and Edwardian-style properties appeared to the north as a speculative housing development just before the First World War.

In 1915 the Metropolitan Railway was able to proclaim that "half an hour from Baker Street by fast train takes you into the heart of Metro-land, into charming country yet unspoiled, wherein is some of the most exquisite rural scenery to be found in England". During the 1920's the Metropolitan Railway not only launched a campaign to persuade Londoners to move out and live in the nearby countryside, but it also built its own housing estates on surplus land it owned by the tracks. The railway company was not the only concern to realise the potential of its land and the Harrow Golf Club which ran along the south side of the railway west of Preston Road succumbed to the housing boom of the inter-war years to become the new Preston Park estate.

Preston Road was rebuilt much later than the surrounding major road network, which had been improved for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-25, in fact it survived as a twisting country lane until the late 1930's. The first shops in the main road had appeared in 1927-28, but most of them were built accompanying the railway station in 1931-33. Clifford Sabey undertook the development of Logan Road in 1927 and the Preston Park Hotel and was building houses in Grasmere Avenue in 1932-34, although F&C Costin were by then already building houses in Windermere Avenue, where South Kenton Station was opened in 1933.

In addition to the major building firms, some development companies set up specifically for the task. Preston Park Estates Limited was building houses in Carlton Avenue East and Windermere Avenue between 1935-39. Clifford Sabey completed and renumbered Thirmere Gardens, commenced by Costin under the name Bloomfield Road and in 1927-33 was developing College Road, where part of the original agricultural landscape is still preserved. The dip in the lie of the land at Preston Park suggests the presence of a stream. This was formerly known as the Crouch Brook and it flows underground on its way from Harrow Hill to the Wealdstone Brook. Also established in College Road at this time was Preston Park Primary School, which opened in January 1932.

Extract from "Preston Park Conservation Area" by Brent Council Environmental Services Department, Sep 1991, Ref DC/GH/DP01170