ECONOMIC HISTORY.
Agriculture.
In 1086
Great Stanmore was assessed at 9½ hides, which
included land for 7 ploughs, pasture for the cattle of
the vill, and woodland for 800 pigs. The value had
fallen from £10 T.R.E. to 10s. when Robert of
Mortain received it, but had risen to 60s. at the time
of the Domesday survey. The lord had 2 ploughs and
room for one more on his 6½-hide demesne, and his
tenants had 1½ plough, with room for 2½ more. The
tenants consisted of a priest, who had ½ hide, 4
villeins each on one virgate, 2 more on one virgate,
3 cottars on 10 a., and 3 others on 1 a. (fn. 54)
The lord occupied Great Stanmore manor-house
and lands totalling 40 a. in 1587-8. The remaining
362 a. in demesne, including 45 a. in Harrow parish,
were divided among 17 tenants, whose holdings
ranged from 88 a. to a single acre, fourteen of them
being less than 30 a. Four freeholders owed quitrents totalling 9s. 8d. and copyholders paid a total of
£1 13s. 8d. for 20 holdings, (fn. 55) which included 13 of
the head tenements. (fn. 56) By 1714, after the manorial
estate had been divided and the demesne reduced
to 208 a., as many as 109 a. were in hand. The
remainder was farmed by five tenants, four of them
tenants at will and the largest enjoying a lease for 21
years. (fn. 57) Much of the duke of Chandos's land,
covering 778 a. or slightly more than half of the
parish, was let on 21-year leases from the 1730s, (fn. 58)
when his chief farming tenants were Samuel Ward,
who leased some 161 a., and William Street of Old
Church farm, who leased 175 a. (fn. 59) Few enfranchisements took place before the mid 19th-century. (fn. 60)
The parish contained 1,333 a. of farm-land in
1867, (fn. 61) by which time the tenant of Old Church
farm lived in the former homestead of Ward's farm.
From 1871 he also leased 199 a. of Marsh farm,
stretching into Little Stanmore, after the sale of its
farm-house and 7 a. by St. Bartholomew's hospital.
Old Church and Marsh farms, at first together
covering 376 a., (fn. 62) continued to be leased to a single
tenant until the break-up of the hospital's estates. (fn. 63)
In 1897 Great Stanmore had 967 a. of farm-land,
divided among 19 farmers or small-holders. In 1917
there were 20 returns for 847 a., sixteen of them for
holdings of under 20 a. (fn. 64)
None of the head tenements bore a personal name
which persisted into the 16th-century save Aylwards, named from the Aylward or Ayleworth
family recorded from 1489 to 1586. (fn. 65) By 1679 some
had already been divided and one, Pathsgate otherwise Brains, (fn. 66) had come to form two head tenements.
In that year there were 15: Fiddles, Pathsgate,
Montagues, Thrums, Pynnacles, Mackerels, Aylwards, Rooks, and Buggs were described as houses or
tenements, while Barretts, Heriots Wood, Brooks,
Simrookes, Brains, and Cock Allens were merely
fields. (fn. 67)
Four men held the 13 head tenements recorded in
1587-8. (fn. 68) The families in whose hands the head
tenements had become concentrated were also represented in neighbouring parishes and comprised both
yeomen and gentry. (fn. 69) Richard Franklin, who held
Fiddles, had a cousin and namesake who was a leading tenant in Little Stanmore. (fn. 70) Thomas Nicholl,
who held five head tenements, came from a widespread family related to the Franklins. (fn. 71) Thomas
Norwood of Pinner, holding land in Great Stanmore
in the right of his wife Joan, had surrendered five
head tenements and parcels of two others in 1582
and 1583 to his son Warner Norwood. The parcels
were held in 1587-8 by Joan Norwood's son and
Warner's half-brother Thomas Tailor, who also held
yet another head tenement. Franklin's head tenement, and seven of those held by Nicholl, the
Norwoods, and Tailor, were acquired in the 17th-century by the Burnells. (fn. 72) By 1679 only two men
held as many as two head tenements. (fn. 73) Edward
Norwood the elder, Edward Norwood the younger,
and John Norwood, a substantial landowner in
Pinner, (fn. 74) each had one of the head tenements
formerly held by Warner Norwood, Nathaniel
Nicholl had two of those which had been held by
Thomas Nicholl, and John Burnell had two which
had been held by his uncle Thomas Burnell. The
Burnells ceased to hold any head tenements after
surrenders by John Burnell's daughter Elizabeth
Webb in 1692 and 1700. A Thomas Nicholl of
Watford held Nathaniel's former head tenements in
1730 and Ruth Norwood of Guildford (Surr.), widow
of Richard Norwood, surrendered one of the
Norwoods' holdings as late as 1736. Another had
already been surrendered by the younger Edward's
daughter Priscilla Norwood in 1711 and a third,
Aylwards, had passed to Priscilla's cousin William
Boys, whose family held the Norwoods' lands in
Pinner (fn. 75) and retained Aylwards until 1822. Six head
tenements were not recorded as such after the early
18th-century. Four others were bought by Andrew
Drummond and presumably passed with the Drummonds' estate to Lord Abercorn. (fn. 76)
The lord, Geoffrey Chamber, claimed in 1544 that
any homage should be forfeit if it had fallen into
decay. (fn. 77) In 1679 a homage of nine, including six
head tenants, swore that a best beast was owed as
heriot for a single head tenement and 3s. 6d. for any
others. Undersetters were to pay rent to the head
tenant, as before, rather than to the lord's steward
who had admitted them. Copyholders wishing to
alienate property must surrender it to two head
tenants, who were to present the surrender at the
next court baron on pain of forfeiting their own
holdings. (fn. 78) The homage also repeated a presentment
of 1664 that, if an underset holding was to be sold,
the head tenant should have time in which to buy it
for the price offered by the third party. In 1725
several lawyers pointed out that the homage of 1679
had been unrepresentative; the lord had been denied
his proper heriots and the claim to buy back undersets was attributed to one head tenant's desire to be
paid a commission for agreeing to a sale. Chandos's
own steward thought it wrong that sales should be
held up without good security (fn. 79) but, despite the
many doubts, no new custumal was drawn up. Sums
of £7 and £15, in lieu of live beasts, were paid on
entering head tenements as late as 1846 and 1858. (fn. 80)
Head tenements and undersets were heritable by
females, (fn. 81) although in 1679 they could not be vested
in widows, whose yearly income would be assessed
on the lands by the homage. Guardians were to be
appointed for heirs under the age of fourteen. The
lord received a relief of a year's rent for copyhold
land and one year's rent when it was alienated.
Copyhold land could not be sublet for more than
three years without licence: in 1664 Hester Burnell
forfeited her head tenement, Fiddles, for making a
long lease to her son John, who, however, was soon
readmitted. (fn. 82) Leases for terms of 21 years or less
were often licensed from the 17th to the 19th
centuries.
Parishioners were forbidden to pasture any sheep
other than their own in 1684 and were repeatedly
fined for overburdening the common. In 1640
grazing rights for 20 sheep and 4 steers were allowed
to a head tenant and for half that number to an
under-tenant, as well as 5 sheep for every acre of
leyland and 3 for every acre of fallow. A different
custom was asserted in 1646, permitting all tenants
to graze 2 sheep for an acre of arable, 5 for an acre of
meadow, and 3 for an acre of leyland. Pigs were to
be yoked from Christmas until harvest time and
always to be kept ringed, according to an order often
repeated from 1580. (fn. 83)
By 1714 grassland exceeded arable. Some 60 a. of
the lands in hand were meadow and 36 a. were arable.
The largest block of demesne lands leased out, 44 a.
with Warren House, was arable, but the four other
demesne holdings consisted entirely of grassland. (fn. 84)
Meadow predominated on the holdings of the duke
of Chandos's most substantial tenants, Samuel
Ward and William Street. (fn. 85) By 1798 arable covered
300 a. out of the 1,400 a. in the parish, more than
twice as much as in Little Stanmore. (fn. 86) Grass was
reckoned to cover 850 a., the remaining 250 a. being
waste. The rector probably underestimated the area
under crops, at 163 a., in 1801, (fn. 87) for in 1867 there
were still 124 a., excluding fields of clover or temporary grasses, compared with 1,208 a. under grass. (fn. 88)
The last arable on Old Church farm, 36 a., and on
Marsh farm, 78 a., was laid down to grass between
1857 and 1871, when the tenant was forbidden to
reconvert it. (fn. 89) Arable had dwindled to 28 a. by 1897
and 16 a. by 1917, while grassland slowly shrank
from 939 a. to 831 a. (fn. 90)
Beans, covering 92 a., were the largest crop in
1801, when corn was grown on about 60 a. (fn. 91) By 1867
there were corn on 48 a., beans on 14 a., and potatoes
on 24 a. Sheep were the main livestock in that year,
when 1,044 were kept. By 1897 there were no more
than 68, (fn. 92) presumably because of a wet season in
1879-80 which had caused the loss of the entire flock,
upwards, of 1,000 sheep, on Old Church and Marsh
farms. (fn. 93) London's demand for hay was still high, so
that 634 a. or some two-thirds of the farm-land
supported grass for mowing, whereas slightly under
300 a. were devoted to grazing. The number of
cattle fell from 132 in 1867 to 95 in 1897 but hardly
changed during the next 20 years. There were as
many as 374 sheep in 1917, when 467 a. were
devoted to hay and 355 a. to pasture. (fn. 94)
Woods.
St. Bartholomew's priory leased or sold
woods separately, as in Little Stanmore, during the
early 16th-century. (fn. 95) Geoffrey Chamber claimed the
forfeiture of Heriots wood in 1544, after over 100
large trees had been felled, but he was opposed by
the homage and forced to sue his tenant. (fn. 96) In 1679
the homage claimed that a copyhold tenant by
inheritance could fell the timber on his land without
licence but that no one holding for life, for a term of
years, or in the right of another could do so. Any
tenant who had planted trees on the waste, to shelter
his property, was free to lop them. (fn. 97)
In 1520 there was a dispute over Wapats or
Wabbetts wood, which, with woods and hedgerows
in Little Stanmore, had been sold by St. Bartholomew's at least 8 years previously. (fn. 98) Wabbetts wood,
adjoining the common, covered 20 a. in the late 17th-century, when it was the only woodland on the
demesne. (fn. 99) By 1838 the parish had 83 a. of woodland. A quarter of it consisted of patches in Stanmore Park belonging to George Harley Drummond
but the largest block, 19 a., lay along the Watford
road north-west of the brewery in Lord Abercorn's
Bentley Priory estate. (fn. 1)
Mills.
There was a mill at Stanmore, presumably
Great Stanmore, in 1352. (fn. 2) Two horse-mills and a
windmill, late of St. Bartholomew's priory, were
granted with the manor to Pedro de Gamboa in 1547
but were not recorded at any later date. (fn. 3) A 'little
house called a mill-house' was claimed by a customary tenant in 1665. (fn. 4)
Trade and industry.
A tailor, mentioned in 1613,
a victualler, indicted in 1617, (fn. 5) and a butcher whose
offal fouled the highway in 1637, (fn. 6) were the only
tradesmen recorded until the 19th-century. Commercial life was more restricted than in Little
Stanmore, with its houses lining Edgware Road. In
1801 Great Stanmore contained 89 persons employed
in trade or crafts, 100 on the land, and 533 in other
occupations, most of them presumably in domestic
service. Thirty years later, after the population had
exactly doubled, there were 71 families in trade or
crafts, no more than 36 in agriculture, and 99 in
other callings. (fn. 7) Apart from the brewery, (fn. 8) the largest
employer in 1851 was a builder called John Chapman,
who had 18 workmen at his yard next to Montagues,
on the south side of the high road. (fn. 9)
Mid-19th-century Stanmore offered many of the
services of a small town. Householders following the
commoner trades included 12 carpenters or sawyers,
6 grocers, 6 bakers, and 7 boot-makers, some of them
employing one or two assistants. Several women,
apart from 4 householders, practised dress-making
to serve the neighbourhood's many rich residents
and retired people. More specialized tradesmen
included a 'historical engraver', whose customers
presumably were drawn from a wide area, a fishmonger, a chimney-sweep, a hair-dresser, a bookseller, and a watch-maker. (fn. 10)
In 1851 James Wilshin employed 30 men at the
Clutterbucks' Stanmore brewery, at the top of Stanmore Hill. (fn. 11) Since the buildings stood almost opposite the Vine, which Thomas Clutterbuck acquired in
1763, they probably included the brewhouse to
which Clutterbuck had been admitted in 1749. (fn. 12)
Brewing was discontinued in 1916, (fn. 13) whereupon the
main building became a bottle-store until the
premises were sold by Capt. T. R. Clutterbuck to
Harold Pattisson Cole in 1926. Thereafter they were
used by H. Pattisson & Co., who employed 60
persons in designing and manufacturing turf maintenance and golf course equipment in 1971. (fn. 14) The
18th-century buildings in that year comprised a
private house, offices, and a factory in the former
brewery. All were of red brick, the old brewery
being surmounted by a weatherboarded clock-tower,
with a cupola and a bell dated 1726.
After the Grove and its estate had been acquired
by the General Electric Co. in 1949, (fn. 15) many buildings for research and development were erected on
behalf of the Ministry of Supply. They were used in
1971 by Marconi Space and Defence Systems, a part
of G.E.C.-Marconi Electronics, whose 1,100 employees made it the largest firm in Great Stanmore. (fn. 16)
Other industries have been confined to the south
of the parish where Honeypot Lane, continuing into
Kingsbury, was built in the early 1930s. (fn. 17) Eight
firms occupied sites along the east side of Honeypot
Lane in 1971, when lack of space had forced some
companies to move and others to open branches
elsewhere. Computer Machinery Co., for example,
took over a 12,500 square ft. factory in 1970 only to
move to Hertfordshire after 18 months; the company,
a subsidiary of a United States computer-controlled
system manufacturer, employed 70 people at Stanmore. (fn. 18) G. H. Bloore, stockists and distributors of
plastics, moved from Mill Hill to Honeypot Lane in
1961; ten years later it had some 50 employees there
and twice that number at its provincial branches. (fn. 19)
In Dalston Gardens, leading off Honeypot Lane,
premises were acquired in 1969 by Elliott Bros.
(London), later Marconi-Elliott Avionic Systems,
which previously had been in Honeypot Lane
itself. (fn. 20) Other sites were occupied by Price & Co.,
bakers, Sew-Tric, sewing machine manufacturers,
and Service Electric Co., as well as by the laboratories of Parnosa of London and the main garage of
Middlesex Motors.