Dollis Hill

[Ali H.]

I had a quick look at the car repair place yesterday. If it does stand where McCurd was, then it's changed massively - the buildings are actually angled, not straight as in that photo. But it's a hundred years ago, so things change. Anyhow, I'll go factory hunting again and get photos.

[johnboy]

I still think some evidence has built over so no footprints for the older buildings. If the railway still survives 'Cricklewood Curve' might give a clue as to if the tanks and Whippetts arrived right on site or were travelled from the other side of Edgware Road.

With the number of people coming and going and the sound of engines it was not very secret to those living or working in the area.

[Ali H.]

On 04/10/2016 at 11:05, johnboy said:

I still think some evidence has built over so no footprints for the older buildings. If the railway still survives 'Cricklewood Curve' might give a clue as to if the tanks and Whippetts arrived right on site or were travelled from the other side of Edgware Road.

With the number of people coming and going and the sound of engines it was not very secret to those living or working in the area.

 

Don't forget that very few people actually lived in the area then. A few marker houses had been built but it was mostly still fields - other than the Railway Terraces on the East side. Totally agree things have been built over. (I've now got Brent's Heritage officer involved on the outbuildings!)

[NigelS]

Revisiting this after quite a gap. A postcard of Dollis Hill Farm has turned up on ebay  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372208990195?ul_noapp=true

 

The house shown has more than a passing resemblance to that in the background of the MKI tank in Post #11.  The postcard appears to have been taking looking along the farm's drive from Dollis Hill Lane

 

knowing the transitory nature of farm outbuildings it would be wrong to assume that the one shown in the tank image is that shown immediately  to the left of the 'X' but it's possible to speculate that it  might be, and  that the picture was taken from  somewhere on the border of the paddock & Dollis Hill Lane with the fencing/screening visible in the background to the left running along the west side of the farm drive.  The Farm, now long gone, does still appear on a later, between the wars, large scale maps:-

6" Middlesex XI.SW Revised: 1938 Published: 1947 http://maps.nls.uk//view/101454883

25" Middlesex XI.14 Revised: 1936 Published: 1938  http://maps.nls.uk//view/103657946

but, sadly, none of the readily available aerial photos of  the 1930s, which centre on St Andrews Hospital a little further to the east, although getting tantalisingly close, show the farm (EPW036574 does  show, at its top, what must be the fledgling GPO Research site where development on the early computer hardware used to crack Enigma codes took place during WWII)

https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW036571

https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW036573

https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW036574

https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW036575 

If this identification is correct, the proving ground at Dollis Hill would have been much larger than I'd previously considered.

NigelS

 

 

[Ali H.]

Picking up on this after a VERY long time. I don't think the Dollis Hill Farm location is the right one. The farm was known as Jack Shepherd's house .

 

There's no extant remnants of the Great Wall for one thing - and it's also on a very high, very visible site, much farther from the reservoir and also from the factory sites and the railway. Plus, the hospital was in full blown use for wounded Belgian soldiers - it had substantial grounds which would have very much interfered with a training ground that large. The stable remains close to Seymour Court are, I still think, more probable.  I managed to get yet more photos a year or so back when the old tile works next to Oxgate Farm were redeveloped.

 

Since this all started, the BBC showed a clip of a Mark IV in action with the wall in behind. I reckon it was roughly where my house stands now.

[Ali H.]

And an even longer gap.

Something, yesterday, prompted me to look at my own house deeds. I'm still obsessed with the tank wall and have had long conversations with a local geek. He found a 1919 aerial image which clearly shows the tank wall. It also shows the McCurd factory, I believe, just where I thought it was.

What I found in my own home, was this: the 1927 diagram which shows the wall before the houses were built.

 

[col1yorks]

Possible rough location of the wall.

The photos of the Mk IX and WB Adeney's water colour all look to be the same location, IWM list as Dollis Hill (suspect it should be Mk V & Mk IX under the tarp.) If they are all at DH, exactly where as it looks to be a fairly new building, but can't see it within the wall or on any aerial photos of maps.

Tried looking at Marshall's works at Gainsborough but no matching buildings there either.  

 

[col1yorks]

Couple of further photos showing the farm on Coles Green road.

[Ali H.]

Your last photo isn't the farm, it's off to the left, and out of the picture. That square block of flats is  Oxgate Court, with what is the site of the Ox and Gate pub opposite. Then the electricity sub station, still there, and then what's now the Atlas Business Centre. I've photos of the chimney before it was recently demolished.

The building I'm sure is McCurd is slightly farther down Oxgate Lane on the opposite side of the road. I could actually show you the remains of the buiding that tank was against with the frame.

The standalone house is gone: it was demolished and replaced by Seymour Court. It wasn't the farmhouse, that still survives. Just.

A friend did a very accurate piece of marking out exactly where the wall went, based on my own diagram and the photo.

Since posting in August, I've discovered what looks like a small remnant of the wall or at least military remains in the entrance to our tennis club. It's on a line with the Wall itself.

[col1yorks]

A very accurate map no doubt based on your house deeds (1927). The photos in your earlier post shows the original layout of the wall going further down Oxgate lane then tight around the factory. I put some house numbers and street names on it to help me get it in perspective and to join the two images, they just over lap. It was on these photos I gauged the lie of the wall. The attached photo with the tanks in, I think was taken just outside the tank shed looking East toward the factory with Oxgate lane and the northern edge of the wall parallel with it out of sight to the left, note how the wall is close to the factory looking over the leading tank and stepped further back looking over the second.

I agree Upper Oxgate Farm is further back, I was meaning Willesden paddock house which appears in the background of some of the photos behind the tank shed. In the original sketch I've placed the house on the wrong side of the crossroad, I didn't find the other photo till a bit later, so I redrew it along with the dog-leg on the southern edge taken from your deeds plan.

Convinced the factory on Oxgate lane is the one in the photos, but not sure if its "McCurds" as an earlier post shows their factory to be a very different design, unless they had two!

Assume you must live on Coles Green Rd if you have access to the remains of the tank shed, I'm sure going through the gardens with a metal detector in those first few houses would uncover many discarded bits from the tanks. If you get time could you post a photo of the shed remains you have found.

Any thoughts on the other photos and watercolour, they look to be the same place, the watercolour is one of two IWM have of that gantry area, both listed as Dollis Hill. I've looked through a lot of aerial photos of that area but can't anything that matches.  

[Ali H.]

Ah, gotcha on which house you meant. That was indeed the house for Willesden Paddocks, which was a stud farm. Your image looking up the slope fits well.

As to where I live, I can see the tank wall from my side window. The film on the IWM site shows, at one point, a tank rolling round roughly where my house is now. Corner of Humber and Walton. I'm always astonished no one has ever found recognisable remains in gardens, too. Roman tile, yes, but not tank bits. We need a detectorist.

The McCurd factory as was is in two parts: the late 19th or early 20th frontage, with a high entrance to one side, presumably to facilitate lorries entering and leaving. Behind it, are more associated buildings with those roof profiles. It's one of those where being able to walk round on the ground is immensely helpful. I'll repost some of the photos: my Photobucket account has died, so you won't be able to see the first lot.

 

[Ali H.]

Bear in mind that the roofs have been slightly reprofiled to give better flat bottomed gullies, by the way.

 

[col1yorks]

Thanks for posting all the factory photos. The western side of the factory looks to be built after the test ground closed, (as maybe the frontage east of the 11" opening unable to tell from the wartime photos.) After having another look at the Whippet-Mk IV photo there is the top of a building just visible, maybe the factory on Humber road or more likely the ones behind if they were built first with Brent Terrace beyond.

Have you a link to the IWM video.

[Ali H.]

You meant the factory on Oxgate Lane, I think, rather than Humber. This was fields in 1916. I've a nice press clipping advertising the sale of the land pre war. It's Sayer House - the name now - which is the original building and pretty well the only one which isn't post WW2. All the rest are twenties. I've some other maps showing that.

You won't be seeing Brent Terrace: too far, and the wrong land lie, as well as being the other side of the (then much larger) rail lines and yard. What that photo doesn't show is the topography, of course. Humber drops very steeply down to the A5.

I'll find the IWM link for you. It's misattributed as Bovingdon rather than Dollis Hill.

[Ali H.]

Got it.

https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/record/4175

It's what several of the stills are taken from. It is also misatrributed in terms of location. Not Bovington but Dollis Hill. And the "pond" is the Welsh Harp.

Oh, and apologies, I should have clarified one thing on my own deeds map, which is a bit crucial! The road at the top is named Oxgate Lane on the map. It was renamed when the houses were built. That's Coles Green Road. The only portion still called Oxgate Lane is that which runs from the Crest/C|oles Green crossroads down to the A5.

 

 

[col1yorks]

Thanks for the link. The tank listed as a Mk IV is actually the later Mk V, one man drive/steer. This one is a bit of an odd one, its missing the box structure on the top of the hull, its got one sponson from a tank tender (supply tank) and the other is a female sponson (for machine guns) with a mud deflecting "lid" on it (it might even be an early pattern one from a late production Mk III (Can't see any joining strip down the middle of it, but this is most likely due to the low res. image). The high/low wall in the background looks to be the East section of the surviving wall at the point where it dog-legged off, so near the top of Walton Close.

Still think the row of terraced houses in the background has to be Brent Terr. Its in the rough line of sight, The photographer is at a high enough elevation on Oxgate lane and fairly close to the wall (about where the road to the back of the factory leaves Oxgate Lane, to see diagonally downhill over the A5 / rail lines to the terrace on the other side of the shallow valley, from the later photos there's only the marker houses built by 1918 and the distance is less than 1K. Which one of the two factories that appear on the photo, not sure but suspect the one closest to the walls corner (which is what it looks like in the photo) suspect the other one has either not been built in 1918 or is hidden behind the tree above the cab on the Mk IV. I did expect to see the northern edge of the engine shed, but this is probably to low to be seen or the view is across slightly north of it.

[Ali H.]

It's certainly "my" wall, I did a fair bit of comparison with the remains. I can get at some bits which aren't visible properly on Google Earth, and that helps.

I'm unconvinced on Brent Terraces. That row of "houses" looks way too close, and too large for the perspective. I wandered down Oxgate on my way to pick up the paper this morning. Even from the top, it's very tricky seeing over the railway. The road drops off very sharply and is really quite low once you get to Workman's Cafe. Any farther down - where your vantage point is shown -  and it's blocked by the high embankment. Said embankment has existed since the yards and lines were built in the nineteenth century. The roof profiles aren't right either - I know those houses, a friend lives in one. I do wonder if what we're seeing are railway buildings. The yards were considerably larger in the early 20th, and right up till, oh, the seventies and eighties even. They took in all the Retail Park, Geron Way et al. I've a couple of books with historic LMS track layouts and yard configurations, including Cricklewood, so I'll have a dig through.

On those factories you've marked in purple, neither existed until after WW1 - certainly not the one on the corner of Humber and the A5 and I'm pretty sure from other maps that the other didn't either.

 

[col1yorks]

Brent Terrace, the roof profile looks to match, a twin chimney on every other pair of houses and the ridge dividing each roof with a small patch of trees behind. The photographer is quite high relative to the tanks as you are seeing some of the tank roof detail.

Factories, I assumed the photo you posted showing the two factories was early 20's, so one or both might have been under construction during 1918. The only other buildings near the wall corner are Chipstead gardens but the view looks to be well to the East of them so had ruled them out.

Still trying to find the location of the overhead gantry and four bay workshop. One of the tank photos was listed as Gainsborough (where the Mk IX were built) checked the area around the works, looks nothing like the photo or water colour, Also tried the Wormwood Scrubs / Old Oak Common area, again nothing close to a match. Cricklewood looks to be the next option!

[Ali H.]

When the ice clears and the weather is better, I'll try getting some photos from assorted places on Oxgate Lane. No telephoto obviously, as the original would not have had that! Might need to ask a few people nicely if I can snoop round the back. I'll do a bit of hunting on those window shapes on the tank frame image.

On the factories: definitely not under construction in 1918. Have a look back at that 1919 photo of mine? The one you added house numbers to? Nothing showing up at all on the A5. Just the ones on Oxgate Lane. 

My offer stands to anyone who ever wants to come down and walk round with me.

[col1yorks]

Thanks for the offer of taking more photos, if the other building still exists my best guess would be the rear of Auto crash repairs opposite the farm, but unlikely.

Yes you're right about the factories, not built. The roof lines, 2 high and one low (on the West side) look to marry up to your 1919 photo with the Goods/engine shed. The photo makes it look close to the wall but in effect it must be about 400m behind and lower down.

Will be in London at some stage next year and will take you up on the offer of a walk round.