My Pictures And Thoughts

During the 1990's my work took me all around the country. In my regular visits to London, and especially Hammersmith Hospital, I was always intrigued by the large houses with the metal grills over all the windows, and anti car graffiti on wooden shuttering elsewhere on the site. When Chas came along he would take snaps as we drove past.
    I knew at the time there must be a story behind it, four years later there was, Leadville.

    I used to battle through the traffic, which inbound would be 3 lanes standing, and every couple of minutes all lanes would inch forward a little. As I looked to the boarded up property at either side, I would think when all that's knocked down, and tarmacked over, that it would probably make no difference. And every three months when I made the same journey, I would be bemused to find that no progress was made at all.
    Even then I mused at what a shame it was that such nice houses were being cleared. Even at home in the north of England, the grand size of them would put them way beyond my price range.
    The houses looked condemmed to die as if on death row, their mournful souls staring sadly, with their window eyes, at the traffic which was committing them to death. When eventually the odd one was knocked down it looked like a mouth with a tooth missing. Noone who's ever lived in a street can fail to have their heart strings pulled by the sad fate of such lovely homes.

In this picture, you can see the mock tudor gable designs on the 1929 semi-detached villas, and the overgrown gardens, which have been abandoned for some time.

The Book

Anyone who has driven in London along Western Avenue, and noticed the large and once opulent houses which are all boarded up would enjoy this book.
    Leadville explains what the avenue was like when it was laid out in the 1920's as a tree lined boulevard on the outskirts of London, with farmers fields all around. The houses were large semi-detached villas with tudor features on the gables above the many bay windows. In those days, the roadway was one lane in either direction, and the pavements were wide, the front gardens pretty and traffic was not too busy.
    In the late 1990's the scene is a sad affair, the pavements are narrow, the roadway alternates between a 4 and 6 lane urban motorway, with traffic mostly ground to a halt and the insescent rumble of motor engines continually shaking any windows within 100 yards, the constant drivers anger and peeping of horns does nothing but wind up the residents trapped nearby. The once pretty front gardens are much shorter now, as the road has nibbled into them with compulsory purchase, and any white paint is covered with the filthy smog from the nearby traffic. The once distant city has engulfed the area and marched on for many miles Westward, joining together all the small districts, into the full sprawl which is Greater London today.
    The lovely old houses are brutally smashed up by baliff's goons, and made uninhabitable in a vandalising furore, to stop squatters from taking them over. All internal fittings, toilets and sinks, are smashed to smithereens, and floorboards are busted with sledge hammers, leaving sharp stakes pointing up and precarious gaping holes below. The irony is that despite failed attempts by residents and owners to hang on to their homes, and most of them being eventually demolished, the road scheme is eventually scrapped and the site is left a grassy hill.
    The book has many pictures and original architect's plans of the large suburban houses, and follows the last residents and squatters as they prepare for final eviction from their beloved (and sometimes hated) homes. This isn't a story about houses however, it's a human story about community and personal struggle. Many residents have contributed to the book, giving a unique insight to a difficult contemporary dilemma.

Further along is the famous Hoover Building, now a Tesco store.
 

In 1931 Charles Colston, the managing director of Hoover, decided to build this stunning factory in Perivale, on the new A40 Western Avenue. Opposite Ealing Golf Course, and with excellent transport links via Busses, train stations less than a mile away and the Central Tube Line, behind the factory. The workers would enjoy work in this optomistic suberb, bathed with natural light in the glass fronted open plan factory.      The architect was Thomas Wallis, who gained a reputation for many "modernist buildings"

Eventually Hoover relocated to South Wales, and the building lay unwanted for years. It was a sad site, but still a most impressive landmark on the way in and out of London. Finally, in 1992 it reopened as a Supermarket, which it still is today.

In the year 2000 scandal of wasted money on this sceme was revealed. Government ministers authorised the demolition of 200 homes at a cost of £18 million, to facillitate the widening of the A40 in west London. A year later the scheme was shelved.
    Western Avenue has been under pressure from road planners for a major rebuild since the 1960's, but as government administrations come and go, the expensive scheme is shelved and then dusted off time and again. Our cities are choked with traffic, and widening roads to accomodate more traffic is an increasingly controversial subject. In London, there is the additional problem of a massive absence of affordable housing, for even the professional classes, which makes the traffic even worse, as even more people are forced to travel from their accommodation further away, to their jobs within the city boundary.