Queen's Park

Queen's Park
Middlesex
Queen's Park Library, Harrow Road
Location
Grid reference:	TQ246832
Location:	51°32’2"N, 0°12’9"W
Data
Post town:	London
Postcode:	W10, NW6, NW10
Dialling code:	020
Local Government
Council:	Westminster, Brent
Parliamentary constituency:	Westminster North Hampstead and Kilburn

Queen's Park is an urban area or neighbourhood of Middlesex which was built from scratch at the end of the nineteenth century and has developed into a well-regarded suburb. It lies between Kilburn and Kensal Green

Queen's Park was developed from 1875 and named after the park at its heart, which was itself named in honour of Queen Victoria. The open space opened in 1887, located to the north, also shares the name.

About the village

The main shopping streets of Salusbury Road and Chamberlayne Road have fewer convenience stores and more high-value shops and restaurants and is now more akin to how it was in the 1960s and 1970s when there were high class butchers, bakers and green grocers.

The Organic Café restaurant and Worldy Wicked and Wise homeware and gift shop opened in the mid-90s. Local schools - some of which struggled to attract the children of wealthier local families in the past - are now over-subscribed. House prices have risen accordingly, with the common selling prices for 3/4 bedroom terraced houses to the east of the Park having recently surpassed £1,500,000, whilst larger 5-7 bedroomed houses overlooking the park on the east side sell for millions.

The area is still relatively undiscovered by non-residents, although it is extremely popular for its proximity to central London by direct London Underground link. The area has a well established community, and "almost village atmosphere" in the words of the local residents' association, QPARA.

Salusbury Road has an increasing number of shops, pubs, cafés and restaurants. The Queen's Park Farmers' Market, which operates on Sunday mornings in the grounds of Salusbury Primary School on Salusbury Road, draws people from across north west London to stock up on locally grown/produced produce.

Queen's Park

The main focus of the area is Queen's Park itself - a park with an area of 30 acres. Queens Park Rangers, the professional football team, originally came from here, as the name implies, though they now play nearby in Shepherd's Bush.

In 1879 the Royal Agricultural Society chose Willesden as the site of its annual show. A 100-acre site was designated at Kilburn, and on 30 June the show was opened. Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales attended to view a working dairy, agricultural machinery and a wide range of farm animals. The show ran for a week, in extremely bad weather. Although it attracted 185,000 visitors, it made a loss of £15,000. It was decided to set up a permanent venue for the show, and the Society chose a place in Twyford. A public campaign was launched to try to secure the whole 100 acres (bounded by Salusbury Road to the east, Chamberlayne Road to the west, and railway lines to the north and south) as a park to ensure some green space was retained in a fast-developing part of London. In the end only the central part of the site (30 acres) was purchased. The park opened in 1886 and was named Queen's Park in honour of the reigning monarch, who was celebrating her Golden Jubilee the following year.

Queen's Park is now managed by the City of London Corporation. It has recently been named a Green Flag Park in recognition of the quality of its services and environment. Facilities in the park include six all-weather tennis courts, a pitch-and-putt course, a pétanque pitch, an ornamental garden, a children’s playground with paddling pool, a children's animal farm and a café.

Queen's Park Estate

The part of Queen's Park which is in the City of Westminster is south of Queen's Park station and hence south of the railway line out of Euston. It includes the Queens Park Estate, built from 1874 by the Artisans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company. The architecture of that estate of some 2,000 small houses is distinctively Gothic-revival, with polychrome brickwork, pinnacles and turrets along the bigger roads. It retains Avenues 1-6 and originally had streets A-P. The street names have been made into full words, (Alperton Street, Barfett Street, Caird Street, Droop Street, Embrook Street, Farrant Street, Galton Street, Huxley Street, Ilbert Street, Kilravock Street, Lothrop Street, Marne Street, Nutbourne Street, Oliphant street, Peach Street). It was on this estate that the first QPR footballers had their homes. It stretches from Kilburn Lane down to the Harrow Road.

History

The park

In 1879 the Royal Agricultural Society chose Willesden as the site of its annual show. A 100-acre site was designated at Kilburn (bounded by Salusbury Road to the east, Chamberlayne Road to the west, and railway lines to the north and south), and on 30 June the show was opened. Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales attended to view a working dairy, agricultural machinery and a wide range of farm animals. The show ran for a week, in extremely bad weather. Although it attracted 185,000 visitors, it made a loss of £15,000. It was decided to set up a permanent venue for the show, and the Society chose a place in Twyford.

A public campaign was then launched to try to secure the whole 100 acres as a park to ensure some green space be retained in a fast-developing part of the London conurbation, but in the end only the central part of the site, 30 acres, was acquired. The park opened in 1886 and was named Queen's Park in honour of the reigning monarch, who was celebrating her Golden Jubilee the following year. It is from this park that the suburb of Queen's Park takes its name.

Urban development

The northern half of Queen's Park was developed by developer Solomon Barnett, who developed much of Kilburn. The two-story terraced houses east of the park, developed between 1895 and 1900, typically have clean, classical lines. Those west of the park, developed between 1900 and 1905, tend to be more Gothic in style. Barnett's wife was from the West Country, and many of the roads he developed are named either for places she knew (for example Torbay, Tiverton. Honiton) or popular poets of the time (for example Tennyson).

The first occupants of the area in late Victorian times were typically lower middle class clerical workers, school-teachers, insurance company employees and bank clerks. Currently Queen's Park is home to a diverse demographic and many architectural styles. Zog House, the revolutionary split-level eco home is located on Donaldson Road. The streets around the park which comprise the heart of Queen's Park is a conservation area.

The northern part of Queens Park is very different to the area south of Kilburn Lane. The northern part lies in the borough of Brent and has traditionally been made up of family houses. It has remained a secret oasis until recent years. The southern part, in the borough of Westminster, was made up of multi tenanted properties and over the past 20 years a large proportion of these multi-occupancy properties have been converted back to single family use and luxury flats. There is hardly any social housing in the streets around Queen's Park itself and the area was zoned as not suitable for social housing in the 1970s and 1980s as even then house prices were above average for the borough of Brent,which made them unaffordable for local Housing Associations.

Churches

• Church of England:
  • St Anne's and St Andrew's
• Baptist: West Kilburn Baptist Church
• Roman Catholic: Church of The Transfiguration

St Anne's and St Andrew's is a joint Church of England-United Reform Church ecumenical foundation on Salusbury Road, and the London Interfaith Centre is based here too. Its origin is St Anne Brondesbury, the parish church established on Salusbury Road in 1902, at first using a temporary metal building known as "the old tin church'. A permanent building replaced the tin church in 1905, in the Gothic Revival style. This church though was demolished in 1995 in the face serious structural problems, and was replaced by the current church in 1997.

The area used to have a significant Jewish population; this has now declined to around 2%, in line with the London average.

Parish Council

In May 2012 residents of the Queen's Park Ward of Westminster City Council voted in favour of the establishment of a Queen's Park civil parish and parish council, and the establishment of the parish was approved in a final decision taken by Westminster City Council in June 2012. It will be the first civil parish created in the "Greater London" administrative area since the latter was created, as these were forbidden until an Act passed in 2007. The first election of councillors will take place in 2014 at the same time as other local elections.

Culture

The local community host two annual festivals at Queen's Park.

• Queens Park Book Festival is held in May, and mixes national and international writers with local writing groups as part of the growing book festival movement.

• Queen's Parks Day is held in September and brings together a funfair, stalls for local community groups and shops, various entertainments (including acrobats and bird of prey displays) and live music hosted by the Rhythm Studio who foster young bands and singers in the Queens Park area.

Transport

• Queen's Park station (London Underground Bakerloo Line and Network Rail)
• Brondesbury Park station, on the London Overground North London Line

Outside links

• Queens Park Area Residents' Association
• Queen's Park Community Website
• Queen's Park Forum
• City of London Corporation - Queen's Park
• BBC News
• Queens Park Day