399 Edgware

The site lies on Edgware Road which has been built along the old roman road of Watling Street. From the 16^th century, the area was mainly used for agricultural purposes. Early records from1086 indicate that the area was divided between two agricultural holdings. By 1350, most of the freehold land in the area had been absorbed into the demesne of Kingsbury manor; this was later acquired by All Souls College and enfranchisements in the 19th century.

Industry was attracted to the area following government intervention during the First World War, when the region’s proximity to Hendon Aerodrome made it a centre of aircraft and munitions production. Edgware Road provided good communications with the main market, London and with the source of much of the raw material, the Midlands. Labour, mostly unskilled, was initially brought from more densely populated areas in the south by cheap trams and electric railways; later employees were housed in estates built on farm-land. After the First World War, new industries- mainly motor and engineering factories- were officially encouraged to employ the many made idle by the collapse of the war industries. By 1923, there were 23 factories employing thousands.

One of the three industrial areas in the region was along Edgware Road.

Further changes to the area commenced with the public transport system expanding into the area. The extension to the line commenced in two stages: initially with extension of the tram system in the early 1900s and then later with the extension of the Northern Underground Line from Golders Green in the 1930s. The latter extension led to the mass house building and development of the area.

The transport extension was accompanied by an increase in land price and factory expansion was no longer feasible; this forced many companies farther out into the country, leaving their sites to small, new firms making goods such as plastics or electronic components. The last factory to occupy the site was that of the Phoenix Telephone and Electric Works, which started in 1912 in Cricklewood, became the War Department Signal Factory, and moved to the site in the early 1920s.

More recently Yaohan Plaza was constructed on the site, originally set up as a resource centre for the Japanese ex-patriot market. This has now evolved into ‘Oriental City’: a centre providing goods for a far wider Asian market of regional significance. The intention is to incorporate Oriental City in the redevelopment.