History
Bush Hill Park was farmland that was part of an estate centred around Bush Hill Park House, a country house. The estate changed hands several times in the 18th century before coming under the ownership of William Mellish, a merchant and MP for Middlesex. By this time the estate covered 438 acres (177 ha) – one of the largest in the parish. The estate was broken up in 1875 with the North London Estates Company NLEC, a speculative development company buying 373 acres (151 ha) acres. Bush Hill Park House was sold separately and demolished in 1929. Initially, the estate was slow to develop. However, with the building of Bush Hill Park station in 1880 the first phase of houses were built between 1880–1886. The houses were divided into a prestige development in Village Road and other substantial homes were completed in Wellington Road, Queen Anne's Place and Dryden Road. Most of these earlier houses were designed by architect, R Tayler Smith for the NLEC. By 1887, following a housing boom a ten year decline began with NLEC going bankrupt in 1887. Demand for housing picked up due to the expansion of the Royal Small Arms Factory during the Boer War and the present form of the estate was completed by 1914. Between 1914–1960 development was restricted to infilling existing plots. After 1960 larger properties were demolished and replaced by blocks of flats. In 1987, much of the estate was designated as a conservation area and halted such redevelopment.
Read more about this topic: Bush Hill Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)