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Original Text (Annotation: EPW030078 / 504577)
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Hyde House Farm had been on this site since at least the reign of Elizabeth I, but by the time of this aerial view in 1929 it had almost reached the end of its life.
The farm is probably most famous for Oliver Goldsmith, the writer who lived in rented rooms here between 1771 and 1774, producing one of his most famous plays, "She Stoops to Conquer", and enjoying his walks beside the hedgerows so much that he also wrote a "History of Animated Nature".
By 1929, the fields around the farm on the north side of Kingsbury Road had been sold to the construction firm, John Laing, and Kingsbury UDC had approved an outline planning application for its Springfield Estate (see aerial photos showing the building of this). The photograph attached, taken in 1931 by local historian Stanley Holliday, shows a view from this developing estate down towards Hyde House Farm, with the stacks from its last crop of hay in evidence. The farm buildings were demolished in 1932, and the land was built over, apart from part of the farmhouse garden which remains as a small area of open space at the junction of Springfield Gardens with Kingsbury Road. '