STANMORE Jubilee Line
Stanmore has a lot of hidden gems – scattered, but worth seeking out. From the Tube station turn left and walk down the busy but leafy London Road. After a few minutes you will see Cottrell Cottages ahead. Cross over to them at the lights. There is a plaque which announces that they were built in 1565. They look a bit forlorn facing a jumble of modern shops etc. The library is a real no-no, but the Ernest Bernays Memorial Institute (1870) further up the road is more appealing. More complex than many of its type, it has striped brickwork and an unusual set of windows on the west side.
Cross over near the Institute hall to go up Stanmore Hill (long and quite steep). There is an attractive run of buildings - Elm House (early eighteenth century ) and next door Victorian gabled houses (Nos. 19-21), once a bank. No 23 has a fine eighteenth century doorcase. As you progress up the hill you will find yet more interesting houses, in particular No. 44 a large white neo-classical mansion (now divided) and No. 73, a delicate mid eighteenth century, Grade 2* house (formerly the police station). At this point you may well be thankful to see the Abercromby Arms, an old coaching inn. Next look out for No. 116 which has a glazed green tiled roof and front wall – a smaller house opposite also has this striking 1930’s feature.
When you get near the top of the hill turn right into Wood Lane. First comes the ragstone lodge to Stanmore Hall, then the impressive Gothic Revival mansion (1847), complete with turrets and castellation. Now luxury flats. Shame about the office block to the northeast, incongruous in such a rural setting. The decisions of Planning Committees are sometimes puzzling.
Cross the road (busier than you might expect) to get to the pretty Little Common. First go right towards a large duck pond, and a rusting water pump. Across the water there is a delightful view of some large Victorian cottages with ornate barge-boards. Turn round here and walk up to the gravel roadway to explore an intriguing higgledy piggledy collection of a variety of dwellings of different dates. From here you can get a better view of Stanmore Hall (and that office block). The pathways to the west lead to a small green with a cheerful mixture of styles.
After exploring this pleasant area go over the green towards the main road (Stanmore Hill again). The rather messy collection of buildings over the road is eighteenth century Hill House, once a short-lived school set up by a former master from Harrow. Turn left and walk back down the hill.
At the junction with Green Lane is a collection of weatherboarded cottages, peeping over a tall hedge. Cross over and go down Green Lane for some more pretty cottages (Park Cottages) and the early Victorian Park House on the left. Look out for the charmingly snug ‘Olde Cottage’ further down the road . The subsequent architecture is modern, apart from Rylands, c 1880 which includes part of a former barn. Continue to the end of the road where at Cherchefell Mews there is a clever conversion of the nineteenth century lodge to Pynnacles House (burnt down in 1930).
Cross over to reach the church. Before going through the lych gate have a look at Church Lodge on the right. This was built in memory of one of the owners of Stanmore Hall, Robert Holland, who was MP for Hastings (1837-52) and a famous balloonist. Now for the churchyard. You may be surprised to see a red brick ruin to the west. This was an earlier version of the parish church built in 1632. By the mid nineteenth century it was said to be both structurally dangerous and too small, so the present building was erected in 1850. In order to raise money for it, parts of the old church were demolished before outraged parishioners prevented its total destruction, and eventually it became a picturesque ruin. It is a strange place – through the gaps in the walls you can see the ghostly scars left when the memorials were removed from the walls and transferred to the new church. Still consecrated, there is a very simple wooden cross under the east window. It is open on summer Saturday afternoons and a few services are still held there.
More oddities are nearby in Old Church Lane, first left going east. Much of this apparently Tudor conglomeration, complete with fantastic ‘Elizabethan’ chimneys, was built in the nineteenth century, though the houses on the west side incorporate a tithe barn rebuilt in the eighteenth century using beams that were already two hundred years old. On the other side of the road the range from Cowmans Cottage to the Church House was constructed in the 1930’s, using seventeenth century material to transform cottages and outbuildings that had probably belonged to the original timber-framed manor house. (The present one (also pseudo Tudor) is hidden behind a wall down the road.) One more thing while you are in the area – just past the Church House at the corner of Tudor Well Close is a large carved stone well cover, taken from the grounds of the original manor house - now put to use as a giant plant holder.
Return to Church Road and turn right, walking past a long high brick wall. Behind this is Bernays Garden, a small, secluded public park. If you go to the west end you can get a view of the rear of the ‘old’ farm buildings.
To get back to the Underground station, leave the garden for Church Road and turn right for The Broadway.
Note:I was going to include Bentley Priory Open Space, west of Stanmore Hill, but the nearest entrance (Aylmer Drive) is clearly seldom used – there is no discernable path and it can be extremely muddy.
Photos:
Olde Cottage; Little Common
Cotterell Cottages
No. 23 Stanmore Hill
Stanmore Hall
Cottages, top of Green Lane
Old Church; new church
Old Church Lane
MAP
Stanmore is just one walk from the many to be found at London Tube Rambles. There are architectural gems, beautiful country views, historic places and whacky buildings to be found, even in the most unpromising areas covered by the Greater London Underground stations. Usually the places listed are within a mile of the Tube - often only five minutes walk away. If you reached this as an individual page via a search engine, you might like to go to www.londontuberambles.co.uk to see the other destinations explored . You'll be amazed at what's out there!
© DR2008