The false paradise of Metroland

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens runs the red electric train…

Near the end of the Metropolitan Line, where London dwindles into woods and meadows, stands a Tudor manor house, built within the moat of a motte-and-bailey castle. Now a quaint museum, charting the history of the farms that once surrounded it, this modest landmark shares its name with the local Tube station, Ruislip Manor. A century after they built it, the railway that runs through here still feels out of place. There are fields on one side, suburban semis on the other. Welcome to Metroland, the bizarre no-man’s-land between town and country, created by the Metropolitan Railway, which celebrates its 150th birthday this year. The Metropolitan Railway is best remembered as the enterprising company that built the world’s first underground railway, between Paddington and Farringdon (opened in 1863 and still going strong today). Yet the Met’s other innovation was arguably even more influential. When the company expanded into Middlesex, laying new lines across virgin countryside, it bought up the adjoining farmland and covered it with mock-Tudor housing estates. Has there ever been an architectural style less prestigious, yet so attuned to British tastes? As green and pleasant Middlesex became a labyrinth of cul-de-sacs, Metroland spawned a new aesthetic, and a new way of life. These cod-bucolic conurbations set the standard for 100 years of British housebuilding. Today, Britain is awash with modern versions of Metroland. Two years ago, I moved to the heart of Metroland — Ruislip, to be precise. It was the usual story. With the proverbial wife and two children to support, I’d been priced out of central London. Less than ten miles from my old home in Hammersmith, Metroland felt like another country. It felt like the England I remembered from my childhood — humdrum and discreet. Nobody in their right mind would call it beautiful (Ruislip’s five Underground stations have buried the original medieval village beneath an avalanche of crazy paving) but between the privet hedges a few traces of rural England survive.