Man with Van Harlesden NW10

Harlesden was once a Saxon settlement. The Domesday Book calls it “Hervlvestvne”. The area was for centuries a small rural community set in orchards with some inns. In the 19th century, Harlesden, then a rural village in the parish of Willesden, began to develop some of its urban appearance with the arrival of the railways. Willesden Junction, Kensal Green and Harlesden stations on the London & Birmingham Railway all had an effect on the developing village. Cottages for railway and industrial workers were built, as was grander housing for the local middle class. The London-Harrow coach passed through the village everyday by 1839. The village gained a blacksmith, grocer and a shoemaker during this period. Harlesden increasingly lost its rural nature, with factories replacing farms and woodland. Sewage arrived here in 1871 and soon cheap houses were being built. A mainly middle class population resided here who enjoyed the availability of numerous churches, cinemas, a court, a library and recreational pleasure at Roundwood Park. From late Victorian times until the 1930s, housing completed its spread across the area, and Harlesden became part of the London conurbation. A jubilee clock tower was built in 1888. Harlesden gained excellent transport links by the train stations as well as a frequent horse bus service to Paddington as early as 1890. Electric trams came to Harlesden in 1907. That year also saw the opening of Willesden Hippodrome Theatre, which was destroyed by German bombing in 1940. Much of the working class in Harlesden suffered from poverty, with the Willesden Chronicle mentioning “nearness to starvation” of those people in 1908.

Find out more interesting & historical facts about Harlesden at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlesden