Laurel

The ladder roads on the north side of Hatfield Road, those between Harlesden and Blandford, are well-recalled by name, but there one other less well remembered street, although it leads nowhere except the ends of one or two Clarence Road rear gardens.  This is Laurel Road, one of those development roads which was intended to squeeze in a few extra small homes in an awkwardly shaped section of the site close to St Peter's Farm.  Although there is no remaining evidence for the street name, it is possible to search for it.  All we need is to return to the period prior to the development in the late 1890s.

Hatfield Road passes the farm in 1872.  Clarence Road will later be laid just
to the left of the pond; the shrubbery is to the right of the farm buildings.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

So clear all homes and shops from your mind – even the 1880s Cavendish estate. Stand, in your imagination, at the top of the hill in Hatfield Road and look down  towards what is now The Crown junction.  Here was yet another broad stream valley with its lowest ground from right to left into Camp Road.  Apart from a tiny turnpike toll building only one pair of buildings would be visible: St Peter's Farm and the adjacent St Peter's Farm Cottage.

Laurel Road c2012.  The houses in the background front onto Clarence Road.

They are still there in the form of the Conservative Club and Clarence Mews, the latter being a gated conversion of former farm outbuildings accessible from Clarence Road, opposite the main park entrance.  The farm buildings are not ancient in the sense of most farm homesteads; it appears that this was a farm holding created in the early 19th century.  But when built the land owner still felt it important to lay the homestead foundations on slightly elevated  ground on the eastern side of the valley referred to above – today we walk this valley side in front of the shops from the Crown corner towards Laurel Road.

With a change of tenancy in 1878 the farm buildings were advertised on the farm estate plan, along with its fields.  When the farm was sold in the late 1890s, there remained two homes available to sell or let which were already there, the farm and farm cottage.  The opportunity was taken to provide a name for this pair, and so they became known as Laurel Bank after the shrubs and trees growing behind the farm, as shown in the 1872 map.  It is from this landscape feature that the little road at the top of the valley side was named.

Estate map St Peter's Farm, 1878.  The owner has named the farm Ardounie
COURTESY HALS

The street directories at the time show that the first occupants were Mr G Mead (farm) and Mr H Pearce (cottage), but they was quickly followed by Edward Hansell, an architect and surveyor.  It is therefore possible that Mr Hansell was involved in the residential developments then being laid out along Hatfield Road.  Once most of the estate had been completed Laurel Bank became available once more and Mr Raymond Nelson, a draper and outfitter, lived and traded from the premises until the Conservative Club acquired the former farm c1946.

Hatfield Road in lower part of view; Clarence Road upper left; former farm and cottage behind the hedge in Hatfield Road.
Former outbuildings converted into a square Mews arrangement.  Laurel Road on right.  Former shrubbery between the
farm and Laurel Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

While that may explain the naming of Laurel Road and its connection with the former farm, there is another name which is revealed in the 1878 farm estate map.  For while the Ordnance Survey map from six years earlier labels the buildings as St Peter's Farm, the farm estate map identifies the homestead as Ardounie.  This name is listed in the reference work Fairbairns Crests, although its specific connection with this location is unclear.

Next time we'll explore those homes and shops which filled the space between the newly laid out Clarence Park Road (as originally named) and that little Laurel Road at the top of the hill, passing the old farm on the way.