Kenton - History

History

The hamlet was recorded as "Keninton" in 1232. The name derives from the personal name of the Saxon "Coena" and the Old English "tun", a farm - and means "the farm of Coena" and his family who once lived on a site near here. Before the 20th century, the tiny settlement was concentrated around in what was Kenton Lane (the easternmost part of which remains as Old Kenton Lane to the east of Kingsbury station) and is now part of the present day Woodgrange Avenue and Kenton Road.

The Plough public house was Kenton's first, opening in the early 18th century; the current building is not the original. (The Plough is now an Indo-Chinese fusion restaurant & bar and has been renamed Blue Ginger.)

The main road through the area is Kenton Road.

The local school is Priestmead First and Middle School on Hartford Avenue.

The local high school is Claremont High School on Claremont Avenue off Kenton Road.

Kenton station was opened by the London and North Western Railway on 15 June 1912. The Metropolitan Railway's "Northwick Park and Kenton" station (later renamed Northwick Park) followed on 28 June 1923. The coming of the railways was soon followed by suburban development, most of Kenton being built between the Wars.

Thomas Francis Nash owned building companies which from the 1920s onward built numerous private housing estates in Kenton, Ruislip and other parts of the "Metroland" area of Middlesex. Local estate agents still use the term "Nash-built" to describe properties built by Nash in Kenton.

Apart from the infamous appearance of several of Kenton's streets in one episode of the cult BBC TV series "Fawlty Towers" starring John Cleese, the only known reference to Kenton in modern popular culture is the song "Kenton Kev", by the Berlin-based punk-jazz band The Magoo Brothers on their album "Beyond Believable", released on the Bouncing Corporation label in 1988. The song refers to the "pleasant valley" high suburban boredom factor then prevalent in the area, and cites local characters and places, some fairly well known. It is said that "Kenton Kev" refers in fact to Kevin Jones, the US-based property magnate, who was actually born in Kenton. The song was written by Paul Bonin, Philip Ulysses Sanders and Melanie Hickford, all of whom grew up and lived in the area.