Metro-land

Front cover of Metro-Land magazine from 1921

Metro-land (or Metroland ) describes a suburban area north-west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire , Hertfordshire and Middlesex , which was opened up in the early 20th century by the Metropolitan Railway (Met), the predecessor of today's Metropolitan Line of the London Underground . The Met was in a legally privileged position that allowed it to keep surplus land that was not needed for the railway construction. From 1919 onwards, the Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited , which was nominally independent but dependent on the Met, carried out extensive property developments and thus specifically promoted the development of housing developments. The term Metro-land was created in 1915 by the marketing department of the Met and initially referred to an annual magazine. It touted the dream of a modern house in a beautiful landscape, with a fast train connection to central London. When the Metropolitan Railway was incorporated into the public service London Passenger Transport Board in 1933 , the advertising campaign ended. Over time, however, the term found its way into general usage and the associated attitude towards life inspired numerous artists.

The spelling “Metroland” is now common, but the brand name was “Metro-land” or “METRO-LAND”.

Emergence

Metropolitan Railway

Map of Metro-land in the magazine of the same name from 1924

The Metropolitan Railway (Met) opened the world's first underground on January 10, 1863 ; it connected the Paddington , Euston and King's Cross terminus with the City of London . In the following years the company expanded rapidly; their routes reached Hammersmith in 1864 and Richmond in 1877 . In 1884 the Met and the District Railway completed the inner ring line in the city center ( Inner Circle ).

The most important route, however, developed from Baker Street northwest to the rural area of ​​County Middlesex , where it stimulated the growth of new suburbs. Eventually it reached Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire , northeast of Oxford and more than 50 miles from Baker Street. From the late 19th century, the Met said tracks with that of Marylebone of trains running Great Central Railway . Electric operation on the sections close to the center was introduced in 1905, while trains with steam locomotives continued to run on the more distant sections . Further branches were added: 1904 to Uxbridge , 1925 to Watford and 1932 to Stanmore .

Metro-land

Laws passed by parliament on the construction of railway lines allowed the railway companies to expropriate the planned route . Sometimes they bought larger pieces of land from the landowners than they actually needed to avoid the legal obstacles involved. After completing the route, the companies were obliged to sell property that was not operationally necessary to the original owner within a certain period of time at the same price; these then benefited from an increase in value due to the better accessibility. The Met, on the other hand, found itself in a privileged position: it was the only British railway company to have achieved through clever lobbying in Parliament that it was not subject to any sales force. The land she was allowed to keep was initially administered by the Land Committee , which was made up of directors from the Met. In the 1880s, when the Met expanded beyond Swiss Cottage , it had roads and sewers built in the Willesden Park Estate and sold the parceled lots to contractors for a profit. A similar project followed in Cecil Park near Pinner and after the failure of Watkin's Tower , lots were also sold in Wembley Park.

In 1912, the then managing director Robert Selbie came to the conclusion that more professionalism was required when selling land and suggested the establishment of a separate company to develop new settlements along the railway lines instead of the Land Committee . The First World War delayed these plans for years. The Met was concerned that Parliament might reconsider its exclusive legal situation and sought legal advice. An expert opinion revealed that the right of ownership to the land was undisputed, but that the Met was not authorized to develop it itself. When a building boom began to emerge in 1919, the Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE) was founded, with all the directors of the Met including one exception. The MRCE developed the housing developments Kingsbury Garden Village near Neasden, Wembley Park, Cecil Park and Grange Estate near Pinner, Cedars Estate near Rickmansworth and Harrow Garden Village.

The term Metro-land was created by the marketing department of the Met in 1915 when they gave the previously published Guide to the Extension Line a new name. This travel guide with a high proportion of advertisements cost two pence and presented the region served by the Met. It was aimed at visitors, hikers and cyclists, but especially at potential home buyers. The travel guide, which was published annually until 1932, extolled the advantages of "good air in the Chilterns ", sometimes using extremely flowery language. A comfortable life in a modern house in the middle of a beautiful landscape, with a fast train connection to central London was advertised. The suburban settlements that arose along the Met largely corresponded to the ideal of the garden city propagated by Ebenezer Howard and mainly attracted middle-class families . Within a few decades, the population in the region served by the Met multiplied.

Transition to London Underground

On July 1, 1933, the Metropolitan Railway went on together with other subways, trams and bus companies in the public service London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB). This introduced the new name Metropolitan Line and the former Met was now integrated into the network of the London Underground . The LPTB was not interested in freight traffic and left this to the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). LNER also assumed operational responsibility for the steam-powered passenger trains north of Rickmansworth . The LPTB only continued to use the Metro-land brand name for a short time . In 1934 he advertised "cheap fares to Metro-land and the sea" and then quickly dropped the term.

Definition of metro-land

The Metro-land travel guide insisted that Metro-land was “a country with elastic borders that every visitor can draw for himself”. The main features of Metro-land were by no means restricted to the catchment area of ​​the Metropolitan Railway and could also be cited in general terms. Kathryn Bradley-Hole wrote about Gunnersbury Park and the Evening Standard , entitled Down the line into Metroland, described High Barnet ( Northern Line ), Loughton ( Central Line ), Amersham and Rickmansworth as "top locations with an easy commute". With regard to the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire , however, the travel guide was quite clear and limited it to Harde Burnham in the southeast : "The Chilterns at Marlow and Wycombe are not in Metro-land."

The architect Hugh Casson considered Harrow the “capital” of Metro-land, while Arthur Mee in King's England called Wembley its “epitome”. In an article published in Country Life magazine in 2012 about the new High Speed ​​2 high-speed line through the Chilterns, an unnamed author poked fun at the development of the Aylesbury settlement . Metro-land is so suburban that there is only "sub" and no "urbs" (city). However, the mood lifts when you “reach Waddesdon a little further down the road. No need to be reminded that you are in Rothschildland ”(alluding to Waddesdon Manor , a National Trust property managed by the Rothschild family ).

Slogans, literature and songs

Baker Street station , the starting point of the routes to the northwest, was considered the “gateway to Metro-land”, as was Chiltern Court, a luxurious block of flats that had opened above the station in 1929 and was the headquarters of the Special Operations Executive during World War II served. John Betjeman took this metaphor later, describing Chorleywood as "the essential Metro-land" (the essential Metro-land) , that "at the gateway to the Chiltern Hills" lies (with the village Wendover as the "Pearl").

Before the First World War , George Robert Sims had incorporated the term Metro-land into a poem: I know a land where the wild flowers grow / Near, near at hand if by train you go. / Metroland, Metroland ("I know a country where the wild flowers grow / Nahe, very close if you go by train / Metroland, Metroland"). In the 1920s, the term finally stuck in the collective memory. In Evelyn Waugh's novel Decline and Fall (1928), the honorable Margot Beste-Chetwynd married the Viscount Metroland for a second marriage. Lady Metroland reappears in Vile Bodies (1930) and A Handful of Dust (1934).

Metro-land penetrated the collective consciousness further with songs from the music hall scene, for example with My Little Metro-land Home (text by Boyle Lawrence and music by Henry Thraile, 1920). Another song sang about the advantages of the Poplars housing estate near Ruislip : It's a very short distance by rail on the Met / And at the gate you'll find waiting, sweet Violet (“It's a short distance by train on the Met / And at the gate you will find the waiting sweet Violet ”). Queensbury and the surrounding area and its residents were sung about by the punk band The Magoo Brothers in the song Queensbury Station , which appeared on the album Beyond Believable in 1988 ; the composers both grew up in the area.

In 1997, Metroland was the title and location of a film starring Christian Bale and Emily Watson . It tells the story of the relationship between a couple living in the area. The film is based on the Bildungsroman by Julian Barnes . The pop band Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark recorded the song Metroland for the 2013 album English Electric . It was released as a single; the accompanying music video shows the singer looking out of the train window onto an idealized suburban landscape.

The spirit of Metro-land

City-country contrast

The sentimental and somewhat archaic prose of the Metro-land travel guide conjured up a rustic garden of Eden of the middle class - similar to Stanley Baldwin (three-time Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937), who came from an industrial family but liked to present himself as a country dweller ( "The clink of a hammer on the anvil in a village forge, the sound of the scythe on the grindstone"). The railroad historian Christian Wolmar mocked the travel guide: “The title pages show picturesque rural scenes that would not have been out of place in William Morris ' idyll. The world of Metro-land is not littered with people; its suburban streets are empty. His houses seem to stand isolated in all their glory, apart from any neighbors. There are, it seems, more farm animals than people in the great outdoors in Middlesex and Hertfordshire. "

The composer and conductor Constant Lambert had a cynical view of things in 1934: "The hideous fake good-naturedness of the wanderer who noisily makes his way through the petroleum lamps of Metroland, singing old-fashioned sailor songs and drinking chemically flavored artificial beer."

With a similar ambiguity, Metro-land combined idyllic photos of rural tranquility with lavish advertising for new garden city housing developments. Herein lay the contradictions that the writer Leslie Thomas recorded in his novel The Tropic of Ruislip : “In the country, but not part of it. The fields seemed tangible, yet remote. ”The author and historian AN Wilson reflected on how the suburban settlement development of the early 20th century, brought within easy reach of London by rail,“ ultimately just created an endless belt ... possibly neither City still country ”. As a result, a number of remote towns and villages were "swallowed up and robbed of their identity" , even though Metro-land had advertised rural areas.

In order to attract as many potential customers as possible, real estate companies offered mortgages with low interest rates and down payment prices. This meant that home ownership was now a possibility for most of the middle class, and also for some working-class families. For example, at Rickmansworth houses valued at £ 1,000 to £ 2,000 were available with as little as £ 25 down payment. To give families the opportunity to tour their future homes, the Metropolitan Railway offered free first-class tickets on weekends. These and other offers contributed to the fact that the population multiplied in the first three decades of the 20th century. Between 1901 and 1931 Pinner grew from 3,094 to 23,082 inhabitants, Wembley even from 3,751 to 48,561 inhabitants.

John Betjeman

John Betjeman

In the middle of the 20th century, John Betjeman brought memories of the spirit of Metro-land to life with poems that appeared in the anthology A Few Late Chrysanthemums . Recurring elements are descriptions of the area and the red trains of the Metropolitan Line, for example in the poem Baker Street Station Buffet .

“Smoothly from Harrow, passing Preston Road, / They saw the last green fields and misty sky, / At Neasden watched a workmen's train unload, / And, with the morning villas sliding by, / They felt so sure on their electric trip / That youth and progress were in partnership. "

“From Harrow gently past Preston Road / they saw the last green fields and the misty sky, / at Neasden they saw a train of workers unloading, / and, with the morning mansions passing by, / they felt so safe on their electric excursion , / that youth and progress were in a partnership. "

- John Betjeman : A Few Late Chrysanthemums

In Summoned by Bells , his blank verse autobiography published in 1960 , Betjeman looked back again on Metroland: Metroland / Beckoned us out to lanes in beechy Bucks ("Metroland / lured us out to paths near the beeches of Buckinghamshire").

Betjeman, who years later was described by the Times as the "Hymnologist of Metroland", became well known in the documentary Metro-land , which the BBC first aired on February 26, 1973. The film critic Clive James rated the documentary as an "instant classic" showing how the area was "destroyed by its own success".

Avengerland

Metro-land (especially the southwestern part of Hertfordshire) served in the 1960s as the backdrop for the British television series With Umbrella, Charm and Melon (The Avengers) . Locations such as metropolitan railway stations and quiet suburbs were so style- defining that Avengerland is also jokingly mentioned . In other television series such as Simon Templar , Der Baron , Randall & Hopkirk , The man with the suitcase , Die Profis or Die 2 , the stereotype of an apparent suburban idyll with dark secrets solidified. All made extensive use of locations easily accessible from the film studios in Borehamwood and Pinewood .

literature

• Oliver Green: The London Underground: An illustrated history . Ian Allan, Shepperton 1987, ISBN 0-7110-1720-4 .
• Dennis Edwards, Ron Pigram: The Golden Years of the Metropolitan Railway and the Metro-land Dream . Bloomsbury Publishing, London 1988, ISBN 1-870630-11-4 .
• Alan Jackson: London's Metropolitan Railway . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1986, ISBN 0-7153-8839-8 .
• Stephen Halliday: Underground to Everywhere: London's Underground Railway in the Life of the Capital . Sutton Publishing, Stroud 2001, ISBN 0-7509-2585-X .
• Mike Horne: The Metropolitan Line . Capital Transport, St Leonards on Sea 2003, ISBN 1-85414-275-5 .
• Christian Wolmar : The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was built and how it changed the city forever . Atlantic Books, London 2004, ISBN 1-84354-023-1 .

Web links

• Metro-land (private website, last accessed August 31, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Green: The London Underground: An illustrated history. Pp. 3-5.
2. ^ Green: The London Underground: An illustrated history. Pp. 11-14.
3. ^ Green: The London Underground: An illustrated history. Pp. 43-45.
4. ^ Halliday: Underground to Everywhere. Pp. 103-104.
5. ↑ Jackson: London's Metropolitan Railway. Pp. 134, 137.
6. ↑ Jackson: London's Metropolitan Railway. Pp. 140-142.
7. ↑ Jackson: London's Metropolitan Railway. P. 240.
8. ↑ Jackson: London's Metropolitan Railway. Pp. 240-242.
9. ^ Green: Metro-Land. Preface.
10. ^ Halliday: Underground to Everywhere. Pp. 110, 113.
11. ^ Horne: The Metropolitan Line. Pp. 54-56.
12. ^ Green: Metro-Land. Preface.
13. ↑ Country Life, July 22, 2004.
14. ^ Anthea Masey: Down the line into Metroland. In: Evening Standard . October 21, 2009.
15. ^ David Long: The Little Book of the London Underground . The History Press, Stroud 2014, ISBN 978-0-7524-6236-3 , pp. 43 .
16. ^ Country Life, Jan. 18, 2012.
17. ^ Metro-land. TV documentary by the BBC, first broadcast in 1973.
18. ^ Claire Timms: Protecting Betjeman's Metroland put on Harrow's agenda. BBC , July 15, 2009, accessed April 25, 2016 . 
19. ^ Halliday: Underground to Everywhere. P. 110.
20. ^ Magoo Brothers: Beyond Believable . Discogs , accessed April 25, 2016.
21. ↑ RadioTimes Guide to Films 2010 . BBC Worldwide, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-9555886-2-4 , pp. 754 .
22. ^ Anne Perkins: Baldwin . House Publishing, London 2006, ISBN 1-904950-60-4 , pp. 45 .
23. ↑ Wolmar: The Subterranean Railway. P. 239.
24. ↑ Stephen Lloyd: Constant Lambert - Beyond the Rio Grande . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-84383-898-2 , pp. 34 .
25. ↑ TO Wilson: After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World . Picador, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-312-42515-9 , pp. 41 .
26. ^ Halliday: Underground to Everywhere. Pp. 113-114.
27. ^ Patrick Matthews: Metroland: three Betjeman poems. Middlesex: A roundtrip in Nowhere Land, 2013, accessed April 26, 2016 . 
28. ^ Alan Hamilton, Bill Stock: Betjeman senior shows his poetic depths. The Times , January 6, 2007, accessed April 28, 2016 . 
29. ^ Metro-Land (1973). ScreenOnline, 2014, accessed April 26, 2016 . 
30. ↑ Clive James: Pink predominates. In: The Observer . 15th December 1974.
31. ↑ Avengerland. Time Screen, accessed April 26, 2016 .