The Railway Suburb
Traditionally wealthy villages like Highgate & Muswell Hill were always reserved for wealthy individuals who could afford private carriages to ferry them to and from their front door. This kept the working classes at bay. The two main railways connecting London to the rest of the country, the Great Northern Railway and the Midland Railway, both started to expand from Euston, Kings Cross and St Pancras.
This created a rush of speculative development and caused a rush for farmland to be sold off to the highest bidder, often from local small-scale grassroots builders who could see the ‘gold rush’ for what it was. A connection to a station like Kings Cross would exponentially increase the value of the land. This led to a classic ‘ribbon development’ effect, whereby the densest housing is built along the line of infrastructure, all within a 10-minute walk of the station and then naturally tapered off into the fields beyond.
Social Tiering by Address
Naturally, whoever held the first class tickets dictated who had the better quality housing, as builders erected large, multi-storey Victorian villas and grand semi-detached terraces with ornate pillars & servants’ quarters. These were generally found in areas like Crouch End, Hampstead & Tufnell Park.
Following the Cheap Trains Act of 1883, the railways were forced to provide Workmen’s trains, which sparked the construction of streets of London stock yellow brick terraced housing. These houses were designed with narrow fronts and deep interiors in order to maximise the number of dwellings on a single plot of land, providing as many properties as possible to the burgeoning population of clerks and tradesmen commuting into the city. Holloway and Seven Sisters are great examples of areas with housing like this atypical uniform terrace Victorian housing.
London Stock Brick and ‘Metro-Land’
The railway even changed the standard type of materials used in London. Pre-railway boom local materials and bricks were generally constructed on site. A prime example of this practice is Mecklenburgh Square, WC1, which is one of Bloomsbury’s finest garden squares but was formerly a clay brick pit for building the surrounding streets.
Midland & Great Northern rail companies started transporting immense quantities of cheap, durable bricks manufactured out of the city into North London. Over time this became the go-to material, the iconic London Stock brick. Yellowish and slightly soot stained, it was now the building block of the terraced London home. Welsh slate also made an appearance and rapidly replaced the heavier and fire-prone Georgian red roof tile.
Over time the railway companies like the Metropolitan Railway, famous for being the first underground railway in the world, were legally allowed to develop land they owned, with entire communities built around the dream of North London living. 1920s and 1930s building mock-Tudor homes that promised the fresh air of the countryside only 20 minutes from Baker Street.
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