A Tudor heaven invented by the Metropolitan Railway, it mapped out the direction of suburbia and inspired a poet laureate. Ross Clark retraces his steps to see how the area's towns and houses have stood the test of time
Of all the works of Sir John Betjeman, the 100th anniversary of whose birth passed in August, none has caught the public imagination more than Metro-Land, the BBC documentary which he made in 1973. It was Sir John's gift to romanticise the mundane: in this case a tube ride from Baker Street to Amersham, celebrating the north-west London suburbs created by the Metropolitan Railway between 1910 and 1933.
"Look at these fields," he began, commentating on film footage of a lush landscape shot from a railway carriage. "They were photographed in 1910 from the train. 'Why not,' said a clever member of the board, 'why not buy these orchards and farms as we go along, turn out the cattle, and fill the meadowland with houses?'" The Metropolitan Railway did just that, eating its way through the countryside from Willesden to Amersham at alarming speed, boosting its profits - and its season ticket sales - in the process.
"Metro-Land" was the advertising slogan developed to entice workers from cramped homes in Central London out into the rural paradise of Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It was invented in 1915 by the Metropolitan Railway's in-house copywriter James Garland, who according to legend was ill with influenza and sprang out of bed when he thought of the term.
In the company's advertising bumf, Metro-Land was certainly not a place where you were expected to go down with flu: posters and a magazine which carried the name Metro-Land depicted a sylvan landscape where ladies in hats picked flowers and drifted through sun-speckled meadows.
It was, of course, largely a con. The creation of Metro-Land destroyed the very thing - open countryside - which was used to advertise it. The speculative homes thrown up around the new stations bore few resemblances to the Tudor cottages depicted in the advertising materials: most were dreary semis, constructed at great haste and sold for as little as £400 each. Modern first-time buyers can only dream: that is equivalent to just £20,000 in today's money.
No developer would be allowed such free rein today. Indeed, the suburban sprawl created by the Metropolitan Railway did much to influence the creation of the post-war town and country planning system. A dozen years after the railway was subsumed into the newly-formed London Transport in 1933, the growth of Metro-Land was finally halted by the instigation of London's green belt. As the Government seeks to bring more of us to live in city centres, and encourages the demolition of inter-war semis in favour of blocks of much higher-density flats, the kind of development promoted by the Metropolitan Railway has fallen heavily out of fashion.
But not everyone is so scornful. This weekend Kingston University's Centre for Suburban Studies has been holding a seminar entitled Superbia, reappraising low-density development of the type which formed Metro-Land. One may well scoff: no wonder Kingston University, a 20-minute train ride from Waterloo, feels the need to celebrate the advantages of suburbia; moreover, the seminar has been sponsored by an unappealingly-named trade body called the Modern Masonary Alliance. But Nick Hubble, a research fellow at the university, is convinced that Metro-Land's time has come again.
"This is the start of a sea-change in planning," he says. "We don't think the Government is building enough houses, and it is building them at too high a density. Houses with large gardens are better for wildlife than agricultural land. Low-density development is more sustainable: you can have more trees and use local drainage systems.
"The public's image of new development is of a Barratt estate. But Metro-Land actually looked rather nice."
In the last frame of Metro-Land, now re-issued as a DVD, Sir John Betjeman is shown leaning over a bridge at Quainton Road, in the depths of Buckinghamshire, 10 miles beyond Aylesbury, and staring at the abandoned railway below. "In these wet fields the railway didn't pay," he explained, so Metro-Land never quite reached that far. He added: "And I must say I am rather glad."
One wonders whether the some-what less eloquent John Prescott - who once famously said, "The green belt is a Labour achievement and we're going to build on it" - would agree. One thing is for sure: the golden age of the first-time buyer is not going to return without a mass-building programme on the scale of 1930s Metro-Land.
In a tribute to Sir John Betjeman, I thought I would repeat his journey from Baker Street to Amersham, braving the dead rats and damp mattresses of Neasden, ascending the heights of Harrow-on-the-Hill and penetrating the guarded Moor Park Estate. Some parts of Metro-Land have clearly gone downhill since they were built, and have deteriorated since 1973; others have become wealthier. Needless to say, all parts have become a lot more expensive since the giveaway prices blazoned across posters in the 1920s.
It is an awfully long time since My Little Metro-Land Home, with music by Henry Thraile and Boyle Lawrence, appeared in the hit parade in 1920. Nearly 90 years on, does Metro-Land still have the appeal it once did?
Neasden
Betjeman's view: "The suburb that is thought to be commonplace", the home of Sketchley, Dolcis and Unigate. The film nevertheless depicted a green and comfy suburb with bird-watcher Eric Sims taking viewers around his Neasden nature trail, through Gladstone Park and the allotments on Brook Road.
Began: As the low-rent end of Metro-Land, more attractive to workers in nearby factories and the London Underground depot than to commuters. The suburb was heavily developed in 1927 with the Kingsbury Garden Village, where prices began at £725 for a three-bedroom semi (£36,000 today). The Metropolitan Railway's advertising bumf saying that "peace and quiet prevail" at Neasden was already out of date: the North Circular arrived in 1922.
Now: Scruffier and more multi-cultural than in Betjeman's day. Shop signs in Polish betray the most recent arrivals. The suburb's image is not improved by a large number of damp mattresses dumped in front gardens and the gyratory system off the North Circular, one of the biggest town-planning disasters in Europe. But in one sense Neasden has not changed: it is still Everyman's suburb.
"Everyone lives in Neasden at some stage in their lives," says John Hooper of Hooper's estate agents. Sid and Doris Bonkers, Private Eye's mythical Neasden residents, would be pleased with one offer on the High Street: nest tables reduced from £150 to £75. Houses are far from cheap, however: one-bedroom flats begin around £160,000, three-bedroom semis around £340,000.
Wembley Park
Betjeman's view: Searched for the remains of the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, including a short- lived and never-completed British Eiffel Tower, which stood on the space now occupied by Wembley Stadium.
Began: With Wembley Park Estate in 1915, where houses were sold for as little as £420. By 1925 the area was going upmarket: detached houses on the Barn Hill Estate were being advertised from £1,275.
Now: Unlike Neasden, which is now served by the slower Jubilee line, Wembley Park enjoys fast trains to Baker Street. Landscape around the station is dominated by the handsome, if hopelessly late and over-budget, outline of the new Wembley Stadium. The area is undergoing much regeneration. Prices, though, are no higher than in Neasden, with three-bedroom semis beginning at £340,000.
Harrow-on-the-Hill
Betjeman's view: Boys in straw hats and with long hair, singing the Harow song.
Began: As an ancient village that was still surrounded by open countryside in 1914, but was rapidly developed in the early 1920s when Harrow became an important railway junction. In 1926 semis by local builders F&C Costin were priced from £750.
Now: The rarefied atmosphere of the hill, with its bistros and boys' outfitters, is a stark contrast to the rougher area around the station: an abandoned picnic, complete with empty Jack Daniel's bottle, scars the grass and the thud of car stereos is omnipresent.
Downhill, flats begin at £130,000 and three-bedroom houses at £270,000. Local estate agents still advertise properties as "Costin" homes. Up on the hill flats begin around £220,000 and modern four-bedroom townhouses at £500,000.
Pinner
Betjeman's view: Residents were filmed cleaning their cars while listening to the Osmonds' Crazy Horses on a transistor radio.
Began: As an attractive village which became an upmarket suburb from 1915 on, when commuters could pick up a leasehold building plot on the Grange Estate for £70. The riff-raff were kept out through bylaws which insisted completed houses must be worth at least £1,000.
Now: The rules on quality paid off: unlike Neasden or Harrow, Pinner Village retains a country air, albeit of mock-Tudor and block driveways. A four-bedroom house in the best areas costs upwards of £600,000. Other parts are cheaper: a one-bedroom council flat can cost £125,000. Three-bedroom houses begin at £250,000.
Moor Park
Betjeman's view: Moor Park, he declared, was "where the healthy got off" - for a round of golf. Betjeman didn't excel at the sport: he was filmed swiping at a ball and completely missing. The film also showed the gated entrance to Moor Park, manned by a jobsworth on the lookout for motorists trying to take a cheeky short-cut.
Began: As Sandy Lodge, a railway halt with a wooden platform to serve golfers. From 1923 onwards the area was developed for upmarket housing, with properties beginning at £2,500 (£125,000 at today's prices).
Now: Four-bedroom houses begin at £750,000, with classic mock-Tudor examples costing £1 million to £4 million. "We have a lot of people moving up the Metropolitan line from Harrow, Ruislip and Pinner," says Graham Weare of Robsons estate agents. "The drift is always out of London: when people move out of Moor Park it is often to Buckinghamshire, after they have retired and want to release some capital." In spite of the impression given in Betjeman's film, the estate is gated only at the north entrance.
Chorleywood
Betjeman's view: Filmed man playing large Wurlitzer organ in his front room.
Began: The advertising bumf for Metro-Land in 1919 claimed that you could walk out of Chorleywoood station "straight into the 15th century". Not for long you couldn't. By 1930 the area was developed with two large, exclusive estates. Buyers could be reassured that the general manager of the Metropolitan Railway, Robert Hope Selbie, had chosen Chorleywood as his home.
Now: In 2002, nearby Loudwater was named by marketing information company Experian as Britain's wealthiest neighbourhood, with a higher proportion of millionaires than anywhere else in Britain - drawing protests from residents, some with three large cars on their driveways, that they really weren't that rich at all.
Thanks to the green belt, Chorleywood is the first place along the Metropolitan line which can claim to be in the country. Flats begin at £150,000, four-bedroom houses around £600,000, and prime six-bedroom houses just over the £1 million mark.
Amersham
Betjeman's view: Filmed "High and Over", a modernist house built in 1929 by architect Amyas Connell for Professor Bernard Ashmole, director of the British Museum - a distinct contrast to the mock-Tudor homes which otherwise dominate.
Began: Small country village overwhelmed by the coming of the Metropolitan railway, which brought with it a suburb several times larger.
Now: The end of the Metropolitan line. It is possible to get a train from beyond here, but only to Marylebone, not direct into the City of London. Two-bedroom cottages begin around £275,000, and four-bedroom detached houses around £500,000. "High and Over" was for sale in 2003 for £675,000.
Quainton
Betjeman's view: Small Buckinghamshire village which the poet was relieved to see had been saved from Metro-Land.
Began: In the late 19th century the Metropolitan Railway had plans to run trains from here through London and the Channel Tunnel to Paris. Plans were never realised, and the line was axed by Dr Beeching in the 1960s.
Now: Attractive setting below Quainton Hill, with impressive views to Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire. You can buy a one-bedroom former almshouse for £135,000. Two-bedroom cottages begin at £200,000 and four-bedroom houses around £350,000. Although Quainton station has reopened, it is only for steam specials. Commuters must drive 10 miles to Aylesbury to get the train.
Metro-Land, explained Betjeman, was all about the "City man turned countryman again, and connected by Metropolis by train". Nosing around the still-rural fields and paths of Quainton and comparing them with the over-built swathes between Neasden and Amersham, I have to admit that there is something to be said for living well removed from the railway system.
Metro-Land classics for sale
Grange Gardens, Pinner Village
A four-bedroom late 1920s detached house with a mature garden and garage. Alexander Watson 020 8866 0127
Mayhall Lane, Amersham
A five-bedroom Edwardian house set in a plot of half an acre with a double garage and a garden. Hamptons International 01494 725707
Moss Lane, Pinner Village
This four- bedroom, circa 1930s house has potential for extension.There is a 100ft rear garden. Alexander Watson 020 8866 0127
Cuckoo Hill, Pinner
Pre-dating Metro-Land by 400 years, this four-bed house originated in the 1480s. Despite later additions, it has kept many period features. Alexander Watson 020 8866 0127
Beamond End, Amersham
A three-bedroom 1820s house and garden, approached by a long drive and flanked by mature trees. Hamptons International 01494 725707
