Burnt Oak

Burnt Oak is a suburb in the Edgware district in northwest London, England. It is within the London Borough of Barnet and the London Borough of Brent. It was part of Middlesex until it was transferred to Greater London in 1965.

Burnt Oak
Burnt Oak Broadway
Burnt Oak Location within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ205915
• Charing Cross	9.6 mi (15.4 km)
London borough	Brent Barnet
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	EDGWARE
Postcode district	HA8
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
UK Parliament	Brent North Hendon
London Assembly	Brent and Harrow Barnet and Camden

History

The Lansdowne

The name Burnt Oak was first used in 1754[1] and from then until the 1850s referred to no more than a field on the eastern side of the Edgware Road (Watling Street). Nor is there evidence that the name implies anything except that the field had once contained a burnt oak tree. In May 1844 Burnt Oak field was sold to a Mr Essex, and by the 1860s plans were in place to build three residential streets: North Street, East Street, and South Street. The application of the field name to the area seems to have followed from this new estate and was in use by the end of the 19th century. However, the area was generally known as Red Hill until the opening of Burnt Oak tube station.

There were a handful of shops by the 1890s. There was a post office and grocery run by George and William Plumb, a bakery run by Caller & Poole, as well as James Huggett the greengrocer. A tramway along the Edgware Road to Cricklewood opened in 1905, but the population remained small, by 1921 still only around 1,000.

Burnt Oak station on the London Underground's Northern line opened on 27 October 1924. It was first open on weekdays with a small booking hall suitable for a rural area. As it was on farmland south-east of the community in Edgware Road, Underground Electric Railways Company of London constructed a new road, Watling Avenue. In the same year news leaked out that the London County Council was to build a housing estate (Watling Estate), which was ready for its first occupants in April 1927.[2] With this and other private estates the area was provided with a new station by 1928, and the population by 1931 had grown to 21,545. Along both sides of Watling Avenue shops were built along with a number of schools to serve the area, such as Woodcroft and Goldbeaters.

In September 1931 Jack Cohen opened the first Tesco store at 54 Watling Avenue, Burnt Oak.[3][4][5]

In 1930, Dominican nuns established St Rose's Convent on Orange Hill Road, which led to the foundation of St James' Catholic High School in 1934. In 1936 Watling Market opened with a hundred covered shops and stalls, and the Co-op opened its department store at the junction of Stag Lane and Burnt Oak Broadway (now a Peacocks). [6]

Watling Estate

Main article: Watling Estate

The Watling Estate is one of 12 London County Council cottage estates built between the wars to provide Homes fit for Heroes.[2]

LCC Cottage estates 1918–1939

Estate name	Area	No of dwellings	Population 1938	Population density
Pre-1914
Norbury	11	218	867	19.8 per acre (49/ha)
Old Oak	32	736	3519	23 per acre (57/ha)
Totterdown Fields	39	1262	—	32.4 per acre (80/ha)
Tower Gardens White Hart Lane	98	783	5936	8 per acre (20/ha)
1919–1923
Becontree	2770	25769[lower-alpha 1]	115652	9.3 per acre (23/ha)
Bellingham	252	2673	12004	10.6 per acre (26/ha)
Castelnau	51	644	2851	12.6 per acre (31/ha)
Dover House Estate Roehampton Estate	147	1212	5383	8.2 per acre (20/ha)
1924–1933
Downham	600	7096	30032	11.8 per acre (29/ha)
Mottingham	202	2337	9009	11.6 per acre (29/ha)
St Helier	825	9068	39877	11 per acre (27/ha)
Watling	386	4034	19110	10.5 per acre (26/ha)
Wormholt	68	783	4078	11.5 per acre (28/ha)
1934–1939
Chingford[lower-alpha 2]	217	1540	—	7.1 per acre (18/ha)
Hanwell (Ealing)	140	1587	6732	11.3 per acre (28/ha)
Headstone Lane	142	n.a	5000
Kenmore Park	58	654	2078	11.3 per acre (28/ha)
Thornhill (Royal Borough of Greenwich)	21	380	1598	18.1 per acre (45/ha)
Whitefoot Lane (Downham)	49	n.a	n.a.
Source:*Yelling, J.A. (1995). "Banishing London's slums: The interwar cottage estates" (PDF). Transactions. London and Middlesex Archeological Society. 46: 167–173. Retrieved 19 December 2016. Quotes: Rubinstein, 1991, Just like the country.	Source says 2589- transcription error Part of a larger PRC estate around Huntsman Road

Geography

Further information: Geography of London

Demography

The 2011 census showed that for the Burnt Oak ward in Barnet, 47% of the population was white (30% British, 14% Other, 3% Irish). 13% was Black African and 12% Other Asian. Religiously, 50% was Christian and 18% Muslim.[7]

Culture

The area is known for its variety of multicultural shops, reflecting the established Indian, Turkish and Nigerian communities. It has recently also attracted a community of Eastern Europeans, mainly from Romania, Poland and Bulgaria.

Transport

Burnt Oak is well served by buses. London Buses routes 32, 114, 142, 204, 251, 292, 302, 305, and Uno routes 614 and 644 all meet at the junction of Watling Avenue, Stag Lane and Burnt Oak Broadway. The old route 52 was split into a shorter 52 (between Willesden Junction and Victoria bus station and new route 302 (from Mill Hill Broadway to Kensal Rise via Burnt Oak) in 1992. Night bus route N5 runs between Trafalgar Square and Edgware bus station serving all the tube stations, and the N16 runs north from Victoria Station via the Edgware Road, to Edgware Station, via Burnt Oak.

Northern line trains on the Edgware Branch serve Burnt Oak Underground station.

References

1. Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher; Keay, Julia; and Keay, John (2011). The London Encyclopaedia (3rd edition), p. 116. Pan Macmillan. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
2. Appraisal 2007. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAppraisal2007 (help)
3. Maurice Corina: Pile It High Sell It Cheap: The Authorised Biography of Sir Jack Cohen, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1971
4. Andrew Hosken: Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter, Granta, 2007
5. Sarah Ryle: The Making of Tesco: A story of British Shopping, Random House, 2013
6. Just like the country(b) 1991.
7. "Burnt Oak". UK Census Data.

Bibliography

• "Watling Estate Character Appraisal" (PDF). Barnet: London Borough. 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 October 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
• Rubinstein, Antonia; Andrews, Andy; Schweitzer, Pam (1991). "Just like the country part 2" (PDF). Age Exchange. Retrieved 17 December 2016. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)