This was fascinating for me,, as I lived in Chorleywood from the age of nine to the age of eighteen when I left to go to University in 1969. I remember the place most fondly. I used to go the Church of England Primary School on the other side of the common (we lived in the :village: side around the station). Then I went to Rickmansworth Grammar School, which meant commuting every day from Chorleywood station to Rickmansworth. It was about the best place to grow up in.
From the video I can see that the Sportsman Hotel opposite the station is no longer the Sportsman Hotel. I'm quite sad about that. Must've walked past it thousands of times in my youth.
There's a continual battle going on about the London Green Belt. On one side, landowners, property developers and their political chums who want to make a fortune building little boxes made of ticky-tacky all over it. On the other side, local residents who quite like the area as it is, thanks, along with people of an environmentalist disposition who see the Green Belt as a relatively unspoilt bit of pleasant countryside ideal for rural walks and relaxation, as well as being a barrier to London sprawl. Politicians muck about with the Green Belt at their peril, as a recent by-election in that area showed.
The irony with the victory for the 'regressive alliance' that won that by-election is that the (now scrapped) Tory plans to allow building on the Green Belt would have given the result they wanted of less house building in Chesham and Amersham. Less attractive bits on the edge of London, that are only green belt for political reasons (and often aren't particularly green or pleasant) being built on would soak up a lot of the demand for edge-of-London living that is currently being served by knocking down lovely Metroland housing in places like Amersham and replacing it with low-quality and smaller Barratt boxes. Meanwhile, the other protections that pretty much all of the greenfield land in the constituency has (ditto the area around Chorleywood) would still apply, protecting the area from greenfield development.
@@highpath4776 True, but human homes have to be built somewhere and it's greener if it's some scrubland (or, better yet, a golf course) close to where the stuff is than the same sort of land but 20+ miles further away from work and leisure. Especially as the beyond green belt stuff was built less dense to make up for being further away - it didn't save land. All the green belt did was lengthen journeys. Protect what is worth protecting, don't idiotically protect land purely because it is near the city that people want to live near.
_Chorleywood if it could_ As you seem already to be aware, it's the only underground station that's ever been referenced by a Simon and Garfunkel song, i.e.: _I'd rather be a hammer than a nail_ _If I could_ _If I only could_ _I Chorleywood._ ;)
@@sproutstanding The Only Living Boy in New Cross is actually the title of a song by the early 90s indie duo Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, who liked their puns.
Very appropriate given that one of Simon ad Garfunkel's hits was written at Widnes station during a tour (Homeward Bound) - though arguments have been also put forward for Wigan or Ditton.
Oh I would love a whole Metro-Land video. Having lived in Pinner for a few years and then moved to the other side of the Chilterns, served by what was then (maybe still?) called the Chiltern Turbo, the Met line is and always will be my favourite line. The magenta map colour is a favourite too. It was the old trains (not the steam, I'm a decade too young for that), the carriages were bigger and laid out more like railway trains than tubes, getting the right train to work and back, could mean a nice long sit down all the way without changing, or working out which train would get me there faster and should I change at Wembley? Or go to Harrow and take my chances. I was rather disappointed when they renamed the Hammersmith branch. I love the concept of Metro-Land, if not always the reality, and the houses and estates are way better than a lot of other places in other parts of London from the same era. It was also the last bastion of chivalry on the tube, if there wasn't a seat when I got on, some gentleman would almost always offer me his seat. I also loved watching the different trains right outside my flat in Pinner. Some sped past, others were going fast enough to know they weren't stopping in our still almost village like dwelling place and others had the tired look as they slowed, as if they were as challenged as I was just getting up the hill to Pinner station. I love the whole area and would happily live in the Chilterns somewhere again. A video would by you about Metro-Land would be a great video and I'd watch it over and over.
Is this the same Chorleywood where modern breadmaking was born? But I used to fly kites there on the common as a kid! Also my brother got his radio control plane stuck in one of those huge trees, and we had to go home and bring back a sacrificed gazebo tent for the poles to put them all together anf try and poke it out. which we actually managed to!
Yes. The Chorleywood process was invented in 1961 and its chief difference to the usual method is a faster mixing process and a shorter initial proving time. It makes the production process quicker and allows lower gluten flours (like the ones grown here) to be used in place of imported higher gluten flour.
The process was developed at the Flour Milling and Bakeries Research Association (FMBRA) in Chorleywood. It enabled cheap mass-produced bread using flour from British wheat varieties as opposed to US, Canadian or Australian wheats that had dominated before the Second World War. The process was aided by a big wheat breeding drive from UK research centres like Rothamsted Experimental Station, also in Hertfordshire.
4:45 Not only am I crestfallen that the house wouldn't have come with a cow-I'm also confused by the presence of the lone free-range horse and sheep and the faceless humanoid with a shiftless Border Collie who seemingly has no interest in rounding up this trio of wayward beasts.
Among my Railway Books Ive one with photos of Metroland under steam as well as part of London Transport. As a train spotter in the 60s we used to get trains from Harrow on Hill to Baker Street and the old Met coaches had a buffet section in one coach.
Settlement at Chorleywood goes back to at least the Iron Age, and some things haven't changed. Also home to cheap bread, rebellious Chartists, various minor celebrities down the years and a Lutyens house worth a fortune. One thing about the station layout - if you step off the car park steps onto the north bound platform and see your southbound train come round the corner, you just have time for a mad dash through the tunnel to catch it. Which helpfully tells southbound passengers that their train is coming, and stand clear of the tunnel. Allegedly the quietest station on the Tube, which is a good thing - though mostly due to the cost of the car park versus Rickmansworth.
You missed a third massive impact happenings at Chorleywood had on the residents of London and beyond. In 1961 at the Baking Research Institute, a new method of making fluffy white bread was invented. Those sons of fun at the Institute dreamt up the imaginative name, The Chorleywood Process. This led to mass produced loaves of the Wonderloaf variety being churned out to the delight of housewives throughout the land. Hurrah for Chorleywood.
Quite so, the name Chorleywood is possibly more famous around the world for the bread-making process than anything else. Watch any documentary or TH-cam video about modern bread manufacture & Chorleywood is bound to be mentioned.
Another excellent, highly informative and amusing video from Mr Hazzard, thank you good sir for your continued contributions. I honestly have no idea why you don't have a million subscribers or more, your content also appeals to those who have only a passing interest in the Tube (such as myself for example).
I would called that infamous for the Chorleywood process... I suppose the good thing about it is that it broke much of the dependency on high gluten imported wheat, but these days the development of new varieties allows relatively high gluten wheat to be grown in the UK. However, back when I was young in the 1960s and 70s and, for a good period afterwards, mass market sliced white bread would turn into pap.
As a Brit now resident in Canada - man how I miss a good slice of Hovis. Canadian bread is second only to Canadian cheese in terms of badness and cost.
Jay Foreman has a great video about Metroland, but I'd love to hear your take. I suspect it wouldn't involve you kicking his grandmother's house, but I don't want to limit your creative process.
The main instigator of the metropolitan green belt was Patrick Abercrombie, I suppose one of the “founding fathers” of town planning. I’m a planner in a borough largely consisting of the MGB and I’m ever thankful for his creation - having said that, what he did to Plymouth can only be described as “interesting”
Had a wander through that at night on a long weekend there for an FA Cup tie some years ago. It's a short walk inland and the other side of a busy main road from the green,monument-happy coastal parts around the Hoe but yes,that town centre was somewhat,er,interesting. Does it still have those lights,or is it water jets (could be confusing it with somewhere else there,not necessarily in Britain or even Europe) coming up from the pavement in the pedestrianised central precinct?
The more of these videos that I watch, the more I begin to think that the world is being run for the benefit of sign-writers and printers. How much do they benefit each time one of these stations is renamed? Keep them coming.
@@zork999 i don't feel distorted living out here. I'd say either end of the Circle are the most. The Queensway/Bayswater separation or the Aldgate-Whitechapel area are more simplified by Beck. We're just a straight line that's shorter
Grew up in Chorleywood 70's 80's - lovely spot - and excellent for a pub crawl around the common! Black Horse then up Dog Kennel lane to White Horse & The Gate - Rose & Crown Sportsman The Shepherd then on to - The Stag and Land of Liberty...
I went to Chorleywood some years ago and quite frankly, was surprised how such a nice place is within commuting distance of the Metropolis. Didn't bother ask the price of the houses though!
You really should write a book about the underground and suburbs etc. I’m an avid underground buff but I’ve learned so much from your videos although they are taster!!! May I say you have a voice and delivery perfect for TH-cam! 🙏🙏
"His practice was on Baker Street" [and I'm sure you'll agree he played a mean saxophone]. Seriously though, very interesting comment on "Metro-Land" -George Bernard Shaw wasn't it that vilified the mock-Tudor homes of the Era? Fun fact: Metro-Land was once the name of the fun fair attached to Gateshead's Metro-Centre shopping mall.
I commuted to Chorleywood, from Watford back in the 80’s. Loved it, glad to see it hasn’t changed. Pity you didn’t show the Sportsman Hotel, opposite the station, l hope it’s still there. It’s where l lost my innocence to a delightful lady, who shall remain nameless but not forgotten!
So in the UK early Rail Barron's were Land Barron's as well? Here in the US the early days of railroading the companies were granted Deeds for swaths of land for 5 miles on both sides of the mainline many of which the railroads still owns some of to this day by subsidiaries like the Great Northern Railway's Glacier Park Company!
Land speculation by railroads was normally outlawed in the UK. Any surplus land after the railroad was finished had to be sold. Pretty much the sole exception was Metroland. On the other hand, UK railroads did have air rights above stations and the government can tax the increase in worth from having a line or station built in an area, something that is usually outlawed in the US.
W S Gilbert did indeed die of a heart attack whilst trying to rescue a young lady who had got into trouble whilst swimming in a lake in the grounds of his home, Grims Dyck. That home is now a Best Western hotel but it is not in Chorleywood, rather it is in the grey area between Harrow Weald and Stanmore. I've stayed there on several occasions; the lake is still there and the building has been sympathetically converted with many original features retained, indeed there is a blue plaque by the front door commemorating the fact.
A deeper dive, or perhaps a mapped one of Metroland would be great! As for the suburbs and greenbelts, I do have very mixed feelings. As with the extreme example of the US, transportation techlogies produced now mass low-density development, which does destroy the natural environment, however I think the metroland-type development was pretty acceptable because it still generates decent walkability and of course mass transit usage. As a result, while I think it would have been fine to have more rail-centric development, the green belt does mean that the city can work on denser infill development, which I think we're finally starting to figure out how to implement well in general, not just over there in London, but here in the US as well in examples such as Portland.
The shortening of "Chorley Wood" to "Chorleywood" was all part of BR's cost-cutting measures during the 1960s. The signs were able to be narrowed, with the off-cuttings auctioned off.
I must mildly protest - Metroland did not have all houses alike but instead there was quite a variety, but all we kew owned by ourselves and our friends were surprisingly well built, and as you say middle class with decent gardens and space for the dog!
I both love and curse this video. Ever since it came out, I have had the title, set to the tune of the William Tell Overture, stuck in my head. Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could. Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could. Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could. Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it COULD. ChorleyWOOOOOOOOOOD! Chorleywood if it could.
Would I be right in surmising that the Green Belt was one of the reasons why the Central Line ended up abandoning Ongar Station and terminating at Epping, thus leaving the last couple miles in the countryside to become the Epping & Ongar Steam Railway?
@@Inkyminkyzizwoz Yes, my understanding was that the green belt firmly limited any potential housing development in that area. Everywhere between Loughton and Ongar, and well beyond, lies in the Green Belt, apart from existing settlements. Hence LT's reluctance to take over the Ongar section after WW2 and the delay in electrification from 1949 to 1957, when it was done on the cheap. Similar to their dropping the Bushey Heath extension.
The creation of the green belt why they closed the Mill Hill East - Edgware line rather than finish converting it to tube (and extending it to Bushey) Central line to Denham also didn't get built for the same reasons. And because Britain is significantly poorer as a result of it and similar later acts, it's also why pretty much any proposed post-war improvement that doesn't exist didn't happen.
So basically the answer is "Eh, not really, but kinda." Well, at least London got its own Tube-accessible steam railway out of it. I've heard tell off and on that they plan to extend steam train operations all the way to Epping itself to directly interchange with the Underground, rather than the current terminus at North Weald. From what I've seen in Google Maps and a recreation in Train Simulator, the track is still there, albeit rather overgrown in some places. The main trouble would be getting TfL to agree to the scheme and working out how the steam trains would return to Ongar without interrupting the Tube services; if there would be enough gap in services to allow engines to run-round or if they'd have to top-&-tail with two engines, one at each end, or if the Epping section would be restricted to only their DMU stock that has a cab at each end.
Interesting to learn about towns in the green belt and also why it was established, london could have never ended, so one feels grateful that the green belt was put into place, thanks for an facinating video!
Growing up in Rickmansworth, they did used to have similar ironwork and canopy on the station, but it was replaced with current version when they refurbished because the old canopy was in such a poor state.
Chorleywood is good, We'd live there if we could. A fire occurred in the station building there about 1980. Somebody left teatowels to dry too close to a heater, if I remember correctly. While repairs were undertaken, the booking office was in an unventilated plastic booth on the platform.
Talking of Metroland and cows - my mother remembers cows coming in to the front garden in Parkside Way near North Harrow station back in the 1930s. Difficult to imagine now.
Delightful video. That area as well as Rickmansworth Station were my first sights of the London area metropolis when I was dropped off there by a friend after swinging around the M25 from Gatwick after a flight from Canada. Just a lad of 19, I was thrilled to be in the village where Ace of Spades by Motorhead was recorded. Rickmansworth not Chorleywood. Unbeknownst to me, it was a VERY long ride out to Dagenham.
Again thanks Jago. As to your question as to whether buildings sprawling over the country side will stop, then sadly the answer is no. Having been born in the house I still occupy ( some 58 years ago ) the woodland sprawl up to the top of Otley Chevin , looking from the Bradford side has grown smaller. All generations must build on the past, just wait till I'm not around to see it eh.
Am from Staines dad took us on a Sunday afternoon trip to CW once.....recall the brick bridge underpass. Yes country feel still not ruined. Last time i looked lol
Growing up in Croxley in the 70s, Chorleywood's main claim to fame was the Black Horse pub. Oh and I had an interview at the Flour and Milling Research Institute (I think that was the name anyway) Correction - Flour Milling and Baking Research Association
Thanks Jago, a wonderful insight which of course reinforces some of your other videos... Of "Goth", I heard it as people with thin lips and pointy elbows, they're to be found all over the world. ;) (John - Perth Australia)
Also was the location for Chorley Wood Colidge, (the only grammar school for blind girls), originally “for girls with little or no sight”, run by the RNIB. It closed some years ago when it was amalgamatedwith Worcester College for the Blind, the boys equivalent. I believe the former college is now a retirement home.
Really great video! I would love to see a video about Coulsdon Town and Coulsdon South and the history about them and why they are so close together, like catford and catford bridge.
I wonder if London and its outskirts might have become something like Tokyo if not for the Green Belt: a sprawling metropolis full of low- to mid-rise suburban housing on the outskirts, connected by a complex network of hybrid commuter/rapid transit railway lines.
The station building at Chorleywood is the most beautiful structure on the Metropolitan Line and is more peaceful once you head outside of London and into South Hertfordshire and South Buckinghamshire. Very peaceful town on the outskirts of London and not too far from Watford, M25 Motorway and Heathrow Airport. I wonder how Chorleywood is very quaint and posh and can handle the nearby noise.
Even more interesting than usual - who'd have thought it of Chorleywood? Maybe that hedge row marking the mercia-wessex boundary was once known as Offa's Fence? Or not.
Another great, informative video. Thank you! One impact you didn't mention was the building of the M25 which severed the links between Chroleywood, Sarrat and Rickmansworth. Which leads to another link - the hideous impact on the 'green-belt' of the HS2 portal site just a few miles further along the M25. Which leads to a final link - given Edward Watkins vision and involvement in the Met, GCR and Channel Tunnel. Not only is the destruction of green-belt unsightly, but the current government's view on 'levelling up' has seen the Manchester - London link as all that HS2 will service: and it won't even join up with HS1 to deliver Watkin's century-old vision of through trains from the North to Paris!
Lived in Chorleywood from 1951 to 1998 and from what i read Chorleywood is no longer the quiet village it was as now so many houses being built in my time there would be uproar if a take away was mentioned then suddenly we got an indian restaurant and take away now i believe there is fish and chips a Chinese and a few restaurants and cafes there was also a distinction between the council houses and the private owned ones but growing up there was good
I've come to this a trifle late, so all the good puns have been taken already. Never-the-less, another spiffing video from Mr H, full of fascinating stuff, and evoking a by-gone era. Somehow, outer Metro-Land conjures up a warm cosy feeling, like hot muffins. And its prime was not that long ago. Well, it was, but a man can dream. Thank you, Mr H. Simon T
Gells is an old Bucks way of saying girl. As in "awright gell?" Used for females of any age, in much the same way as "boy" referred to a male. Growing up in Chesham it's how I pronounced the word, and still do.
The issue is where does the 'Green Belt' end? As an ex-inhabitant of Hertfordshire there was a culture of development beyond the outer edge of the 'Green Belt' which impacted the countryside and leaves the new inhabitants with some long commutes and working days.
I do like a shopping precinct aka strip mall. Pure suburbia. Sadly the butcher, baker and ironmonger are probably a nail bar, tattooist and tanning parlour, but still. Could the station security be any more intrusive? How much ironmongery to support a camera?
This was fascinating for me,, as I lived in Chorleywood from the age of nine to the age of eighteen when I left to go to University in 1969. I remember the place most fondly. I used to go the Church of England Primary School on the other side of the common (we lived in the :village: side around the station). Then I went to Rickmansworth Grammar School, which meant commuting every day from Chorleywood station to Rickmansworth. It was about the best place to grow up in.
Same here. Born in Chorleywood in the 60s on Collyland, went to Russell School. Gone by the early 70s but idyllic memories.
From the video I can see that the Sportsman Hotel opposite the station is no longer the Sportsman Hotel. I'm quite sad about that. Must've walked past it thousands of times in my youth.
There's a continual battle going on about the London Green Belt. On one side, landowners, property developers and their political chums who want to make a fortune building little boxes made of ticky-tacky all over it. On the other side, local residents who quite like the area as it is, thanks, along with people of an environmentalist disposition who see the Green Belt as a relatively unspoilt bit of pleasant countryside ideal for rural walks and relaxation, as well as being a barrier to London sprawl. Politicians muck about with the Green Belt at their peril, as a recent by-election in that area showed.
The irony with the victory for the 'regressive alliance' that won that by-election is that the (now scrapped) Tory plans to allow building on the Green Belt would have given the result they wanted of less house building in Chesham and Amersham. Less attractive bits on the edge of London, that are only green belt for political reasons (and often aren't particularly green or pleasant) being built on would soak up a lot of the demand for edge-of-London living that is currently being served by knocking down lovely Metroland housing in places like Amersham and replacing it with low-quality and smaller Barratt boxes.
Meanwhile, the other protections that pretty much all of the greenfield land in the constituency has (ditto the area around Chorleywood) would still apply, protecting the area from greenfield development.
Oh, and I should add - it's the landowners who want the green belt kept. Makes their land, which they often live on, more valuable.
@@sihollett Even scrub land has a value to wildlife, humans are not the only creatures to need a home, and contribute to overall well being
Just add HS2 to the application, it will definitely be accepted. 😡😡😡
@@highpath4776 True, but human homes have to be built somewhere and it's greener if it's some scrubland (or, better yet, a golf course) close to where the stuff is than the same sort of land but 20+ miles further away from work and leisure. Especially as the beyond green belt stuff was built less dense to make up for being further away - it didn't save land.
All the green belt did was lengthen journeys. Protect what is worth protecting, don't idiotically protect land purely because it is near the city that people want to live near.
I must say it’s Chorleywood to see you again.
To Geordies of a certain age Metroland will always be the indoor rollercoaster and amusements at the Metro Centre
_Chorleywood if it could_
As you seem already to be aware, it's the only underground station that's ever been referenced by a Simon and Garfunkel song, i.e.:
_I'd rather be a hammer than a nail_
_If I could_
_If I only could_
_I Chorleywood._
;)
what about Bridge Over Troubled Waterloo?
Homeward Bounds Green?....
The Only Living Boy In New Cross doesn't count as it's on the Overground....
@@sproutstanding The Only Living Boy in New Cross is actually the title of a song by the early 90s indie duo Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, who liked their puns.
Very appropriate given that one of Simon ad Garfunkel's hits was written at Widnes station during a tour (Homeward Bound) - though arguments have been also put forward for Wigan or Ditton.
@@sproutstanding If you saw a Great Central engine going through you could say Hey Mr. Robinson ...
@@iankemp1131 this very true.
Oh I would love a whole Metro-Land video. Having lived in Pinner for a few years and then moved to the other side of the Chilterns, served by what was then (maybe still?) called the Chiltern Turbo, the Met line is and always will be my favourite line. The magenta map colour is a favourite too. It was the old trains (not the steam, I'm a decade too young for that), the carriages were bigger and laid out more like railway trains than tubes, getting the right train to work and back, could mean a nice long sit down all the way without changing, or working out which train would get me there faster and should I change at Wembley? Or go to Harrow and take my chances. I was rather disappointed when they renamed the Hammersmith branch. I love the concept of Metro-Land, if not always the reality, and the houses and estates are way better than a lot of other places in other parts of London from the same era. It was also the last bastion of chivalry on the tube, if there wasn't a seat when I got on, some gentleman would almost always offer me his seat. I also loved watching the different trains right outside my flat in Pinner. Some sped past, others were going fast enough to know they weren't stopping in our still almost village like dwelling place and others had the tired look as they slowed, as if they were as challenged as I was just getting up the hill to Pinner station. I love the whole area and would happily live in the Chilterns somewhere again. A video would by you about Metro-Land would be a great video and I'd watch it over and over.
Is this the same Chorleywood where modern breadmaking was born? But I used to fly kites there on the common as a kid! Also my brother got his radio control plane stuck in one of those huge trees, and we had to go home and bring back a sacrificed gazebo tent for the poles to put them all together anf try and poke it out. which we actually managed to!
Yes. The Chorleywood process was invented in 1961 and its chief difference to the usual method is a faster mixing process and a shorter initial proving time. It makes the production process quicker and allows lower gluten flours (like the ones grown here) to be used in place of imported higher gluten flour.
The process was developed at the Flour Milling and Bakeries Research Association (FMBRA) in Chorleywood. It enabled cheap mass-produced bread using flour from British wheat varieties as opposed to US, Canadian or Australian wheats that had dominated before the Second World War. The process was aided by a big wheat breeding drive from UK research centres like Rothamsted Experimental Station, also in Hertfordshire.
That’s the one! A lot of people have asked about the bread...
@@JagoHazzard Calling that stuff bread is stretching the definition though.
@@JagoHazzard people knead to know..
4:45 Not only am I crestfallen that the house wouldn't have come with a cow-I'm also confused by the presence of the lone free-range horse and sheep and the faceless humanoid with a shiftless Border Collie who seemingly has no interest in rounding up this trio of wayward beasts.
More on Metro-land please! A fascinating subject. Just love Sir John Betjeman's dissertation on the subject. 🧐
Among my Railway Books Ive one with photos of Metroland under steam as well as part of London Transport. As a train spotter in the 60s we used to get trains from Harrow on Hill to Baker Street and the old Met coaches had a buffet section in one coach.
Settlement at Chorleywood goes back to at least the Iron Age, and some things haven't changed. Also home to cheap bread, rebellious Chartists, various minor celebrities down the years and a Lutyens house worth a fortune.
One thing about the station layout - if you step off the car park steps onto the north bound platform and see your southbound train come round the corner, you just have time for a mad dash through the tunnel to catch it. Which helpfully tells southbound passengers that their train is coming, and stand clear of the tunnel.
Allegedly the quietest station on the Tube, which is a good thing - though mostly due to the cost of the car park versus Rickmansworth.
I live in a 1930s part of Wembley. The housing is nice, although some modernisations are not.
A whole video about Metroland..Sir John Betjeman approves
Another charming tale for a charming town.
You missed a third massive impact happenings at Chorleywood had on the residents of London and beyond. In 1961 at the Baking Research Institute, a new method of making fluffy white bread was invented. Those sons of fun at the Institute dreamt up the imaginative name, The Chorleywood Process. This led to mass produced loaves of the Wonderloaf variety being churned out to the delight of housewives throughout the land. Hurrah for Chorleywood.
Quite so, the name Chorleywood is possibly more famous around the world for the bread-making process than anything else. Watch any documentary or TH-cam video about modern bread manufacture & Chorleywood is bound to be mentioned.
Another excellent, highly informative and amusing video from Mr Hazzard, thank you good sir for your continued contributions. I honestly have no idea why you don't have a million subscribers or more, your content also appeals to those who have only a passing interest in the Tube (such as myself for example).
Thank you Jago! Always a pleasure to travel out this way.
Chorleywood has another claim to fame in the Chorleywood process for baking bread, the best thing since sliced bread.
Or worst, depending on preferences.
I would called that infamous for the Chorleywood process... I suppose the good thing about it is that it broke much of the dependency on high gluten imported wheat, but these days the development of new varieties allows relatively high gluten wheat to be grown in the UK. However, back when I was young in the 1960s and 70s and, for a good period afterwards, mass market sliced white bread would turn into pap.
I was going to write the same thing!
Yes. Maybe I should read the comments before plunging in.
As a Brit now resident in Canada - man how I miss a good slice of Hovis. Canadian bread is second only to Canadian cheese in terms of badness and cost.
For that kind of money, for a house back then, they should have thrown in the cow! Glad that Chorleywood stayed more idyllic than suburban.
Move to Milton Keynes 🐄🐄🐄🎈🎈🎈
Jay Foreman has a great video about Metroland, but I'd love to hear your take. I suspect it wouldn't involve you kicking his grandmother's house, but I don't want to limit your creative process.
My grandparents lived in Chorleywood Bottom. I found this hilarious when I was seven.
Better than Pratt's Bottom, in Orpington! 😀
I'll share this on the local Rickmansworth/Chorleywood FB, so incoming comments
The main instigator of the metropolitan green belt was Patrick Abercrombie, I suppose one of the “founding fathers” of town planning. I’m a planner in a borough largely consisting of the MGB and I’m ever thankful for his creation - having said that, what he did to Plymouth can only be described as “interesting”
I used to like Abercrombie.
Please don't say he was responsible for the ghastly soulless place called Plymouth.
@@thomasburke2683 - I’m afraid so - the post war rebuild of Plymouth was him
Had a wander through that at night on a long weekend there for an FA Cup tie some years ago. It's a short walk inland and the other side of a busy main road from the green,monument-happy coastal parts around the Hoe but yes,that town centre was somewhat,er,interesting. Does it still have those lights,or is it water jets (could be confusing it with somewhere else there,not necessarily in Britain or even Europe) coming up from the pavement in the pedestrianised central precinct?
Do I get a gold star for guessing that Jago was going to say the War and the Green Belt just before he did?
Nice shot of Horstead Keynes…
The GREEN BELT, was oķ here . But where I live its all gone, built on by the council's own want for money/greed
The more of these videos that I watch, the more I begin to think that the world is being run for the benefit of sign-writers and printers. How much do they benefit each time one of these stations is renamed?
Keep them coming.
Something about Verney Junction would be Brill
People would come just to Gawcott it. (yeah, I know there was never a station there, but it was the best I could come up with!)
Another brilliant and informative video Jago. Also, good evening!
One quick shot of a tube map pointing out to us foreigners where exactly it is would be good. Alway interesting Jago. Thanks. 👍
Up in the top left hand corner
@@TheCaptScarlett The area of the underground that is, by far, the most distorted on the Beck-style maps.
@@zork999 i don't feel distorted living out here. I'd say either end of the Circle are the most. The Queensway/Bayswater separation or the Aldgate-Whitechapel area are more simplified by Beck. We're just a straight line that's shorter
Grew up in Chorleywood 70's 80's - lovely spot - and excellent for a pub crawl around the common! Black Horse then up Dog Kennel lane to White Horse & The Gate - Rose & Crown Sportsman The Shepherd then on to - The Stag and Land of Liberty...
I went to Chorleywood some years ago and quite frankly, was surprised how such a nice place is within commuting distance of the Metropolis. Didn't bother ask the price of the houses though!
It's in Zone Seven Figures
@@emjackson2289 A bit different from £725.
It’s not that nice a place. The village (or whatever it is) has a disorganised sort of of layout. Not pretty. Not homely.
I have watched a lot of these videos ; mainly on the tv . very informative love your quirky humour too .
You really should write a book about the underground and suburbs etc. I’m an avid underground buff but I’ve learned so much from your videos although they are taster!!! May I say you have a voice and delivery perfect for TH-cam! 🙏🙏
Informative indeed! Chorley others would agree....
Yes indeed! But don't call me Chorley!
"His practice was on Baker Street" [and I'm sure you'll agree he played a mean saxophone].
Seriously though, very interesting comment on "Metro-Land" -George Bernard Shaw wasn't it that vilified the mock-Tudor homes of the Era?
Fun fact: Metro-Land was once the name of the fun fair attached to Gateshead's Metro-Centre shopping mall.
Gateshead's metro centre is much more recent. Not at all so venerable.
Thank you that was interesting about Chorleywood
I commuted to Chorleywood, from Watford back in the 80’s.
Loved it, glad to see it hasn’t changed.
Pity you didn’t show the Sportsman Hotel, opposite the station, l hope it’s still there.
It’s where l lost my innocence to a delightful lady, who shall remain nameless but not forgotten!
Sadly the sportsman is now a block of flats.
So in the UK early Rail Barron's were Land Barron's as well?
Here in the US the early days of railroading the companies were granted Deeds
for swaths of land for 5 miles on both sides of the mainline many of which the
railroads still owns some of to this day by subsidiaries like the Great Northern Railway's
Glacier Park Company!
Land speculation by railroads was normally outlawed in the UK. Any surplus land after the railroad was finished had to be sold. Pretty much the sole exception was Metroland. On the other hand, UK railroads did have air rights above stations and the government can tax the increase in worth from having a line or station built in an area, something that is usually outlawed in the US.
Did you know that Mr Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, drowned in a garden pond here, trying to rescue two ladies swimming!? Well you do now!!😄
W S Gilbert did indeed die of a heart attack whilst trying to rescue a young lady who had got into trouble whilst swimming in a lake in the grounds of his home, Grims Dyck. That home is now a Best Western hotel but it is not in Chorleywood, rather it is in the grey area between Harrow Weald and Stanmore. I've stayed there on several occasions; the lake is still there and the building has been sympathetically converted with many original features retained, indeed there is a blue plaque by the front door commemorating the fact.
@@andrewmcculloch7891 Hi Andrew, thanks for verifying that! I play G&S on piano and still marvel at his clever lyrics !!😄
It's a lovely house in wonderful grounds.
A deeper dive, or perhaps a mapped one of Metroland would be great!
As for the suburbs and greenbelts, I do have very mixed feelings. As with the extreme example of the US, transportation techlogies produced now mass low-density development, which does destroy the natural environment, however I think the metroland-type development was pretty acceptable because it still generates decent walkability and of course mass transit usage. As a result, while I think it would have been fine to have more rail-centric development, the green belt does mean that the city can work on denser infill development, which I think we're finally starting to figure out how to implement well in general, not just over there in London, but here in the US as well in examples such as Portland.
The shortening of "Chorley Wood" to "Chorleywood" was all part of BR's cost-cutting measures during the 1960s.
The signs were able to be narrowed, with the off-cuttings auctioned off.
Thank you my fathers family were from Rickmansworth and Chorleywood for generations so very interesting. They were country folk pre Metro Land!!!!
I want to hear more about this metroland. Troublemakers🦹🏾 HO!!!
Thank you for another great TH-cam video .
Full of humour and information in equal measure as always.
Thank you for another great video. All the best from Sydney Australia.
The more you mention the Green belt the more I try to come up with an amusing karate joke.
judo n't seem to be having much luck! :P
@@cargy930 can't fight the impuls to like this!
I must mildly protest - Metroland did not have all houses alike but instead there was quite a variety, but all we kew owned by ourselves and our friends were surprisingly well built, and as you say middle class with decent gardens and space for the dog!
Just trying to imagine the casting couch that Chorleywood had to endure. Form an orderly queue please!
Can you please elaborate
Don't call me Shirley!
I both love and curse this video. Ever since it came out, I have had the title, set to the tune of the William Tell Overture, stuck in my head.
Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could.
Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could.
Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it could.
Chorleywood, Chorleywood, Chorleywood if it COULD.
ChorleyWOOOOOOOOOOD!
Chorleywood if it could.
Lovely! You've educated me yet again!
Would I be right in surmising that the Green Belt was one of the reasons why the Central Line ended up abandoning Ongar Station and terminating at Epping, thus leaving the last couple miles in the countryside to become the Epping & Ongar Steam Railway?
Not quite - already-existing railways were fine. The Ongar line closed because it just didn’t have many passengers.
@@JagoHazzard But surely the green belt is kind of why it didn't?
@@Inkyminkyzizwoz Yes, my understanding was that the green belt firmly limited any potential housing development in that area. Everywhere between Loughton and Ongar, and well beyond, lies in the Green Belt, apart from existing settlements. Hence LT's reluctance to take over the Ongar section after WW2 and the delay in electrification from 1949 to 1957, when it was done on the cheap. Similar to their dropping the Bushey Heath extension.
The creation of the green belt why they closed the Mill Hill East - Edgware line rather than finish converting it to tube (and extending it to Bushey)
Central line to Denham also didn't get built for the same reasons.
And because Britain is significantly poorer as a result of it and similar later acts, it's also why pretty much any proposed post-war improvement that doesn't exist didn't happen.
So basically the answer is "Eh, not really, but kinda." Well, at least London got its own Tube-accessible steam railway out of it. I've heard tell off and on that they plan to extend steam train operations all the way to Epping itself to directly interchange with the Underground, rather than the current terminus at North Weald. From what I've seen in Google Maps and a recreation in Train Simulator, the track is still there, albeit rather overgrown in some places. The main trouble would be getting TfL to agree to the scheme and working out how the steam trains would return to Ongar without interrupting the Tube services; if there would be enough gap in services to allow engines to run-round or if they'd have to top-&-tail with two engines, one at each end, or if the Epping section would be restricted to only their DMU stock that has a cab at each end.
Interesting to learn about towns in the green belt and also why it was established, london could have never ended, so one feels grateful that the green belt was put into place, thanks for an facinating video!
Excellent content once again Sir!
And rural charm is one of the things we love about you most, Jago. 👨🌾
I wonder if anyone still puts anything in that "Deposit unpaid fares here" box
I suspect Jago knows this, but one great "goff"-sayer was John Betjeman, who pronounced it that way in *his* film about Metro-Land.
Growing up in Rickmansworth, they did used to have similar ironwork and canopy on the station, but it was replaced with current version when they refurbished because the old canopy was in such a poor state.
Brilliant video sir!
Chorleywood is good,
We'd live there if we could.
A fire occurred in the station building there about 1980. Somebody left teatowels to dry too close to a heater, if I remember correctly. While repairs were undertaken, the booking office was in an unventilated plastic booth on the platform.
Thank you for such an excellent little piece on my birthplace!
Did I see a Condor Pass? - nice word play.
If you pace out ten steps along a hedge, and then count how many plant species are in that section, that's the age of the hedge in centuries.
Interesting. I just had to google this and, apparently, it's known as "Hooper's Law". Who knew?😁👍
Talking of Metroland and cows - my mother remembers cows coming in to the front garden in Parkside Way near North Harrow station back in the 1930s.
Difficult to imagine now.
Thank you for doing Metroland. I recognise all the places.
Very much enjoyed the video, it sure wasn't a chore to watch and it seems not a chore to visit!
Golf and Goth, pale faces and eyeliner; Chorleywood and Hollywood; Green Belt, sort of. Loving your work Mr Jago.
Delightful video. That area as well as Rickmansworth Station were my first sights of the London area metropolis when I was dropped off there by a friend after swinging around the M25 from Gatwick after a flight from Canada. Just a lad of 19, I was thrilled to be in the village where Ace of Spades by Motorhead was recorded. Rickmansworth not Chorleywood. Unbeknownst to me, it was a VERY long ride out to Dagenham.
Thank you for doing a video of a place where I grew up. You make it seem much more interesting in comparison to how I view it.
I'm looking forward to your video about Lady Margot Metroland, née Beste-Chetwynde. Or were you thinking of some other Metroland?
Fascinating. Thanks very much, sir. Do we know where that hedge separating Mercia from Wessex is, please?
Again thanks Jago. As to your question as to whether buildings sprawling over the country side will stop, then sadly the answer is no. Having been born in the house I still occupy ( some 58 years ago ) the woodland sprawl up to the top of Otley Chevin , looking from the Bradford side has grown smaller. All generations must build on the past, just wait till I'm not around to see it eh.
My house came with a cow! But I later divorced her and I'm much happier now 😊
Unless you were particularly lucky, it's usually the case that the house and the cow stay together!
Marriage: Find someone that you hate and buy them a house :P
Am from Staines dad took us on a Sunday afternoon trip to CW once.....recall the brick bridge underpass. Yes country feel still not ruined. Last time i looked lol
Growing up in Croxley in the 70s, Chorleywood's main claim to fame was the Black Horse pub. Oh and I had an interview at the Flour and Milling Research Institute (I think that was the name anyway)
Correction - Flour Milling and Baking Research Association
In Scotland golf is sometimes pronounced ‘gowf’ (as in how now brown cow - gow-f)
🏴
OorWullie was the only person I saw calling it that.😁
Thanks Jago, a wonderful insight which of course reinforces some of your other videos... Of "Goth", I heard it as people with thin lips and pointy elbows, they're to be found all over the world. ;) (John - Perth Australia)
Did everyone else miss the Hollywood director and the way he looks at an aspiring young actress comment. Priceless.👍🏻
Also was the location for Chorley Wood Colidge, (the only grammar school for blind girls), originally “for girls with little or no sight”, run by the RNIB. It closed some years ago when it was amalgamatedwith Worcester College for the Blind, the boys equivalent. I believe the former college is now a retirement home.
Looking forward to seeing a video about Metroland
One of my fave things about Jago’s videos are the snappy little puns at the end of each video. I live and breathe for those.
Really great video! I would love to see a video about Coulsdon Town and Coulsdon South and the history about them and why they are so close together, like catford and catford bridge.
I wonder if London and its outskirts might have become something like Tokyo if not for the Green Belt: a sprawling metropolis full of low- to mid-rise suburban housing on the outskirts, connected by a complex network of hybrid commuter/rapid transit railway lines.
The station building at Chorleywood is the most beautiful structure on the Metropolitan Line and is more peaceful once you head outside of London and into South Hertfordshire and South Buckinghamshire.
Very peaceful town on the outskirts of London and not too far from Watford, M25 Motorway and Heathrow Airport. I wonder how Chorleywood is very quaint and posh and can handle the nearby noise.
Chorleywood, the village, had lost its space before the railway. But marketing...
'Send a postcard, for the homestead of your dreams, to 'Loudwater Estate', Chorley Wood. John Betjeman (Metroland).
I love your narration style.
You're by far the most charismatic train nerd on TH-cam
Is it just me or isn't that just some fantastic drainage on the platform? Usually they have distasteful grimy metal grills tucked away
Even more interesting than usual - who'd have thought it of Chorleywood? Maybe that hedge row marking the mercia-wessex boundary was once known as Offa's Fence? Or not.
There is Metroland, and to cap it all there is Chorleywood, and its oh so common.
Another great, informative video. Thank you! One impact you didn't mention was the building of the M25 which severed the links between Chroleywood, Sarrat and Rickmansworth.
Which leads to another link - the hideous impact on the 'green-belt' of the HS2 portal site just a few miles further along the M25.
Which leads to a final link - given Edward Watkins vision and involvement in the Met, GCR and Channel Tunnel.
Not only is the destruction of green-belt unsightly, but the current government's view on 'levelling up' has seen the Manchester - London link as all that HS2 will service: and it won't even join up with HS1 to deliver Watkin's century-old vision of through trains from the North to Paris!
Lived in Chorleywood from 1951 to 1998 and from what i read Chorleywood is no longer the quiet village it was as now so many houses being built in my time there would be uproar if a take away was mentioned then suddenly we got an indian restaurant and take away now i believe there is fish and chips a Chinese and a few restaurants and cafes there was also a distinction between the council houses and the private owned ones but growing up there was good
Chorelynot and as it transpired, it didn't. 03:43
I've come to this a trifle late, so all the good puns have been taken already. Never-the-less, another spiffing video from Mr H, full of fascinating stuff, and evoking a by-gone era. Somehow, outer Metro-Land conjures up a warm cosy feeling, like hot muffins. And its prime was not that long ago. Well, it was, but a man can dream. Thank you, Mr H. Simon T
John Betjeman pronounced it goff. He also pronounced girls as gells, which i’ve never heard elsewhere.
Gells is an old Bucks way of saying girl. As in "awright gell?" Used for females of any age, in much the same way as "boy" referred to a male. Growing up in Chesham it's how I pronounced the word, and still do.
The issue is where does the 'Green Belt' end? As an ex-inhabitant of Hertfordshire there was a culture of development beyond the outer edge of the 'Green Belt' which impacted the countryside and leaves the new inhabitants with some long commutes and working days.
Did you film this on Wednesday 24th November? I was doing the Tube Challenge on that day, although I was at Chorleywood when it was getting dark.
Very good ! I'll make a point if exploring chorlywood in more depth looks Ideal !
The most interesting article about Chorleywood since sliced bread.
"So what are we gonna do with this piece of land here?"
"Golf course!"
"Uhh... you mean a cemetary?"
I do like a shopping precinct aka strip mall. Pure suburbia. Sadly the butcher, baker and ironmonger are probably a nail bar, tattooist and tanning parlour, but still. Could the station security be any more intrusive? How much ironmongery to support a camera?