Sat 04 May 2024
| |||
The Green Canopy
Harrowdene Gardens, Teddington Grange applied under the Community Group for one of our newly planted trees to be included in the Green Canopy and was accepted. The Cherry Blossom Tree is located in Courtyard 5. Richmond Borough in Bloom CompetitionWe are proud to announce that our Estate was successful in 2019 in winning a Silver Gilt Certificate in the Richmond Borough in Bloom competition. This was an improvement from being awarded Silver the previous year, following a change of gardeners who were appointed March 2018. The 2019 Certificate was presented at the Awards Presentations Evening 1st October 2019 to the two Teddington Grange Directors who specifically deal with the gardens. The Directors and Managing Agents will be working closely with the gardener team to see if we can achieve Gold in 2020.
With the estate Management Company having now completed its 50 years of existence (as of 2019), we thought it would be interesting to trace back some of the past history of the part of Teddington in which Harrowdene Gardens is situated.
Over 100 years ago Teddington remained a small village west of London. There were only a few houses in Park Road. In 1863 the railway line was completed to link Kingston with Twickenham and the track was laid across the former site of the village pond which lay to the Twickenham side of the present Railway Bridge in Broad Street. At that time the present site of Harrowdene Gardens was either open fields or common land. A right of way existed linking the High Street with Bushy Park, and to maintain this path the railway authorities had to erect and maintain a footbridge over the track. This bridge remains today in Railway Passage. Not surprisingly, the coming of the railway led to increased development in Teddington, and a large number of houses were built in the period from 1870 to 1910. The site where Harrowdene Gardens would eventually be built, however, remained much as it was, although maps in 1934 indicates that there was a pond on part of the site, and older residents of Teddington remember it being a useful fishing ground! During the Second World War surplus land alongside railway tracks was often used as sidings. It is understood that it was initially used for the dumping of rubble brought from the bomb damaged parts of East London. Later American Forces were encamped in part of Bushy Park, forming Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces, and part of the overall planning for the Normandy Landings. Rumour has it that General Eisenhower kept a private railway coach on one of the sidings, which then lay on the site. A small plaque can be found in Bushy Park marking the site of the former military camp.
Lincoln Grange was built slightly later hence the odd numbering for this estate. And finally if you would like to know more about the history of our local area we can recommend the following books:
|
|||
|
Page last amended:
Fri 29 Jul 2022
|
The Queen's Green Canopy (QGC) is a tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee in 2022. Everyone across the UK was invited to plant trees from October 2021, when the tree planting season began through to the end of the Jubilee year in 2022. To increase and protect the native tree cover the people were being urged to create this 'special gift' for the Queen, to mark her 70 years on the throne.
