On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:45:27 +0000, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:14:41 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote:


OT: What do you know about Staburn Court, at the north end of Stag Lane? I
suspect that it's not that nice inside, and is a bit run down-looking on the
outside, but it is definitely striking, if you like Art Deco.


I believe it used be a cinema and was derelict when I moved into the area
back in 1987. It was expensively rebuilt/refurbished in the early 90s as a
kwiksave (I know the guy who had the contract to do the concrete
internally) IIRC, however it was closed not long afterwards when they were
going through a rough patch.

It was never that good when compared to tescos just over the road.

Is this the old Co-op building? When I lived in Kingsbury, 1967 to
1988, it was a Co-op which sold furniture, electrical good etc, but
it was closed as it did not meet fire (I think) regulations. I seem
to recall it was converted into flats, but my memory could be playing
me up in this.
--
Stuart Johnson in Peterhead, Scotland

"John Rowland" typed


"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...

The newish flats on De Havilland Road have wire
sculptures of aeroplanes on their fronts.

Odd, aren't they?

Barnard House on Burnt Oak Broadway (east side) bears an informative
plaque.

Thanks, I'll look out for that.

I am a Stag Lane inhabitant. My next-door neighbour
moved into the house when it was completed in 1932.

Although Stag Lane itself is much older than that, and predates the
existence of aeroplanes.

OT: What do you know about Staburn Court, at the north end of Stag Lane? I
suspect that it's not that nice inside, and is a bit run down-looking on the
outside, but it is definitely striking, if you like Art Deco.

Staburn Court is on top of what used to be the Co-Op store, now
Peacocks. I've never been inside and believe it to be run by the London
Borough of Brent.

(Barnard House is in Barnet & Amy Johnson Court is in Harrow...)

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Stuart Johnson typed

Is this the old Co-op building?
Yes

When I lived in Kingsbury, 1967 to
1988, it was a Co-op which sold furniture, electrical good etc, but
it was closed as it did not meet fire (I think) regulations. I seem
to recall it was converted into flats, but my memory could be playing
me up in this.

Peacock's occupies the ground floor. The upper floors are flats,
accessed from an entrance on Stag Lane.

Graffitti on the sidewalls was a major problem until July 2002, when
Barnfield Primary School painted a lovely, lively mural. There is still
some grafitti but it usually gets overpainted fairly rapidly.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

The cinema was just along the Edgware road (heading north) just past the
Woolworths which is still there (actually on the site of ICELAND) Look at
the brickwork closley and you can make out where the cinema was.

The Co-Op was the department store and the Tescos used to be around the cnr
(now Superdrug) before the New Tescos was built.

Green shield stamps anyone?

"Roger the cabin boy" typed


The cinema was just along the Edgware road (heading north) just past the
Woolworths which is still there (actually on the site of ICELAND) Look at
the brickwork closley and you can make out where the cinema was.

The Co-Op was the department store and the Tescos used to be around the cnr
(now Superdrug) before the New Tescos was built.

Green shield stamps anyone?


Nah, Green Shield House (now Premier House) was on Station Road Edgware.
It's still a local landmark.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

From: Stuart Johnson
Date: 19/11/2003 21:12 GMT Standard Time

the original wooden office from Stag Lane survives as the de
Havilland Museum at the company's 'new' airfield at Hatfield.

I'm not too sure it does now though. British Aerospace vacated Hatfield some
ten years ago now and much of the site has been redeveloped since then. The old
wooden hut used to be next door to what became the Universitybus garage, before
they moved to a brand new one elsewhere in the town.

A couple of years back I spoke to the chief planning officer of Welwyn Hatfield
District Council and suggested the hut was worth preserving once the site was
redeveloped. He half-heartedly agreed, but I don't know what's happened to it
since.

Some more early history of the Stag Lane area which may be of
interest, again from a Wembley History Society booklet.

North of Grove Park the present-day alignment of Stag Lane veers
north-west on its way to Burnt Oak. In the 1920's near this road bend
stood a shed from which the local farmer, Macintyre, sold milk. On
this side of Stag Lane, adjoining the Kingsbury Services Club, is the
site of the controversial filter beds built by Kingsbury Urban
District Council in 1908 to serve north east Kingsbury, following the
serious contamination of local water courses. The works were sold in
1925. In 1937 the site was acquired by Wembley Urban District Council,
later to become a council depot until, on 5th October 1983, it was
leased by Brent Council to the Sikh community for 125 years.

To the north of this point stood Shoelands farm whose farmlands were
acquired by the Aircraft Manufacturing Company ('Airco') in 1914 for
the manufacture of aircraft, but the farm buildings survived for a
while under Bob Pettitt. Conditions at his slaughterhouse there were
causing the Council some concern in 1916. Pettitt was still there in
1917 when it was licensed as a slaughterhouse of horses for human
consumption. The farm buildings, later demolished for industry as part
of the Kingsbury Town Planning Scheme of 1922, were of recent
construction. In 1863 the farm, which Augustus Bishop (Bailiff)
occupied in 1841, lay on the east side of the Edgware Road but by
November 1904 the old farmhouse found itself adjoining the
Metropolitan Electric Tramways new Hendon Depot, and replacement farm
premises were constructed on the west side.

The first housing development in Stag lane occurred prior to the First
World Mar. Only part of a once much larger proposal was built, and
survives today as the Harbornes Estates, A plaque on the end wall of
No. 2 Stag lane (now a dentists) commemorates the laying of the first
bricks in 1909 by A.van Zwanenberg, T.W. KnowIden, Coote Reynolds and
J.W. Reeves presumably the later Kingsbury U.D.C. Chairman. F.J.
Wheeler of Auckland Hill, West Norwood, built the estate to designs by
the architect, Herbert Bignold. Of Lavender Hill. These Edwardian
houses line the north side of Stag Lane from its junction with the
Edgware Road - now Burnt Oak Broadway, to what is now its junction
with Mollison Way. These properties were once the only estate of
houses in the road. It was the First World War which brought about the
construction of the second estate - that of Roe Green Village - to the
south. The War also brought heavy traffic to Stag lane, some of which
was bound for the land to the west of the Harbornes Estates which
became known as Stag Lane Aerodrome.

The Aerodrome was established in 1916 by the London & Provincial
Aviation Company whose proprietors, W.T. Warren and M.G. Smiles, ran a
school of flying there until the end of the War. Previously, from
1914, they had operated a flying school at Hendon and built several
Caudron machines there before developing their own designs, of which
about 6 aircraft were built. After the end of the war the flying
school closed and Warren & Smiles experimented with the manufacture,
first of furniture, and then of chocolate. The London & Provincial
Aviation Company flew copies of the Evening Standard from Stag Lane to
Southsea in June 1919, using an Armstrong Whitworth plane that ended
its days at Great Yarmouth whilst under contract to the Daily Sketch.
In October 1920 Warren & Smiles rented their premises to the
newly-formed de Havilland Aircraft Company. This Company had been
registered on 25th September 1920, with a working capital of only
£1,875. Geoffrey de Havilland, once Chief Designer at Airco, who had
been based in the Edgware Road at Colindale, brought with him a number
of his departmental colleagues after Airco's demise in 1920. They
moved into a wooden office building and set about completing two DH18
aircraft that had been started at Airco. Early in 1921, with the help
of a financier, Alan Butler, the de Havilland Aircraft Company bought
the airfield, comprising some 76 acres, from William Warren for
£20,000.

At first de Havilland offered air-taxi services, repaired and
reconditioned aircraft and equipment, and designed or built anything
to anybody's requirements.

Sir Alan Cobham, who became famous for his pre?war air circuses and
post-war flight refuelling, ran the taxi services from Stag Lane with
a dozen converted DH bombers. "Among his customers were newspaper
photographers, salvage men surveying wrecks, and wealthy people on
jaunts around Europe. Crop dusting was tried as early as 1922 and, in
the same year, films of the Derby were flown to cities and towns
throughout Britain and shown in cinemas the same evening".

Within two years of occupation, de Havillands had built several
Bessoneaux hangars and a permanent erecting shop, and the workforce
had increased from 50 to 200. By 1926 more hangars had appeared as
well as new erecting sheds, sawmills, dope shops, premises for the
London Aeroplane Club opened the previous year, and the de Havilland
School of Flying. The workforce had risen to 1,000. The rapid
expansion was due mainly to the production of the DH60 Moth, the
prototype of which, G-EBKT, was taken up by Captain de Havilland on
its maiden flight on 22nd February 1925.

By 1927 Stag lane Aerodrome had become a regular testing and
demonstration ground for parachutes, and it became colourful with red,
blue, yellow and green aircraft for flying clubs throughout the
country. Six lock-up 'aerial garages' were established for Moth owners
in 1927. Flying records were broken and among the pilots who broke
them were de Havilland, Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison.

In 1931 the Tiger Moth made its first flight from Stag Lane, an
aircraft on which many pilots trained during the Second World War. In
1933 three twin-engine Comet racers were built there for the 1934
London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race.

Another famous aviator of the inter-war years was Jean Batten. She,
too, learnt to fly at Stag Lane and, in her autobiography 'Alone in
the Sky' (Airlife 1979), she described Stag Lane and her memory of it.
"It was not a good aerodrome for it sloped quite steeply from the road
to form a depression like a shallow basin and, from the Clubhouse, one
could not see an aeroplane in the centre of the landing area as it was
completely hidden in the dip. During the winter the ground became
quite sodden in places and it was very difficult to taxi through the
mud. Perhaps because of all this the cost of flying at the London
Aeroplane Club was less than elsewhere". She went on to say that the
cost of hiring an aeroplane for solo flying was £1.10/-.

The encroachment of suburbia threatened the survival of the aerodrome
and in the early 1930's de Havilland moved his premises to a
newly-acquired open site at Hatfield. In January 1934 Stag Lane was
officially closed as an aerodrome. The Engine Division remained but
the open land, some 62 acres, was sold to Hilbery Chaplin Ltd.
Geoffrey de Havilland made the last flight out of Stag Lane on 28th
July 1934. In 1960 the Engine Division at Stag Lane was taken over by
the Hawker Siddeley Group, which used the works until the sale of the
site to Brixton Estate limited in 1969. It is now occupied in part by
an international telephone exchange and Bankers Automated Clearing
Services Ltd.

AMY JOHNSON

Amy Johnson was born at 154 St Georges Road, Hull on 1st July 1903.
She attended Sheffield University and then worked as a secretary in a
London solicitor's office.

One Sunday afternoon in 1927 she rode by bus to Edgware and, exploring
the area, came across Stag Lane Aerodrome just off the main road at
Burnt Oak. She straightaway decided that she wanted to be a pilot and,
with some financial help from her parents, soon qualified. Her hobby,
however, caused her to lose her job as a secretary and she went to
work in the engineering shops of the London Aeroplane Club where she
obtained a Ground Engineer's Certificate.

In 1932 she married Jim Mollison, a former RAF pilot and famous
civilian aviator. Although they broke a number of aviation records
together their marriage was not a success and they separated in 1936.

Her name is one of three with an aviation connection commemorated on
the Aerodrome Estate today - Amy Johnson Court, Mollison Way and de
Havilland Road.

--
Stuart Johnson in Peterhead, Scotland

Thanks for that.

Helen of Stag Lane

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

There is a plaque in De Havilland Road stating that the aerodrome used to
be
on this site. Which area did it cover, i.e. which roads or parts of roads
are built on its site?

A lot of interesting information has come from this conversation and it
reminded me of the six years in the 1980's when I managed a carpet shop on
Burnt Oak Broadway. I got to know quite a few of the older residents of the
area and one gentleman, who was 86 at the time, told me that he remembered
the introduction of trams along the Edgware Road and apparently rides were
free on the first day of operation. He also remembered that one of the
circuses (I think Bertram Mills) used to have their winter quarters nearby,
to the east of the Edgware Road.
I was there during the time of the rebuilding of the old Co-Op and at the
time the new flats were alleged to be very posh - certainly a lot better
than the derelict hulk which the old shop had become.
Barry Emmott


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