Kingsbury: Public services

PUBLIC SERVICES.

Some sewage was piped into the sewers of Hendon local board (fn. 1) but little was spent on the rest, the responsibility of Hendon rural sanitary authority, between 1883 and 1893. (fn. 2) After 1894 Hendon U.D.C. served the Hyde while Wembley U.D.C. dealt with the rest. There was a series of tanks for the Chalkhill area but elsewhere untreated sewage drained through open ditches to the Brent. (fn. 3) Pollution was already an issue in 1894, (fn. 4) and in 1901 a complaint by the Thames Conservancy forced the new Kingsbury U.D.C. to draw up a sewerage scheme. Although the project was very expensive, the council acquired 5 a. in the southwest, between the Metropolitan railway line and the river, for a sewage farm (fn. 5) which was opened in 1902 and connected to the whole of Kingsbury except the north-east corner. (fn. 6) In 1903 there was serious flooding and in 1906 there was a complete breakdown on the farm after Dr. White dismissed the clerk and surveyor, who himself had dismissed the workers for lack of money to pay them. White took charge personally, employing unskilled men, with the result that the farm crop was destroyed and untreated sewage contaminated the Brent. (fn. 7)

Under an agreement made with All Souls College in 1904, Kingsbury U.D.C. constructed filter beds on Stratford Long, east of Stag Lane, to serve the north-east corner of the parish. (fn. 8) A new sewage farm was built there in 1908. (fn. 9) The southern farm, which was called Neasden or Kingsbury Lane works, was reconstructed in 1924 (fn. 10) and the Stag Lane works were sold in 1925. (fn. 11) Wembley U.D.C. took over the Kingsbury Lane works in 1934 (fn. 12) and closed them in 1936, when the central works at Mogden were opened under the West Middlesex Sewerage and Sewage Disposal Scheme of 1933. (fn. 13)

The Colne Valley Water Co. was supplying piped water from Bushey by 1895. (fn. 14) In 1900 Edgware Road was lit by the Harrow and Stanmore Gas Co. and the rest of Kingsbury by the Gas Light and Coke Co., (fn. 15) which the council failed to pay in 1906. An agreement with the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Co. in 1905 was rescinded by White's party (fn. 16) and it was not until 1910 that the company could introduce electricity. In 1910 the old post office at the Hyde, which had been in existence at least since 1851, (fn. 17) was made into a telephone exchange. (fn. 18) Although three policemen lived there in 1851, (fn. 19) Kingsbury relied on its neighbours for police and fire services, especially Hendon and Wembley. (fn. 20)

Kingsbury also made use of nearby hospital services and it was not until 1919, (fn. 21) having resisted since 1903, (fn. 22) that it joined the Middlesex Districts Joint Smallpox Hospital Board. In 1901 Willesden U.D.C. rented, and in 1914 bought, 10 a. in northwest Kingsbury, bordering Honeypot Lane, for temporary buildings for a smallpox hospital. Some buildings were burnt down in 1912, the hospital was rebuilt in 1927, and in 1931 it was converted to a maternity hospital of 29 beds; it was expanded to its present complement of 56 beds in 1935. Under the National Health Act it became part of the Central Middlesex group and in 1949 changed its name from Willesden to Kingsbury maternity hospital. It was transferred to the Charing Cross Teaching Hospital group in 1952. (fn. 23)

In 1894 there was no burial board in Kingsbury and all interments took place in the churchyard. (fn. 24) Apart from extensions to the churchyard in 1900 (fn. 25) the situation was still the same in 1970, although Willesden U.D.C. acquired a large area in southeast Kingsbury for use as a cemetery after 1928. (fn. 26)

In 1965 there were 262 a. of open space, (fn. 27) most of which had been acquired from All Souls College. The college sold Silver Jubilee park (36 a.) to Wembley U.D.C. in 1936 and Fryent open space (160 a.) to Middlesex C.C. in 1938. (fn. 28) Roe Green park (20 a.) had been acquired in 1934. (fn. 29)