In a newsletter originally produced in 1979 and available here the Misses Wardley (Ethel speaking, Winifred writing then adding her won recollections) came up with this piece. Part 1:
I was born in 1888 at 2 Cricklewood Lane, opposite the Castle Inn, Childs Hill. When I was 4 years old Father and Mother and my two sisters Alice and Grace moved down the steep hill a little way. Grandfather, a cheesemonger, had come there in 1860 from Kensal Green to live in Granville House, an imposing building (next to the chapel) with two shops below and two storeys of living rooms above, as well as cellars and stables. He and Grandmother, who came from the North and had been a cook had a family of 4 girls and a boy (our Father).
Grandfather built five little shops opposite, with one-storey living rooms and stables and mews behind, in about 1877, intended as businesses for his 5 children. These were Nos. 1-5 Ridge Terrace. We went to live over No. 1, which was a Corn Shop, called Wardley's Granary. No. 2 was Ironmongery and No. 3 Drapery, with Miss Button managing it. Grandfather, Grandmother and three aunts lived at Granville House and the shop below was Wardley's Stores, selling grocery, meat, bread and cooked meat pies, etc which Grandmother made. At the side of Granville House was a lane called The Mead (now called Granville Road and more recnetly Mortimer Close) but then Granville Road ran through fields up to the Finchley Road.
In 1877 the Baptist Church had been opened in The Mead and nurseries and laundries were there. There must have been wells and ponds behind. The laundries served the large houses on the Heath and along Finchley Road as far as Oxford Street. I remember the excitement when tents were put up in the fields opposite the Baptist Chapel for a Sankey & Moody Mission in the 1890s, at which I signed the Pledge. Beside the church there was a soup kitchen and Grandfather gave bones, peas, etc, for soup.
Beside Granville House in Cricklewood Lane was the Red Lion Inn and a row of cottages with long gardens in front. Clark's candle factory was nearby.
Opposite the Red Lion was All Saints Church and the National School with Mr and Mrs Harvey as the Heads. For two or three years before I was born Mother and Father had lived with them at Garfield House, No. 5 The Ridge, with a long garden and a gate at the bottom opening onto Church Walk and a quick approach to the school.
