Living in Kilburn: area guide to homes, schools and transport

This down-to-earth district in north-west London offers families plenty of scope to upsize and downsize. 
Daniel Lynch
Anthea Masey6 September 2017

The north-west London neighbourhood of Kilburn stretches out on either side of Watling Street, the ancient Anglo-Saxon road that once connected pilgrims to Canterbury and St Albans.

It is now known more prosaically as the A5 and marks the boundary of two London boroughs, Brent to the west and Camden to the east.

Busy and bustling Kilburn High Road has a down-to-earth-character that continues to serve its long-standing Irish and Caribbean communities well. Famous residents have included supermodel Kate Moss, actor Hugh Laurie, and comedians galore.

Walk the back streets and Kilburn reveals its intriguing history and fine historic buildings. In the 12th century a priory was established close to what is now the junction of Kilburn High Road and Belsize Road.

It was dissolved by Henry VIII but lives on in local street names Priory Road and Priory Terrace, where there are fine early Victorian stucco villas.

Much later, in 1714, chalybeate springs were found near the site of the former priory. Kilburn Wells were established by the proprietor of the nearby Bell Inn, who set about stealing custom from a similar health-giving spa in Hampstead.

The spire of Grade I-listed St Augustine’s Church can be seen for miles around. The architect John Loughborough Pearson based the design on Albi Cathedral in southern France.

You'll find many large Edwardian and Victorian houses in Kilburn
Daniel Lynch

When built in 1880, St Augustine’s was the third largest church in London after St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and became known as the cathedral of north London.

Kilburn likes to do things on a grand scale. The Art Deco Gaumont State cinema, with entrances in Kilburn High Road and Willesden Lane, was built in 1937 and with more than 4,000 seats, was one of the largest venues in Europe.

Once famous for top live music acts including Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, it was run as a bingo hall between 1980 and 2007 when it was sold to a Pentecostal church.

In Cambridge Avenue are two more modest buildings: a memorial to animals killed in war and, almost next door, a rare example of a chapel built entirely of corrugated iron.

Long before the animal war memorial opened in Park Lane, the RSPCA opened the Animal War Memorial Dispensary in a house in Kilburn. A large bronze relief over the door was unveiled in 1932 depicting every type of animal that saw action in the First World War: horses, mules, oxen, dogs, elephants, camels and pigeons.

Meanwhile, a fundraising drive is on to restore the dilapidated Tin Tabernacle, now home to the local sea cadets.

Kilburn is four miles from central London with the A5, Edgware Road, leading directly to Marble Arch. Estate agent Oliver Morgan-Townley at Camerons Stiff & Co points out it is surrounded by more affluent areas — West Hampstead, St John’s Wood, Maida Vale and Queen’s Park.

“Buyers come here not just because it is cheaper but because they feel the area still has something raw and real about it,” he says.

The property scene

At the northern end of Kilburn, the Mapesbury conservation area has roads of large Edwardian mainly semi-detached houses.

Elsewhere, Kilburn offers mainly two- and three-storey Victorian houses, with particularly popular examples in the tree-lined streets of the Waterloo Estate in the North Kilburn conservation area, north of Willesden Lane and west of Kilburn High Road.

The most expensive house currently for sale is an eight-bedroom detached Edwardian property in Chatsworth Road in the Mapesbury conservation area, at £3.85 million. The cheapest house is a four-bedroom modern home in Hazelmere Road, for £820,000.

There are five times as many flats currently for sale in Kilburn as there are houses. The most expensive flat is a three-bedroom sixth-floor property with an outdoor terrace in a new development, Royal Langford Apartments, in Greville Road, priced £1.9 million.

Among the cheapest flats is a one-bedroom home in a block in Mortimer Crescent, at £299,999.

What's new?

Led by Brent council, the regeneration of South Kilburn estate stretches from Kilburn High Road, down Kilburn Park Road, up Malvern Road to Queen’s Park station and then along the south of the railway line. It is a huge area that will see 2,400 new homes built before the project is complete in 2029, with 1,200 existing residents promised new homes.

The plans include a new primary school, health centre, shops, restaurants, a new park and the creation of a tree-lined boulevard along Carlton Vale. Leading architects including Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, Alison Brooks and Feilden Clegg Bradley are involved.

Houses and flats built along Cambridge Avenue, where a new pedestrian and cycle route has been created, show what can be achieved. Kilburn Quarter, between Kilburn Park Road and Cambridge Road, the latest phase of the South Kilburn estate regeneration, is delivered by housing association Network Homes. Help to Buy is currently available on some of the remaining units in Kilburn Quarter.

Six private sale homes remain, priced from £530,000 for a one-bedroom flat, with two-bedroom flats at £760,000 and three-bedroom flats just shy of £1 million. Visit kilburnquarter.com or call Currell on 020 3846 8500.

The next phase, Gloucester House and Durham Court in Kilburn Park Road, a Telford Homes scheme with 102 homes for affordable rent, 10 for shared ownership and 124 for market sale, starts soon for completion in 2021.#

Noma Westminster by housing association Affinity Sutton is part of the regeneration of the Tollgate Gardens Estate, at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Oxford Road. Of 229 flats, 103 will be affordable. Visit noma-westminster.com or call JLL on 020 7205 2496.

The Camden Collection are private sale homes being developed by Camden council’s Community Investment Programme. The Abbey Road regeneration includes the site of a former multi-storey car park on the corner of Belsize Road and Abbey Road.

This phase has 75 flats for private sale, 66 for affordable rent and 10 adapted for wheelchair use. It will be launched next year. Visit camdencollection.co.uk or call Savills on 020 3320 8220.

Renting

Camerons Stiff & Co lettings agent, Philip Johal, says it costs about £100 a month less to rent a one-bedroom flat in Kilburn than in more fashionable Queen’s Park. However, he points out that some renters prefer Kilburn because the transport links are better.

Staying power
A house in the Mapesbury conservation area is a home for life and elsewhere in Kilburn there is plenty of scope both to upsize and downsize.
Postcode
NW6 is the Kilburn postcode; as well as Kilburn it stretches to the west to include Queen’s Park and to the east to West Hampstead. The Mapesbury conservation area, however, is in the NW2 Cricklewood postcode.
Best roads
Teignmouth Road and Dartmouth Road in the Mapesbury conservation area have fine red-brick detached and semi-detached Edwardian houses. Priory Terrace and Priory Road have flat-fronted stucco early Victorian villas.
Up and coming
Estate agent Oliver Morgan-Townley of Camerons Stiff & Co says there has been a lot of interest recently in the ladder of tree-lined streets that runs between Willesden Lane and Priory Park Road, where there are three-bedroom Victorian terrace houses that make nice family homes — roads such as Tennyson Road, Douglas Road and Kenilworth Road.
In Douglas Road, an extended five-bedroom house is for sale for £1.35 million and an unmodernised three-bedroom house for £1.15 million.
Travel

Kilburn has a range of transport options: buses, including night buses, the Underground and the Overground. The No 16 bus, and its night version, go to Victoria via Marble Arch; the No 98, and its night version, run to Holborn via Oxford Circus; the No 189 goes down Quex Road on its way to Oxford Circus.

Kilburn Tube station is on the Jubilee line and Kilburn Park is on the Bakerloo line. Brondesbury is on the Overground to Gospel Oak and Highbury & Islington, and Kilburn High Road is on the Overground line which runs from Watford Junction to Euston.

All stations are in Zone 2 and an annual travelcard costs £1,296.

Council

Brent council is Labour controlled. Band D council tax for 2017/2018 is £1,425.18. Camden council is also Labour controlled, and Band D council tax is £1,417.46.

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

Bustling Kilburn High Road is the main shopping street, with branches of Aldi, TK Maxx, Boots, Poundland, Iceland, Argos, Primark, Clarks and an M&S Food Hall.

Other highlights among the betting shops, pawn brokers and cash converters are Folkies Music for musical instruments; The North London Tavern, renovated and with a gastropub menu; Small & Beautiful, a greasy spoon during the day, a restaurant at night; The Good Ship which describes itself as a grassroots music venue, bar, nightclub and comedy venue; Ariana 11, an Afghan restaurant; Hillman, a butchers since 1848; and sourdough pizzeria Franco Manca.

Off the Kilburn High Road, Willesden Lane has Canaletes Tapas & Wine restaurant and Offside Books, a second-hand bookshop which holds poetry evenings.

Belsize Road has Little Bay, a restaurant famed for its baroque interior and value-for-money menus; Hart and Lova bakery, patisserie and café; The Cocoa Exchange artisan chocolate maker, and Bisque Radiators, for colourful, chunky radiators.

There are more shops, restaurants and cafés along West End Lane in West Hampstead and Salusbury Road in Queen’s Park.

Open space

Kilburn Grange Park off Kilburn High Road is the town centre park with an imaginative children’s play area, tennis courts and a multi-use games area. Woodhouse Urban Park in Albert Road, a new award-winning park with robust wooden play structures, opened last year as part of the South Kilburn Regeneration Programme.

Most outdoor sports are catered for at Paddington Recreation Ground in Carlton Vale where there is an athletics track, bowling green, football pitches, cricket nets, tennis courts, a trim trail, a children’s play area and a café.

Queen’s Park is owned and maintained by the City of London; it has tennis courts, a pitch and putt course, pétanque pitch, ornamental garden, a children’s playground, paddling pool, a small zoo and a café. Mapesbury Dell in Hoveden Road is a tiny, tucked-away garden maintained by the community.

Leisure and the arts

Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn High Road, one of London’s leading fringe venues, is currently undergoing a major rebuild, although the cinema, with its entrance in Buckley Road, is still open.

The nearest council-owned swimming pool is the Jubilee Sports Centre in Caird Street in Queen’s Park.

Schools

Kilburn has predominantly state schools although there is a wide choice of private schools in nearby Hampstead.

Primary school

Kilburn’s state primary schools are all rated “good” or better by Ofsted. Those with an “outstanding” rating from the schools watchdog are: Kingsgate in Kingsgate Road; St Eugene de Mazenod RC in Mazenod Avenue, and Emmanuel CofE in Mill Lane.

Kilburn Grange in Priory Park Road is a new primary Free School that opened two years ago and has not yet been inspected by Ofsted. Malorees Junior and Infants School in Christchurch Avenue is a popular choice for parents in the Brondesbury Park area of north Kilburn. Both the junior and infant schools are judged to be “good”.

Comprehensive

The two “outstanding” comprehensives are both church schools: St Augustine’s CofE (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Oxford Road and St George’s RC (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Lanark Road.

The other comprehensives — Marylebone Boys (ages 11 to 18) in Willesden Lane; Queen’s Park Community (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Aylestone Avenue, and Hampstead (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Westbere Road are all judged “good”.

Private

There are two private infants’ schools: Mulberry House (co-ed, ages two to seven) in Shoot-Up Hill and Minster Road, and Broadhurst (co-ed, ages two to five) in Greencroft Gardens.

There are two private primary schools: Rainbow Montessori (co-ed, ages four to 12) in Woodchurch Road and Naima Jewish Preparatory (co-ed, ages two to 11) in Andover Place.