Willenhall House was a house and estate located to the south of

Chipping Barnet Chipping Barnet or High Barnet is a suburban market town in north London, forming part of the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a suburban development built around a 12th-century settlement, and is located north-northwest of Charing Cr ...

, on the borders of Hertfordshire and Middlesex, in what is now north London. It was designed by

John Buonarotti Papworth John Buonarotti Papworth (24 January 1775 – 16 June 1847) was a British architect, artist and a founder member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He adopted the middle name "Buonarotti" in around 1815. As well as being active in ...

in 1829 for the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...

merchant Thomas Wyatt to replace an existing house on a piece of land that was once part of the ancient Pricklers (later Greenhill) estate. Wyatt named it after

Willenhall Willenhall is a market town situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England, with a population taken at the 2011 census of 28,480. It is situated between Wolverhampton and Walsall, historically in the county of St ...

in the English

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, the place of his birth. The house was demolished in 1890 and the site developed for housing over the following decades.

Location

Willenhall House was located to the south of Chipping Barnet on the borders of Hertfordshire and Middlesex, in what is now north London, on the east side of the Great North Road in the section of the road known as Pricklers Hill. On the same side, slightly to the north, was Greenhill Park house and estate, formerly known as Pricklers, a large estate of which Willenhall had been a part until it was separated in the late 18th century.

History

Willenhall House was designed by

in 1829 for the East Indies merchant Thomas Wyatt to replace Belle Vue, an existing house on the site purchased by Wyatt around 1820. Cass, Frederick Charles. (1885-92)
East Barnet.
' London: Nichols for the

London and Middlesex Archaeological Society The London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) is a society founded in 1855 for the study of the archaeology and local history of the City of London and the historic county of Middlesex. It also takes an interest in districts that were h ...

. pp. 156-157. He named the new house after his birthplace of Willenhall in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

. Wyatt owned the house until his death in London's Hanover Square on 6 April 1834 at the age of 51. It then passed to his wife Elizabeth Wyatt for life but she did not live there. Thomas Wyatt is buried in the family vault at St Mary the Virgin church, East Barnet. Elizabeth died in 1867. From 1834 to 1848, the house was let to Adolph Leopold Pfeil, a London ironmonger, and later to a Mr Harris, the brewer

Charles Addington Hanbury Charles Addington Hanbury (bapt. 16 September 1828''London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1917'' – 13 December 1900) was an English brewer from the Hanbury brewing family and a master of the Brewers' Company in 1857. Fam ...

, and a Mr Morris. In 1862, the house was sold to a Mr Simpson, and a few years later to Sir John Peter Grant, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and

Governor of Jamaica This is a list of viceroys in Jamaica from its initial occupation by Spain in 1509, to its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962. For a list of viceroys after independence, see Governor-General of Jamaica. For context, see History of Jamai ...

. Grant expanded the estate by purchasing 10 acres of land adjacent to Pricklers Hill. He sold the house after succeeding to the Grant family estate on the death of his older brother, and the house came into the ownership of T. G. Waterhouse, who later sold it to the tea merchant William Alpheus Higgs, who served as

sheriff of London and Middlesex Two sheriffs are elected annually for the City of London by the Liverymen of the City livery companies. Today's sheriffs have only nominal duties, but the historical officeholders had important judicial responsibilities. They have attended the ju ...

. Higgs died in December 1889.

Demolition and legacy

The house was demolished in 1890 and the site built over.Designs for Willenhall House.
RIBA architecture.com Retrieved 5 August 2020. Willenhall Avenue is named after the house, and a modern block of flats adjoining Willenhall Avenue is known as Willenhall Court. The brick gate posts at the western end of Willenhall Avenue are the only surviving remains of Willenhall and around 1930 still had ornamental arched lintels over each pair.

Maps

File:Greenhill & Willenhall 1860s.jpg, Willenhall (centre) on an 1860s Ordnance Survey map with Greenhill to the northOrdnance Survey, 1860s. File:Greenhill Park & Willenhall Avenue 1910s.jpg, Ordnance Survey map, 1910s. File:Pricklers Hill & Willenhall Avenue 1930s.jpg, Ordnance Survey map, 1930s. File:Willenhall, Barnet.jpg, OpenStreetMap, 2020Open Street Map, 7 August 2020

References

External links