[ROGER THIS FOLLOWS STRAIGHT ON FROM SLKPEC1]

Kinnaird Park Estate Company 1918-1934

Last updated: May 2008

Section Three of the file on Kinnaird Park Estate Company covers the years for which there’s certain evidence of Henry Norris’ involvement with the company: HENRY NORRIS AS CHAIRMAN OF KPEC 1918-1934

He did not have much to do for the first two years, though, as between 1915 and 1920 KPEC were not doing any building: during the latter part of World War 1 building work and even house repair and maintenance work virtually ceased in England. A man walking down Highbury Hill by Arsenal’s football ground just after the war was over remarked how all the front doors had the paint peeling off.

Below is a list of planning applications made by KPEC to Bromley UDC once the fighting was over; unless I say differently the UDC passed them all, though some applications were returned later after changes had been made in the design. The list shows KPEC carrying on much as it had done before war broke out: building in both Plaistow, to the north of Bromley, and Bickley to the east of it, always with larger projects in Bickley, building in Plaistow going forward at a slow pace:

3 Feb 1920 16 houses in Bird-in-Hand Lane Bickley

5 July 1921 a garage for the house called Redlands in Park Avenue Plaistow, probably a house

built by KPEC before the war

7 Feb 1922 a garage for the 10 Park Avenue (which might be the one called Redlands but

Bromley UDC’s minutes don’t say so)

3 Oct 1922 1 house on Park Avenue Plaistow

At this point there was a pause in applications, covering the death of the 11^th Lord Kinnaird who owned the land at Plaistow and who had founded the syndicate which later became Kinnaird Park Estate Company (see my file on the early years of KPEC for this) [ROGER DO YOU NEED TO PUT A LINK HERE? - JUST GOING BACK TO SLKPEC1]. Lord Kinnaird died on 30 January 1923 after several years of ill-health. As Henry Norris was already KPEC’s chairman, Lord Kinnaird’s death probably didn’t affect the daily running of its business all that much. I haven’t been able to confirm that his heir, the 12^th lord, joined KPEC’s board of directors; if he did, he didn’t act as its chairman during Norris’ lifetime. Where the death of the 11^th lord does seem to have made a difference was in the amount of capital tied up in the company’s shares. During 1924 KPEC applied to the courts and was granted permission to halve the amount that each share was worth; meaning that the company’s share capital was reduced from £40000 to £20000 overnight. KPEC still went on building in Bromley at the same pace that it had done before.

The next planning application made by KPEC was:

1 Apr 1924 1 house in Park Avenue Plaistow

3 June 1924 1 house in Quernmore Road

21 Oct 1924 a garage for 4 Park Avenue

16 Dec 1924 a garage for Lullingstone, Park Avenue which may be number 4, the minutes

don’t tell you these things

17 Feb 1925 1 house in Garden Road Plaistow

17 Mar 1925 1 house in Park Avenue

5 May 1925 1 house in Lake Avenue

8 Sep 1925 8 houses in Nightingale Lane Bickley. Unusually, Bromley UDC refused to pass

this one and it had to be resubmitted:

1 Dec 1925 the 8 houses in Nightingale Lane Bickley; the plans were passed this time

In 1926 estate agents Edwin Evans and Sons began to develop for housing the Bromley Park Estate, on the other side of Bromley Hill from the Plaistow Lodge estate where KPEC were building. Edwin Evans was an old friend of Henry Norris; maybe Norris had told him that the Bromley Park Estate was worth a look. For more about Norris and Edwin Evans, see my file on

South London Estate Agent Circuit: Stimson, Watts and Evans. KPEC never built any houses on the Bromley Park Estate, however.

7 Dec 1926 2 semi-detached houses in Quernmore Road Plaistow

1 Mar 1927 a garage for 3 Quernmore Road which was W J Harrington’s own house - he was

KPEC’s architect. Plus a garage for a new house on Park Avenue, currently

known as Kenilworth; the architect’s name on this one was not W J Harrington

but his younger brother L H.

20 Dec 1927 2 houses in Park Avenue, one of which was later named Rindge

4 Dec 1928 1 house in King’s Avenue Plaistow.

That was the last application made to Bromley UDC which I’m confident was made by KPEC. KPEC’s office continued to be at 1 Burnt Ash Lane on the edge of the Plaistow Lodge estate until 1932; but was not listed in the local PO Directory after that year. The focus of KPEC’s efforts had moved away, and I do feel that the move suggests that the 12^th Lord Kinnaird was not taking an active role in the company and may not have been involved at all. In 1928 KPEC started to build houses in an area of suburban London where the Kinnaird family had no land, and which William Gilbert Allen and Henry Norris knew rather better than Bromley.

In October 1928 the Grove House Estate, described as “a freehold extending from Chiswick Station to the Thames”, was put up for sale by the executors of the late Lt-Col Shipway. Some of the land, and the 18^th century house at the centre of the estate, was sold by private agreement; the house was demolished shortly afterwards. But on 16 October 1928 lots four and five of the estate were sold at auction by the estate agents Hamptons. The coverage of the sale that I’ve been able to find was pretty meagre; none of my sources mentioned who the buyer was. But it’s clear from subsequent events that the buyer was Kinnaird Park Estate Company. The land in question was:

Lot 4: “the corner of Devonshire-gardens and Hartington-road”;

Lot 5: “all the land between a long section of Hartington-road and the Thames”.

A few months later planning applications from W J Harrington started to appear in the minutes of Brentford and Chiswick Urban District Council; KPEC wasn’t mentioned in the minutes at this stage, only Harrington was mentioned. However, the area is now a Conservation Area and in 2006 the UDC commissioned a report on how the area could be improved that makes it clear that Harrington was working for KPEC. The list of approved planning applications below is from the minutes of Brentford and Chiswick UDC, showing KPEC building in Chiswick on a larger scale than they had done in Bromley.

26 June 1929 8 houses in Devonshire Gardens

The layout for a new road, to be called Grove Park

24 July 1929 one house with garage, on Hartington Road

9 Sep 1929 8 houses in Devonshire Gardens; I think not the same 8 as on 26 June

23 Oct 1929 6 houses in Devonshire Gardens; and 8 houses in Devonshire Gardens, probably

a resubmission of the application of 9 September

26 Feb 1930 2 garages, and 3 sets of bay windows, to be added to “houses in Hartington Road on the Kinniard (sic) Park Estate”.

21 July 1930 4 sets of plans:

18-30 Devonshire Gardens

4-16 Devonshire Gardens; which was an amended plan though I’m not sure

which of the above applications it superceded!

8 houses in Grove Park Road; no house numbers this time

garage at 30 Grove Park Road.

24 Sep 1930 2 amended plans of building lines: one for Grove Park Road and one for

Kinnaird Avenue which must include the houses as this is the only documentation

there is in the minutes for the building of the houses on Kinnaird Avenue. The

curving line of Kinnaird Avenue followed the old drive up to the now-demolished

house.

The UDC’s report of 2006 makes it clear that their understanding is that KPEC built all the houses in Kinnaird Avenue - 1-27 and 2-30.

24 June 1931 12 houses in Hartington Road

William Harrington died in 1930 at the early age of 59 and at that point or soon after the old office at 1 Burnt Ash Lane was closed. From this application on, Brentford and Chiswick UDC’s minutes say the applicant is KPEC. A Report on Chiswick Park prepared for the Brentford and Chiswick UDC establishes that Llewellyn Harrington was the architect involved. However, evidence in the hands of Henry Norris’ grand-children shows that by 1931, Llewellyn was working from an address in Croydon.

23 Sep 1931 garage at 16 Devonshire Gardens

28 Oct 1931 8 houses in Grove Park Road

25 Nov 1931 2 houses in Sutton Court Road: which was outside the area bought by KPEC in

1928, just over the railway line at Chiswick Station.

23 Dec 1931 1 house in Hartington Road; this was number 61, a detached house of rather

Mediterranean design, with pantiles. In the 1960s and 1970s it was lived in by

Eamonn Andrews of ‘This is Your Life’ fame. After planning permission had

been given the design was changed. The altered plans were passed on 27 Jan

1932 though the house still hadn’t been completed in 1935.

23 Mar 1932 garage at 2 Kinnaird Avenue

25 May 1932 6 buildings to be 12 flats in Grove Park Road.

27 July 1932 revised floor-plan for the 12 flats passed on 25 May

28 Sep 1932 some additions to the house built by KPEC and called Red Roofs, Hartington

Road: a verandah, a porch and a tool-shed

9 Nov 1932 alterations to the house built by KPEC at 42 Hartington Road which I think is

the one called Red Roofs

one house, 59 Hartington Road

a preliminary plan for flats, Grove Park Road

25 Jan 1933 3 houses in Grove Park Road

28 June 1933 2 houses in Ellesmere Road; permission to build these was refused. After a pause

for alteration, an application to build 4 flats rather than 2 houses was passed on

27 September 1933

Like Sutton Court Road, Ellesmere Road was not part of the land bought by KPEC in 1928, so the company must have bought the land on the open market.

The houses that became flats in Ellesmere Road, was the last planning application I have found that was made by Kinnaird Park Estate Company.

William Gilbert Allen, who was probably a director of the company had died in 1931. How much either of the two Lord Kinnairds were involved with the company I don’t know because no records of KPEC now exist but I get the impression that from the company’s beginning their input was minimal. So, with the deaths in quick succession of W J Harrington and Allen, the mid 1930s KPEC was losing momentum. I can’t find any mention of it at all after Henry Norris’ death in 1934 though it continued to build houses in Hartington Road for a year or two, filling all the two plots of land that KPEC had bought in 1928 and building the four flats on Ellesmere Road. After that, KPEC seems to have been wound up, probably before World War 2 began.

I have assembled a list of properties that were definitely or possibly built by Kinnaird Park Estate Company. The report by Brentford and Chiswick UDC of 2006 has given me definite house numbers for virtually all the properties KPEC built in their area, and I am very grateful. If you want to take a look, see my file with the list in it [ROGER PLEASE CAN I HAVE A LINK TO SLKBLT HERE].

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE SOURCES OF ALL THIS INFORMATION, SEND ME AN EMAIL AND I’LL SEND YOU THE SOURCES FILE.